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 chæradas, estque
Captivus Superis gratus, ut antè fuit.'
'The captive king the evil cures in Spain:
Dear, as before, he doth to God remain.'
"So it seemeth his medicinal quality is affixed not to his prosperity, but person; so that during his durance, he was fully free to exercise the same."[[23]]
Cavendish, relating what took place on Cardinal Wolsey's embassy to Francis I., in 1527, has the following passage:—