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TRAVELS 
mer were obliged to pay him a hundred louis d’ors for their ad¬ 
mittance ; and as felt-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 abflrufe fcience 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 Swediffi 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 ffiould 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 ffiort 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 affined the prime minifter, Count 
Sparre, that he ffiould afcend to heaven like Elijah, without 
■tailing death. And fo ready, it is faid, was this good man to be¬ 
lieve 
