New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-10-25

have had royal or imperial hand extended
TO them, is because the princes and princesses
In question convinced that the handshake
is the customary form of salutation in the
United States, and they wish to manifest par
ucular graciousness to the sons and daughters
of Uncle Sam" They are far more reserved in
according their hands to their own COuntrymen,
and great is the honor which they imagine
10 he conferred thereby, that extraordinary inn
portance is given by the newspapers, not only
the continent of Europe, but even in Eng
land, to the announcement that at this that
public function the sovereign has honOred one
or two Of the principal 6ignitaries present by
shaking hands with him. Indeed, this to Amer
lean people, commonplace act is described in
the Continental press as a rare and enviabe
mark Of distinction. as if. in fact, it were su-
perior to the grant of any decoration order
of knighthood.
This chariness which royal personages mani
fest in giving the hand and the Importance
which they seem to attach to the honor which
they consider that they confer thereby at
tributable in a great measure TO the fact that
their touch was even down to the middle of the
last century, believed to have been endowed
with those miraculous powers of healing the sick
which read Of in the Bible having belong
ed to the Founder of Christianity and to His
Apostolic contemporaries. King Charles X
who assembled the throne Of France in 1925
was the last monarch to claim these powers in
that country. On the day of his coronation in
the ancient Cathedral of Rheims ne paid a
state visit to the hospital of st. Marcoul. where
he extended his royal hand to 126 patients suf-
fering from scrofJla and other kindred mala-
dies. Every year afterward, until his abdcation
in 1890 he went through a similar performance
on the day Of ST. Louis. An aged relative of
mine connected in his youth with the French
court present at the ceremony on st. Louis
Day in 1929 and used to be fond of relating
10 me this quaint survival of medieval times.
1t seems that soon as high mass had been
celebrated, the King, attended by the members
of his court, all arrayed in full uniform. de-
seconded from the chapel into the courtyard
OF the Tuileries, and there passed between
long of sick, principally persons suffer-
ing from scrofula, and whose names. addresses
and ailments had been previously investigated
and recorded by the royal physicians. Those
who were in condition to do SO knelt, while
the others reposed on stretchers. On the fore
head of each the King with his ungloved hand
made the sign of the cross, exclaiming 1T is
the King who touches thee May God in His
mercy heal thee" Strangely enough the
recorded on these occasions by the official and
public press seem to have been almost as
numerous and quite as miraculous those
automatically reported from Lourdes
Neither Napoleon 1 Napoleon III ven
tured to put forth any claim to this peculiarly
royal prerogative; neither did King Louis
Philippe King Louis XVIII neither of whom
had undergone the ceremony Of coronation and
hnointment with the sacred oils which seems to
have been considered as Indispensable to the pos
session of these healing virtues. King Louis
XVIII. 1 may add, himself suffered terribly
from scrOfulous maladies and had he ventured
to exercise the privilege it would naturally have
been remarked that, being unable to him
self # improbable that his touch would