Page:Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, Stockton, 1872.djvu/23

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TRICKS OF LIGHT.
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other things, he asserted that he could show people pictures of their future husbands or wives. Marie de Medicis, a celebrated princess of the time, came to him on this sensible errand, and he, being very

The Dance of Demons

anxious to please her, showed her, in a looking-glass, the reflected image of Henry of Navarre, sitting upon the throne of France. This, of course, astonished the princess very much, but it need not astonish us, if we carefully examine the picture of that conjuring scene.

The mirror into which the lady was to look, was in a room adjoining that in which Henry was sitting on the throne. It was placed at such an angle that her face would not be reflected in it, but an aperture in the wall allowed the figure of Henry to be reflected from a looking-glass, hung near the ceiling, down upon the "magic" mir-