Rose,  A "professor" (so-called because they imagined that he secretly
taught music during the day) playing the piano is certainly authentic,
but don't give up yet.

Please visit the web site of Musical Box Society International (MBSI),

    http://www.mbsi.org/

where you can view, and hear, music boxes of the 1890s and earlier.

The bawdy-house girls were very sentimental, as indicated in the
story about Madame Bertha.  A French madam would be quite likely to
have a music box, and certainly it could have been coin operated.

My reference book is the "Encyclopedia of Automatic Musical
Instruments", by Q. David Bowers, Vestal Press 1972.  It says that the
affordable interchangeable disc music box was developed in the 1880s,
and "by early 1888 the Symphonium Musikwerke [Leipzig] employed 120
hands at the factory, plus a number of girls who prepared the discs in
their own homes."

"In America, most upright disc music boxes made during the 1890's and
early 1900's were sold for commercial use.  These were actuated by a
coin slot.  A cent played one tune; a nickel, either one or two tunes,
depending upon the generosity of the establishment's proprietor."

The discs cost about the same as the printed sheet music of the song.

A prosperous French madam, remembering the sound of the music box she
loved in Europe, would quickly succumb to the salesman's pitch and buy
one for her parlour!  For her own pleasure she would have several discs
of old French and Tyrolean melodies, while her polished clients could
enjoy the latest classical and operatic melodies performed around the
world.

Robbie Rhodes