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90 TRAVELS
mer were obliged to pay him a hundred louis d’ors for their ad-
mittance ; and as felf-love is extremely unwilling ever to allow
that it has been impofed upon, they were inclined to give way to
the illufions, for which they had paid fo confiderable a fum, and
endeavoured not only to work themfelves into a belief that they
had really made a valuable acquifition of knowledge, but exerted
themfelves alfo to perfuade others of the fame. Hence the progrefs
of that abftrufe {cience may be accounted for, which I have feen
performed, and which was no where more fuccefsful and rapid than
at Stockholm. A-certain officer of the Swedifh army contrived to
attract the notice of the court infomuch, that he was favoured
in his promotion, by pretending to be particularly fufceptible of
the effects of animal magnetifm, and by counterfeiting ecftacies
and fleep-walking. When he was under the hands of the mag-
netifer, he would feign fomnolency, then. awake as from prophetic
dreams, and foretel future events. He prophefied his own death,
which was to take place in the firft battle he fhould be engaged
in. The credulous people in whofe prefence he uttered this pre-
diction lamented his cruel fate. The courtiers made no oppofi-
tion either to his military advancement or his progrefS in favour
at court, from the foothing idea that he had but a fhort time
to live, and would not interfere with their interefts. To thofe
whom he thought it worth his while to flatter, he predicted every
thing that was good. He affured the prime minifter, Count
Sparre, that he fhould afcend to heaven like Ex1sau, without
tafting death. And fo ready, it 1s faid, was this good man to be-
lieve.
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