 Louis XIII ( r . 1610 – 1643 ) and Louis XIV ( r . 1643 – 1715 ) both actively took part in touching ceremonies . The latter touched 1 @,@ 600 people on Easter 1680 . Voltaire ( 1694 – 1778 ) scornfully wrote that he had lost confidence in the royal touch upon hearing that a mistress of Louis XIV died of scrofula " despite being very well touched by the king " . After 1722 , the sentence exclaimed by the king upon touching the infected changed to the more hopeful : " The King touches you , may God heal you . " ( French : " Le Roy te touche et Dieu te guérisse . " ) The new formula , rather than implying that God would inevitably grant the monarch 's wish , was a prayer that may or may not result in a cure . Louis XV ( r . 1715 – 1774 ) was skeptical about the royal touch . He performed it early in his reign , but caused a scandal when he failed to summon the scrofulous at Eastertide in 1739 and never again touched the diseased . The custom was thus suspended for 36 years , until Louis XVI ( r . 1774 – 1792 ) revived it at his coronation on 11 June 1775 by touching 2 @,@ 400 people . That was probably the only time he touched the scrofulous . At his coronation on 29 May 1825 , Charles X ( r . 1824 – 1830 ) touched 121 of his subjects ; the royal touch was never again employed . 
