Eisenheim: My intention has only been to entertain, nothing more.
Chief Inspector Uhl: Then why are you doing this?
Eisenheim: To be with her.
Eisenheim: From the moment we enter this life we are in the flow of it. We measure it and we mark it, but we cannot defy it. We cannot even speed it up or slow it down. Or can we? Have we not each experienced the sensation that a beautiful moment seemed to pass to quickly, and wished that we could make it linger? Or felt time slow on a dull day, and wished that we could speed things up a bit?
Eisenheim: Everything you have seen here has been an illusion.
Crown Prince Leopold: What do you want?
Chief Inspector Uhl: Nothing.
Crown Prince Leopold: Then you shall get nothing.
Chief Inspector Uhl: As a boy, I'm told, he had a chance encounter with a traveling magician.
Traveling Magician: Boy.
Chief Inspector Uhl: One version of the story was that the man himself then vanished. Along with the tree! Who knows what actually happened.
Eisenheim: I thought we might end this evening with a discussion of the soul. All of the greatest religions speak of the soul's endurance before the end of life. So what then does it mean to die?
Chief Inspector Uhl: As you know... we some times follow Duchess Von Teschen for her protection... Yesterday she was seen in the company of another man.
Crown Prince Leopold: What man?
Chief Inspector Uhl: Eisenheim, the illusionist.
Crown Prince Leopold: What were they doing?
Chief Inspector Uhl: Well they were meeting and uh.
Crown Prince Leopold: Touching? Kissing?.. Fornicating?
Crown Prince Leopold: He has tricked you, it is all an illusion.
Chief Inspector Uhl: Perhaps there is truth in this illusion.
Chief Inspector Uhl: You don't know that.
Eisenheim: No. But you do.
Crown Prince Leopold: I know you've been with him.
Sophie: It has nothing to do with you.
Crown Prince Leopold: It has everything to do with me.
Answer: Although the story is fictional, some of the details are based on the life of Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf, only son of Emperor Franz Josef. The painting of the emperor which Eisenheim creates is an actual portrait of Franz Josef. (from IMDb).