25 - Dr. Étienne-Jules Marey

Summary

I met one of the most curious people there [at the Trélats] that I have ever met in my life: Dr. Étienne-Jules Marey, who was the first inventor of a [chrono]photographic gun capable of shooting ninety frames per minute, an invention that would later lead to the development of cinematography. Marey had given lectures at the Sorbonne in the evenings to study all the passing movements that the eye was unable to grasp.

He had developed a belt with a recorder that when placed around a singer's chest allowed him to reproduce a more or less straight line on a wall or a projection screen. If the singer did not sustain the sound exactly, the line became quite erratic instead of being horizontal. Without any [vocal] embellishments or waves, the line was absolutely straight. He could even record all the reactions of the organs of a running horse. He could take [twelve] frames per second of a man passing quickly in front of him. This was the origin of cinema.

Dr. Marey was a rather ugly little Burgundian with small eyes, but always admirably dressed in a frock coat that looked as if it had just come from the tailor. Some twenty years later, I was having lunch one day at Foyot's when I saw Maurice Emmanuel arrive: “You once knew Dr. Marey,” he said to me. “He's in Paris just now and he's going to die soon. He asked me to come to find you and ask you to play Beethoven's sonatas for him, as you used to do.”

Very moved, I answered Emmanuel: “When do I have to go?” —“Very quickly, as soon as possible, because he will die very soon.” —“I’ll go to see him this evening.”

The scientist had long ago settled in Naples, where he had set up his laboratory, in order to study a small fish of an extremely rare species that is found only in the Gulf of Naples or at the mouth of the Thames. His laboratory was in Posillipo.

I arrived at the precise hour at Marey’s, whom I was surprised to find looking very good, and admirably dressed in a frock coat, patent leather boots, etc. —“What is this joke?” I asked. —“I am at the end of my heart disease. I am watching its progress, and have a week at the most.