TOUCHING FOR THE EVIL

There is ample evidence that the French monarchs performed the ceremony of touching for the evil. In a MS. in the University Library, Cambridge[18], is this memorandum:— "The Kings of England and *Fraunce* by a peculiar guift cure the King's evill by touching them with their handes, and so doth the seaventh sonne."—*Ant. Miraldus*, p. 384. Fuller intimates that St. Louis was the first king of France who healed the evil. "So witnesseth Andrew Chasne, a French author, and others."[19] Speaking of the illness of Louis XI., "at Forges neere to Chinon," in March, 1480, Philip de Commines says: "Aft…