The film was Méliès's second big cinematic success (Cinderella was the first). It was shown widely in France, and was also exhibited elsewhere, including in Montreal and Havana. In England, the film was distributed by the Warwick Trading Company, which handled English releases of Méliès's films until 1902. In the United States, the Edison Manufacturing Company sold "dupes" (illegally duplicated prints) of the film. American film piracy became such a problem for Méliès, especially after the success of his much-pirated 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, that he opened an American branch of his company in New York in 1903, under the direction by his brother Gaston Méliès, for added copyright protection.
