In former times, an extraordinary degree of curiosity was excited by any female who excelled in this pleasing accomplishment. I remember to have read that Don Juan of Austria, governor of the Low Countries, set out post from Brussels, and came to Paris _incog._ on purpose to see Marguerite de Valois dance at a dress-ball, this princess being reckoned, at that time, the best dancer in Europe. What then would be the admiration of such an _amateur_, could he now behold the perfection attained here by some of the beauties of the present day? The men, doubtless, determined to vie with the women, seemed to pride themselves more on agility than grace, and, by attempting whatever required extraordinary effort, reminded me of _figurans_ on the stage, so much have the Parisian youth adopted a truly theatrical style of dancing. The French country-dances (or cotilions, as we term them in England) and waltzes, which are as much in vogue here as in Germany, were regularly interchanged. However, the Parisians, in my opinion, cannot come up to the Germans in this, their native dance. I should have wished to have had Lavater by my side, and heard his opinion of the characters of the different female waltzers. It is a very curious and interesting spectacle to see one woman assume a languishing air, another a vacant smile, a third an aspect of stoical indifference; while a fourth seems lost in a voluptuous trance, a fifth captivates by an amiable modesty, a sixth affects the cold insensibility of a statue, and so on in ever-varying succession, though all turning to the animating changes of the same lively waltz. In short I observed that, in this species of dance, the eyes and feet of almost every woman appeared to be constantly at variance. Without assuming the part of a moralist, I cannot help thinking that Werter was not altogether in the wrong when he swore, that, were it to cost him his life, no woman on whom he had set his affections, should ever waltz with any one but himself. I am not singular in this opinion; for I recollect to have met with the same ideas in a book written by M. JACOBI, I think, a German author.