The facts, as far as may be ascertained, are as follows. In 1769, Wolfgang van Kempelen, at that time in Vienna, was invited by the Empress Marie Theresa to attend certain magnetic experiments shown at the Court by a certain Frenchman, M. Pelletier. He went but said he could invent a machine far more surprising. In 1770 he returned with the automaton, a machine which could play chess and beat really good players. He exhibited it in Vienna in 1770, in Russia in 1776 and in Paris in 1783 where Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman-scientist, studied it. In 1783 it was possibly shown in London. In 1805 von Kempelen's son sold it to Johann N Maelzel, himself a mechanical genius, said by some to have invented Beethoven's metronome. Maelzel took it on tour and in 1809 Napoleon is said to have played a game against it during the Wagram campaign.
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