es, 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:

"After two daies he recovered his speech and his memory after a sort:
and because he thought no man understood him so wel as my selfe, his
pleasure was that I should alwaies be by him, and he confessed himselfe
to the officiall in my presence, otherwise they would never have
understood one another. He had not much to say, for he was shriven not
long before, because the Kings of Fraunce use alwaies to confesse
themselves when they touch those that be sick of the King's evill,
which he never failed to do once a weeke. If other Princes do not the
like, they are to blame, for continuall a great number are troubled
with that disease."[20]

Pierre Desrey, in his _Great Chronicles of Charles VIII._, has the
following passage relating to that monarch's proceedings at Rome in
January, 1494-5:--

"Tuesday the 20th, the king heard mass in the French chapel, and
afterwards touched and cured many afflicted with the king's evil, to
the great astonishment of the Italians who witnessed the miracle."[21]

And speaking of the king at Naples, in April, 1495, the same chronicler
says:--

"The 15th of April, the king, after hearing mass in the church of the
Annonciada, was confessed, and then touched and cured great numbers
that were afflicted with the evil--a disorder that abounded much all
over Italy--when the spectators were greatly edified at the powers of
such an extraordinary gift.

* * * * *

"On Easter day, the 19th of April, the king was confessed in the church
of St. Peter, adjoining to his lodgings, and then touched for the evil
a second time."[22]

Fuller, in remarking upon the cure of the king's evil by the touch of our
English monarchs, observes:--

"The kings of France share also with those of England in this
miraculous cure. And Laurentius reports, that when Francis I., king of
France, was kept prisoner in Spain, he, notwithstanding his exile and
restraint, daily cured infinite multitudes of people of that disease;
according to this epigram:

_'Hispanos inter sanat rex cha