[2][3] The creation of such a site is directly linked to the personality of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a famous French illusionist born in Blois in 1805.

[3][4] Inaugurated in 1998, the museum highlights the life and work of Robert-Houdin—multi-talented illusionist, prestidigitator, inventor, clockmaker and maker of automatons.

[4] In 1981, descendants of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin left the building and all its contents to the town of Blois with a stipulation requiring they be open to the public.

[4] Highlights include: a six-headed dragon automaton, which was constructed by artists Michel and Jean-Pierre Hartmann[1] and which operates every half-hour; the rotunda, which contains artefacts and displays about the history of magic, art and music;[1] the Greek temple honoring jugglers of the Middle Ages, the physicist Pinetti (eighteenth century magician Joseph Pinetti Willedall de Merci), and genius inventor Buatier De Kolta;[1] a life-sized kaleidoscope[4] and the 'chessboard of the optical illusions';[1][4][5] an exhibition of "The firm of Robert-Houdin fantastic" (Level 1), displaying his watchmaking workshop, scientific research (in optics and electricity) magical craft and 'the mysterious clock'.

[1] On Level 3, the "hallucinoscope" ("brainchild" of Gerard Majax) immerses the participant into the world of Jules Verne and his 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.