I cannot take leave of this ball without communicating to you a circumstance which occurred there, and which, from the extravagant credulity it exhibits in regard to the effects of sympathy, may possibly amuse you for a moment.
A widow, about twenty years of age, more to be admired for the symmetry of her person, than for the beauty of her features, had, according to the prevailing custom, intrusted her pocket-handkerchief to the care of a male friend, a gentlemanlike young Frenchman of my acquaintance. After dancing, the lady finding herself rather warm, applied for her handkerchief, with which she wiped her forehead, and returned it to the gentleman, who again put it into his pocket. He then danced, but not with her; and, being also heated, he, by mistake, took out the lady's handkerchief, which, when applied to his face, produced, as he fancied, such an effect on him, that, though he had previously regarded her with a sort of indifference, from that moment she engaged all his attention, and he was unable to direct his eyes, or even his thoughts, to any other object.
Some philosophers, as is well known, have maintained that from all bodies there is an emanation of corpuscles, which, coming into contact with our organs, make on the brain an impression, either more or less sympathetic, or of a directly-opposite nature. They tell you, for instance, that of two women whom you behold for the first time, the one the least handsome will sometimes please you most, because there exists a greater _sympathy_ between you and her, than between you and the more beautiful woman. Without attempting to refute this absurd doctrine of corpuscles, I shall only observe that this young Frenchman is completely smitten, and declares that no woman in the world can be compared to the widow.
This circumstance reminds me of a still more remarkable effect, ascribed to a similar cause, experienced by Henry III of France. The marriage of the king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV, with Marguerite de Valois, and that of the Prince de Condé with Marie de Cleves, was celebrated at the Louvre on the 10th of August, 1572. Marie de Cleves, then a most lovely creature only sixteen, after dancing much, finding herself incommoded by the heat of the ball-room, retired to a private apartment, where one of the waiting-women of the queen-dowager, seeing her in a profuse perspiration, persuaded her to make an entire change of dress. She had scarcely left the room when the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III, who had also danced a great deal, entered it to adjust his hair, and, being overheated, wiped his face with the first thing that he found, which happened to be the shift she had just taken off. Returning to the ball, he fixed his eyes on her, and contemplated her with as much surprise as if he had never before beheld her. His emotion, his transports, and the attention which he began to pay her, were the more extraordinary, as during the preceding week, which she had passed at court, he appeared indifferent to those very charms which now made on his heart an impression so warm and so lasting. In short, he became insensible to every thing that did not relate to his passion.