the palace of Westminster,
has frequently been mentioned in the Rolls of Parliament, and which
was called the Chamber of St. Marculf, being, as Carte conjectures,
probably the place where the kings used to touch for the evil. This
room was afterward called the Painted Chamber. The French kings
practised the touch extensively. Gemelli, the traveller, states, that
Louis XIV touched 1600 persons on Easter Sunday, 1686.[181] The words
he used were, 'Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guerisse.' Every Frenchman
received fifteen sous, and every foreigner thirty. The French kings
kept up the practice to 1776."[182]

"Servetus," says Hammond, "who was not of a credulous mind, says in
the first edition of his _Ptolemy_, published in 1535, that he had
seen the king touch many persons for the disease, but he had never
seen any that were cured thereby. But the last clause of this sentence
excited the ire of the censor, and in the next edition, published in
1541, the words '_an sanati fuerint non vidi_' were changed to
'_pluresque sanatos passim audivi_': 'I have heard of many that were
cured.' Testimony in support of miracles has often been manufactured,
but the natural obstinacy and truthfulness of Servetus would not admit
of his giving his personal endorsement at the expense of his
convictions."[183]

Within the last half-century we have had an example of the value of
the royal touch. When cholera was raging in Naples in 1865, and the
people were rushing from the city by thousands, King Victor Emmanuel
went the rounds of the hospitals in an endeavor to stimulate courage
in the hearts of his people. He lingered at the bedside of the
patients and spoke encouraging words to them. On a cot lay one man
already marked for death. The king stepped to his side, and pressing
his damp, icy hand, said, "Take courage, poor man, and try to recover
soon." That evening the physicians reported a diminution of the
disease in the course of the day, and the man marked for death out of
danger. The king had unconsciously worked a marvellous cure.[184]

It seems certain that there was not the efficacy in king's touch which
was claimed for it, or it would not have been discontinued after
having held sway for over seven hundred years. No doubt the
quasi-religious character of the office of the sovereign helped much
in the belief, and when such men as Charles II were able to heal,
little connection between religion and healing could longer be thought
possible,