Francis’s Distemper (St.).
Impecuniosity; being moneyless. Those of the Order of St. Francis were not allowed to carry any money about them.
“I saw another case of gentlemen of St. Francis’s distemper.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel, v. 21.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.