"And at his [the king's] coming in to the bishop's palace [at Amiens], where he intended to dine with my Lord Cardinal, there sat within a cloister about two hundred persons diseased with the king's evil, upon their knees. And the king, or ever he went to dinner, provised every of them with rubbing them and blessing them with his bare hands, being bareheaded all the while; after whom followed his almoner distributing of money unto the persons diseased. And that done, he said certain prayers over them, and then washed his hands, and so came up into his chamber to dinner, where as my lord dined with him."[24] Laurentius, cited by Fuller in the page already given, was, it seems, physician in ordinary to King Henry IV. of France. In a treatise entitled _De Mirabili Strumarum Curatione_, he stated that the kings of England never cured the evil. "To cry quits with him," Dr. W. Tucker, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, in his _Charismate_, denied that the kings of France ever originally cured the evil "but _per aliquam propaginem_, 'by a sprig of right,' derived from the primitive power of our English kings, under whose jurisdiction most of the French provinces were once subjected."[25] Louis XVI., immediately after his coronation at Rheims, in 1775, went to the Abbey of St. Remi to pay his devotions, and to touch for the evil. The ceremony took place in the Abbey Park, and is thus described in a paper entitled _Coronation of the Kings of France prior to the Revolution_, by Charles White, Esq.:-- "Two thousand four hundred individuals suffering under this affliction, having been assembled in rows in the park, his majesty, attended by the household physicians, approached the first on the right. The physician-in-chief then placed his hand upon the patient's head, whilst a captain of the guards held the hands of the latter joined before his bosom. The king, with his head uncovered, then touched the patient by making the sign of the cross upon his face, exclaiming, 'May God heal thee! The king touches thee.' The whole two thousand four hundred having been healed in a similar manner, and the grand almoner having distributed alms to each in succession, three attendants, called _chefs de goblet_, presented themselves with golden salvers, on which were three embroidered napkins. The first, steeped in vinegar, was then offered to the king by Monsieur; the second, dipped in plain water, was presented by the Count d'Artois; and the third, moistened with orange water, was banded by the Duke of Orleans."[26] The power of the seventh son to heal the evil (mentioned in the MS. I have cited) is humourously alluded to in the _Tatler_ (No. 11.). I subjoin the passage, which occurs in a letter signed "D. Distaff."