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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/79378-0.txt b/79378-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51af423 --- /dev/null +++ b/79378-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14687 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79378 *** + + + + + ORACLES OF NOSTRADAMUS + + BY + CHAS. A. WARD. + + “Gentem quidem nullam video, neque tam humanam atque doctam, + neque tam immanem tamque barbaram, quæ non significari futura, + et à quibusdam intelligi prædicique posse censeat.”—CICERO, _De + Divinatione_, i. 2. + + [Illustration] + + LONDON: + The Leadenhall Press, E.C. + + _Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd: + New York: Scribner & Welford, 743 & 745, Broadway._ + + (_All rights reserved._) + + “Quorum potentia intellectualis immediate à Deo agitata creditur, + prophetæ dicuntur; quorum voluntas heroës; at quorum intellectus + et voluntas censetur agitata à potentiis invisibilibus + dependentibus, appellantur magi.”—CHRIST. THOMASIUS, _in + Brunck, Hist. Phil._ v. 512. + + [Illustration: THE LEADENHALL PRESS, LONDON, E.C. + + (T. 4543)] + + “Tu te mocques aussi des prophètes que Dieu + Choisit en tes enfants et les fait au milieu + De ton sein apparoître, afin de te prédire + _Ton malheur à venir; mais tu n’en fais que rire_. + Ou soit que le grand Dieu l’immense éternité + Ait de Nostradamus l’enthousiasme excité, + Ou soit que le démon bon ou mauvais l’agite.... + Comme un oracle antique, il a de mainte année + Prédit la plus grand part de nostre destinée.” + + RONSARD, _To Nostradamus_. + + + + +TO MY MOTHER. + + + Οὐδὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι πατρὸς καὶ μητρὸς ἄμεινον + Ἔπλετο, τοῖς ὁσίη, Κύρνε, μέμηλε δίκη. + + THEOGNIS, p. 16, ed. 1766. + + “But higher far my proud pretensions rise,— + The son of parents passed into the skies.” + + COWPER, _On My Mother’s Picture_, line 110. + + IF THERE CAN BE ANYTHING IN A BOOK LIKE THIS WORTHY OF + DEDICATION TO A BEING SO NOBLE AS THOU IN LIFE WERT EVER, A + BEING NOW MORE ENNOBLED STILL BY THE HEAVEN-BLEACHED RAIMENT OF + IMMORTALITY PUT ON; TO THEE, PURE SOUL SERENE! TO THEE DOES THY + STILL LOVING SON, EARTH-HAMPERED, DEDICATE THIS THE BEST LABOUR + OF HIS HEART AND HEAD AND YEARS. THE BEST OF IT IS THINE INDEED + ALREADY; AND WERE THE REST WORSE HARVESTED THAN PERHAPS IT + IS,—MORTALITY BEING ALLOWED FOR DULY,—THY SOUL RECEIVING MUST + BE MUCH CHANGED BY EXALTATION, IF QUEEN-LIKE, IT CANNOT MAKE A + SORRY LOVE-GIFT RICH BY GOLDEN WELCOME GIVEN IT. + + IF THINGS OF KITH BE KIN, GOD WILLING, WE SHALL MEET AGAIN ERE + LONG. TILL WHEN, FROM THIS BARE HEATH TERRENE AND HOMELESS, I + SPEED THE WORD ADIEU. DEAR ONE! FOR A LITTLE WHILE ADIEU. + + THY SON, + + C. A. W. + + + + +THREE PROPHECIES OF OLD TIME. + + +That Troy should triumph in Rome— + + Νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει, + Καὶ παίδων παῖδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται. + + _Iliad_, xx. 306. + +That America should be discovered— + + “Venient annis + Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus + Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens + Pateat Tellus, Tiphysque novos + Delegat orbes; nec sit terris + Ultima Thule.” + + SENECA. + +French Revolution, 1788-89, predicted in 10th Century. + + “Des le Xᵉ siècle, Albumasar avait calculé que l’année _mil + sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf_ serait féconde en révolutions + sociales, à cause de l’une des grandes conjonctions de Saturne. + L’astrologie est vanité, erreur, mensonge, tout ce que vous + voudrez; mais enfin voilà une prédiction d’une authenticité + irrécusable.”—ALBUMASAR, _De Magnis Conjunctionibus Tract._ + ii., _Different._ 8. _Vide_ MIGNÉ, _Dict. des Prophéties_, + ii. 339. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +This is no doubt a strange book. An attempt to gather a meaning out of a +few of the involved, crabbed, and mystical quatrains of the great seer +of France, the greatest perhaps that the world has ever seen, must of +necessity be strange. My treatment, too, may possibly seem to many no +less strange than the subject-matter itself. I will speak specially as to +this latter point towards the close of the preface. + +In last December, treating upon Nostradamus in the _Gentleman’s +Magazine_, I had occasion to remark that every honest man of awakened +powers is a kind of prophet, and has to do with the future, or eternity, +as it is usually styled. Since then I have come upon the same idea in the +writings of Philo Judæus. He thinks that the Scriptures testify in some +sort that every good man is a prophet: + + “For a prophet says nothing of his own, but everything that he + says is strange, and prompted by some one else; and it is not + lawful for a wicked man to be an interpreter of God, as also + no wicked man can be properly said to be inspired; but this + statement is only appropriate to the wise man alone, since he + alone is a sounding instrument of God’s voice.”—PHILO, _Heir of + Divine Things_, § 52, Bohn, ii. 146. + +Again, at page 32 of this book, it will be seen that I have described +the faculty of anticipating the future, a thing so remarkably developed +in Nostradamus, as being, if once we admit its existence in him, a +perceptive endowment of the whole human race, that must be classified +as a sixth sense. I have since found, with no little delight, that +Coleridge, in his “Table Talk” (ed. 1836, p. 19), designated such faculty +as “an inner sense,” for, speaking of ghosts and dreams, he says; + + “It is impossible to say whether an inner sense does not really + exist in the mind, seldom developed, indeed, but which may have + a power of presentiment. All the external senses have their + correspondents in the mind; the eye can see an object before it + is distinctly apprehended; why may there not be a corresponding + power in the soul? The power of prophecy might have been merely + a spiritual excitation of this dormant faculty.”[1] + +In the matter of prophecy, Photius says, in his “Amphilochia,” that +prophecy is by no means necessarily connected with virtue: for that +Herod pre-announced, as it were, that the Gentile magi, Judæa, and the +world were about to recognize Christ for King, and so he desired to make +away with him. In this way he played the part of prophet to the whole +human race. Caiaphas, he thinks, was not conscious of what he said; in +the mania of a desire to kill, his lips prophesied that it was right that +one should die to save the whole world. “Let his blood be upon us and +upon our children,” is a foreboding instinct of the same description. In +the council of the Pharisees (John xi. 48), it was prophetic, “If we let +him alone, the Romans will come and take away our place and nation;” and +though _they_ followed out their own counsel, this is just what happened. +“And see,” he adds, “the ass in the Old Testament could forecast future +things.” He was an heretical writer, Photius, but he was evidently not so +far away, as the world is now, from believing that prophetic endowment is +a sense widely distributed to humanity in general. These hints alone may +furnish us with food for useful meditation. + +Now, with all this a reader will very likely say, Supposing we grant you +the prophetic as a sixth sense, to be henceforth reckoned as a permanent +though generally latent endowment of the race, what is the good of such +a sense, supposing, with you, that your prophet can never be understood +till after the event has taken place, and then only when some drudging +interpreter has untwisted his tortuous language and thrown it into the +intelligible vernacular? + +There are several ways of replying to this. First, are there not +thousands of objects in the domain of nature that man has not yet +discovered the use of? Anatomists are still at a stand to tell us what +is the use of the spleen. What naturalist can say for what reason the +noxious serpent is sent into the world? Why the Georgium Sidus was +only discovered by Herschel in 1781, instead of by Pythagoras, a much +greater man? Sensible men have commonly to content themselves with simply +ascertaining the existence of a fact, and they have to rest all the while +in total ignorance of why this fact exists. Again, suppose you believe, +as the majority do, in the Christian revelation; how can you account for +the multiplicity of sects who read the Bible each in its own way? Can +you account for a divine revelation that reveals one thing to one man +and a contrary thing to another? Obviously, then, there are many things +that exist as facts, and yet no man living can assign the reason of +them. With regard to any fact that can be asserted, the first thing to +establish is, Is it a fact? That once settled, you may wait for the rest +of it until you can get it. + +But again, and with special regard to Nostradamus, you will see (and +by referring to the index you may find the various places at which +I treat of it) that he must have had the whole sequence of visions +passing clearly before his eyes, with some vocal utterances occasionally +accompanying them, by which the names of men and places and things were +announced to him. His method was to set this down in prose narration, +either during the sitting or instantly afterwards. On inspection, at +cooler intervals, and when he had descended from the heat and ecstasy of +fatidical rapture, he would discern at once that the sequence must be +broken and the names concealed. If, as it stood in prose, it had been +understood by the world, it would have fallen not as a prophecy but as +a thunderbolt; not as a thing in book-form, but as an earthquake, that +must have changed or shaken the face of Europe, and so have interfered +perpetually with its own realization. + +Seeing this, he followed the practice of the elder oracles of Delphi, +Dodona, and the rest. He broke up the sequence, threw the utterances into +metre, mingled much learning linguistic to darken them, and obscured the +names, of the great men introduced, under the impenetrable mask of the +anagram. Thus regarded, it is not a subject for wonder that he did this: +it would have been akin to madness to have done anything else. + +It now becomes desirable that I should furnish some clue to enable a +reader to arrive rapidly at the pith of this book and its oracular +forecasts, so that he may discern for himself in a few minutes, whether, +or whether not, the topics treated of have for him a sufficient interest +to lead him on to make a thorough study of the book, or to decline it +altogether. There is a huge prejudice in this our day that sets in +strongly with the multitude against anything that endeavours to deal +seriously, or by mystical insight, with things occult, spiritual, or +future. + +The reader, first of all, should glance over the life of Nostradamus. +It will be for him to determine whether my vindication of his name from +imposture be adequate or not. Dr. Cobham Brewer is the most recent writer +who asperses him as a “charlatan” (see his “History of Germany,” p. +164). The reader will see that Nostradamus is of Jewish birth. Coleridge +remarks (“Table Talk,” p. 31) that all other nations + + “Seem to look backwards, and also to exist for the present; but + in the Jewish scheme everything is prospective and preparatory; + nothing, however trifling, is done for itself alone, but all is + typical of something yet to come.” + +Further than this, Thomas Burnet, in his eloquent Latinity, tells us +(“Archæ. Philos.” Book I. chap. vii. p. 59, ed. 1727) that Apollonius +said bitterly of the Jews that they were the most inept of barbarians, +and never invented a single thing useful to mankind. That they were what +Bacon would call a people of “no fruit.” They taught nothing in their +schools, says Burnet, of the circle of the sciences, “ad encyclopediæ +studia,” as we do now, but that no race in the world so abounds with +prophets, and men endowed with the celestial spirit, as “the Jews.” + +Those who care anything for the occult processes, that incite to +prophetic utterance, would now do well to read the chapter on magic, +commencing at p. 75. It gives a few hints as to the practices of adepts, +and of the Roman superstitions about tripods, alphabetic interrogatories, +and so forth; and it becomes tolerably clear from all this, that +Nostradamus was skilled in all the known methods of incantation, astral, +pharmaceutic, or electrical, and that he practised them in all their +fulness, though with reticent circumspection, and very reluctant and +enigmatic avowal. The account of the conspirators against Valens (p. 86) +strongly resembles the modern table-turning. But, as this chapter is more +curious by far than necessary, it may be passed over by all those who +merely wish to appraise quickly the value of Nostradamus as a figure in +history with claims to prophetic faculty hanging on to it. + +From the Historical Fragments, commencing at p. 89, it will be seen +that he clearly prophesied the violent death of Henri II., to whom +he dedicates his “Luminary Epistle.” The historical context is very +interesting, as showing not only the exact fulfilment of the forecast +of Nostradamus; but, that another astrologer, who was consulted by the +king, had forewarned him in almost the same words of the same danger +threatening, that he should die “in duel.” We see the king adhering to +the literal word _duel_, and out of court etiquette feeling the manifest +impossibility of the prophecy being fulfilled. We get also the gossip of +the court about it, and about the value of horoscopes, from the Princesse +de Clèves; furthermore, we learn about the obstinate blindness with which +the king forced on his own destruction at the very close of the day and +tournament, by the indulgence of a pure whim against the advice and wish +of everybody around him. The murder of Henri III., in like manner, is +announced, together with the death of his father, at p. 99; at p. 124 it +is foreshadowed again as proceeding from the hand of a young monk; and +at p. 125 the name of Clément is hinted by a play upon the French words +signifying mild and clement. The massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, at p. +106, stands out in all its vivid horror, and as proceeding from the very +hands of _le roi farouche_; but, compressed into four lines only. + +The coming of Henri IV. to the French throne is introduced with the very +name of his family, Vendôme, figured in the anagram Mendosus. Here we +find also (p. 132) the execution of the Marshal de Biron; his name is +actually given as Robin, which yields it letter for letter in anagram. +This, too, is concerning a man not probably born when the stanza was +devised. The name of the marshal is disguised, because it would have +marked him out too distinctly when he came upon the stage of public life; +but, the name of Lafin is given, the subordinate individual who betrayed +Biron to the King. It occupies pages to describe this event, but with the +terseness, reappearing constantly, which is so remarkable a feature in +the style of Nostradamus, he compresses the whole event, and all that he +has to say upon it, into six lines. + +The chapter on Louis XIV. (p. 150) teems with curiosities of the same +inscrutable order; though less startling than what we have already +pointed out, yet is it quite sufficient to have made the reputation of an +ordinary man. + +We may now pass to England (p. 166), and the quatrain relating to its +seven governmental changes, throughout a period of two hundred and ninety +years; this is as startling as anything of the kind can well be. The +next instance, that on the Stuart Dynasty (p. 170), conveying, as it +does, the struggle between Charles I. and Cromwell, is simply miraculous; +and it should challenge the attention of a listening world. This would +seem to be the inevitable result, unless the learned of all orders and +degrees can, singly or combined, do away with the interpretation put upon +it. _Lonole_ is now for the first time pointed to as being the anagram +of _Old Noll_, or Oliver Cromwell. But before this transpired, M. le +Pelletier had none the less applied the quatrain to Charles and Cromwell. +If this fails to convince a reader that he is in the presence of a seer +and worker of wonders, I do not know what can bring recognition home to +him. The single line (p. 173)— + + “Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy.” + +has, as presenting the execution of Charles I., made, in former but +forgotten days, the round of the world, and from time to time has served +to keep alive a sort of dumb admission that there had once been a +fatidical diviner of note called Nostradamus. Burns remarks, what we all +know, that “the passion of prying into futurity, makes a striking part +of the history of human nature.” It does not look much like it, though, +when such a prophecy as this has been allowed to pass out of memory; so +that few even of educated men could re-syllable it to you, or furnish +you with any better criticism on the man who penned it, than that he was +an old French impostor and astrologer. They know ten times as much about +Mother Shipton, concerning whom little or nothing is authentic; whilst +Nostradamus’s book has been probably in print for nearly three hundred +and fifty years. + +The next is a quatrain on Cromwell exclusively (p. 177), “more butcher +than king,” as Nostradamus calls him; and he will be found to regard +Napoleon (p. 236) in very much the same light. He gives England an +ascendancy of the seas (p. 181) for a stretch of more than three +hundred years,—a term which, I think, will be found to be on the point +of expiring now. Of course his quatrains relating to England are, on +the whole, much inferior in interest to those relating to France. What +stands collected under the heading of “England” will, nevertheless, well +repay perusal. The Battle of Dunbar, for instance (p. 205) is in its +way as vivid, though conveyed in but four lines of verse, as Carlyle’s +famous account of the engagement which is given in the Cromwell Letters. +He prophesies the death of Cromwell (p. 210) to fall on the 3rd of +September, seven years later than the battle of Worcester. It is true we +gather this by implication, but with all the other wonders duly weighed, +a candid reader will admit this to be the probable intention and true +meaning here. The Fire of London is given as falling out in 1666 (at p. +214). + +His name for the French Revolution is _Le Commun Advénement_, which I +render The Vulgar Advent. This, right up to the very end, is the most +astounding part of all that has been recorded by Nostradamus, or brought +into intelligibility by his commentators. This preface would run to far +too great length were I to attempt even to touch upon all of the points +of interest, that we here find to be so strangely dealt with. Take +merely the first stanza (p. 227). Napoleonism is spoken of, almost before +it has been announced, as proscribed; and, to spring up again as it did +in 1848; and then to sink finally seventy-three years after. At that +passage (at p. 227) the reader may see how, out of the mouth of Napoleon +himself, the exact term of seventy-three years proves to be the correct +period. This has never been so much as hinted before. If anything be +miraculous, in the accuracy of prevision, I think this may,—and with but +little superstition,—be deemed to be so. + +There is a remark to be made of some importance, to my thinking, because +it establishes the subtle analogy that sometimes subsists in the relation +between things, that are not generally reckoned to have any connection +one with the other. Now, the Vulgar Advent, of course, is signalized +by the usurpation of government by the people; but is it not highly +significant that, out of the natural fountain of speech, and with no +particular or conscious intention accompanying, the low proletarian +rabble, that bring it about in blood, are spontaneously designated by +themselves and others as the _Rouges_? The abhorrent many, when they +play the despot, don the colour _red_, and doff for ever, as they hope, +the royal _purple_. They may hope what they please; but, when their +vices ripen, they _must_ fall under the empire of one,—who is iron-shod, +sword-girt, and rat-eaten as to the heart,—who will trample them into +order. Call him Lonole, Olestant, or clement Cæsar, which you will; a +beast from the abyss must arise to rule the bestial. This is the truly +representative man who emerges at the epochs. Rousseau, the red-head, +with the curse of Iscariot upon him, may begin the series. A red +philosopher first introduces his Pandemonium as order; secondly, _Les +rouges rouges le rouge assomeront_ (p. 274); and thirdly, the destroyer, +the Napoleon, or Apollyon, introduces and then crowns himself with his +own hand. A red series in a red sequel so sealed, so shuts the same. + +As we are upon analogies, another curious one may here be noted. The +colours of the tricoloured flag symbolize revolution by the reversal of +the order of nature. The primary colours in the solar spectrum are, as +well as in the primary arc of the rainbow, red, yellow, blue (p. 331); +whilst in the tricolour the succession is blue, white, red. Out of this +flag, or bow, in the political heavens there is no hope to come, for it +yields no promise but that of a deluge,—_rouge_. + +The sanguinary death of Louis XVI. is foreshown at p. 241. In the +“Luminary Epistle” to Henri II. (p. 69) the very year is given (1792) +to which the quatrain of Louis’s death refers. Take next the arrest at +Varennes (p. 243), and then another miracle of precision shines forth; +for Saulce, the grocer’s name in that little town, is pregiven (p. 248). +The Tuilleries are mentioned by name,—a place where burnt a tile-kiln, +when Nostradamus was inditing for us the prophecy. + +Now refer to the Napoleonic rule (p. 286). See Napoleon born in the west +of Europe, and the way he could seduce, in a language not his own, is +pointed out to you; and, his name is to be a name that the Fates know (p. +287). + +Take, again, that strange identification of the Gallic Hercules with his +analogue Napoleon. How, as a jay taught by Talma, he at the Tuilleries +apes the fine birds and court splendour of the old _régime_ (p. 294). +Then read the quatrain at p. 297, where the simple soldier reaches +empire, and so strikes close analogy again with Cromwell. Then read (p. +300) that awful curse fulminated, when counsel shall die out of the +shaven head; see Sclavonia gather (p. 303), and old Moscow burn, whilst +the eagle (p. 304) is beaten back with a swarm of birds, and hovers to +its fall at Leipsic.[2] + +I do not deem it necessary to particularize any further; for if all this +gathered into one conspectus is not enough to carry conviction home to +the mind of any one; and, make the reader know that at Salon, three +hundred and odd years since, there lived a Frenchman, who saw all this in +visions of the night, interpretative speech accompanying, and set it down +at first in too clear prose, and secondly in rhythmic riddles afterwards; +why, then, I think that fifty times more evidence, thrown in upon the +top, could carry no conviction with it. + +I have said many things about science and its modern tendencies that will +be deemed foolish by some, and by others undeservedly severe, so that a +few words upon it seem necessary here. If the word “science” merely means +the study of nature, it has my admiration as a pursuit. But if it means +_knowledge_, I say it is an absolute misnomer. There is no true knowledge +out of wisdom, and all that is wisdom in man is comprised in his +veneration of Deity. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” +It is evident, that what we call science in this day, does not tend that +way at all. + +But, to take it briefly another way, if you do not know the _first +cause_ of anything, you can only attain to a knowledge of relativities, +but never of anything as it is in itself. Your methods can have neither +beginning nor end. Hence a man can only attain to relative knowledge +which, in the strict meaning of words, is not knowledge at all. Thus +science is impossible. + +Those, who pretend to science, talk much now about an Atomic Theory. +They speak of their atom, contrary to its etymology, as being a thing +infinitely divisible. This they adopt as a subterfuge, that no one +may be able to drive them home. But if you leave them to their own +devices,—their own chemical analyses, quantitative and qualitative, +when they get beyond vapour, leave them in possession of a _nothing_ +to divide. It is then they approach Deity _in minimis_; but for the +cloud upon their sight they cannot see Him. Such men apprehend nothing +except through the intellect; but the perfect intellect yields only +half the man. It can only deal with the subject-matter furnished to +it by the senses. There is, high-placed above it, the spirit of life; +which possesses a sense of its own, and by this the heart and head are +interlinked. When the ideas (for lack of a better word) of these two are +thought into harmony,—or, what Coleridge would call “unity,”—then, and +then only, is the comment of the whole man perfect. Take this for an +axiom: If you believe your sense, you may be right; if you believe your +senses, you are out of them. + +_Cogito ergo sum_ (“I think therefore I am”) has been accredited to +Descartes as wisdom for a long time. It is nonsense. It is a proof +gathered from the action of the intellect alone, and is a _critique_ +physical, rather than metaphysical, and here can afford no proof of +anything. + +Another word about _Atoms_, and I must have done, or this will not be +a preface, but a metaphysical treatise; and though that may be greatly +wanted, this is not the place for it. Yet, as I have arraigned science, +it becomes advisable that I should furnish to the competent reader a +spot or foothold, where being placed, he may, if he will, command my +meaning. In the Chaldaic oracles there occur two curious lines; I quote +them below that there may be no equivocation possible.[3] “Now, these +fabricate individual things (τὰ ἄτομα, atoms), and sensible objects, and +corporeal things, and things classed under matter.” The Neoplatonists +said that ideas were an emanation of the divine fire. Plato said very +much the same thing of the human soul itself. An atom thus becomes a +fiery _individuality_ (atomic); not, observe, what the nonsensical +chemist of to-day calls it,—when by his terrene fire he has reached +vapour,—an infinitely divisible atom, but a particle indivisible; that, +having traversed all the forms, goes out at the other end of matter; or +back again in a chariot of fire to the idea it started from. The world’s +Opifex made it by fire, and the tradition of Elias is that it will be +dissolved by fire at last; but what, friend, should it prove that it is +every day doing so always? A fiery idea began it, and in an idea of fire +it ends. Also man’s life is nothing but a leap through matter from fire +to fire. The ordeal by fire was a type of this. + +The professional critic and expert must, after this sketch, be left to +himself to judge of everything here set down according to the established +rules of art, and the interests multifarious of the special literary +organ he may write for and derive emolument from. I expect but little +recognition from such criticism; yet, as it is often the result of a +life devoted to study and of wide learning, its indifference, or even +its hostility, is likely to prove useful,—whether by its fault-finding +or in its discovery of actual error. Whatever its sagacity may in this +way show to be wrong, I hope to receive with equanimity and thankfulness, +and to put right should a second edition be asked for. So much for the +professional critics. + +What remains to be said touching my method of treatment will probably +have no interest whatever for such critic, nor yet for the general +reader. It purely, and I think solely, concerns the thoughtful and +capable reader. The exceptional man, who finally, and all the world over, +is the best friend of the true writer; and who, banded with others like +himself, determines solidly the value of, and ultimate position to be +given to, every new book, that is a book at all, born into the world of +letters. + +Such a reader I would only forewarn against two preliminary objections, +that might at a hasty first glance tend to excite some prejudice in his +mind. The episodes indulged in, and the apparent self-sufficiency of +utterance exhibited on questions of moment, that seemingly wise men are +divided upon still; or that men of supposed authority have in general +estimation settled long ago. Many such things will here be found to +have been laid bare again to the very roots, and challenged to show a +reason. This is absolute arrogance everywhere in the estimation of the +multitude, learned and unlearned, Reader, gentle and capable, let me give +you my view on these two points: could I make it also your view, how well +rewarded should I be. + +As to episodes: my own view of a book is this, that it should furnish +a stimulus to thought if possible at every page; that nothing should +enter into it for the sake of book-making; and that, so long as the +subject of the book is clearly and consecutively advanced, anything +else, that can vitally be thrown in without interruption, is so much the +more gained to the world in the study of itself, or, in other words, +in the study of man; this Pope has, I incline to think rightly, ruled +to be his proper vocation here. Very close and consecutive treatment +of a difficult matter must always, when long continued, weigh down the +spirits, and somewhat fatigue the attention of the reader. At such a time +an interesting episode happily introduced will rally the spirits; and, by +a momentary diversion, will renew the attention, enabling the reader to +attach himself again with vigour to the main thread. There are episodes +of course, as there are other things, good and bad. The episode that is +dull in itself and distracts attention is bad; that which is in itself +interesting and relieves fatigue, carrying the mind back to the main +subject refreshed, is entirely good. The episodes in the following pages +the reader will judge to be good or bad as they fall under the rule given +above or transgress it. + +The charge of arrogancy is a little more difficult to deal with, and +also to rebut. But even here I do not despair of being exonerated by the +capable reader, whom alone, on this point, it is requisite to address. +Many years ago I came upon a passage in Coleridge to the effect that +he had always pursued light, believing that it must lead to truth, and +truth to happiness; but that, let it consummate in joy or not, follow +it he would, for truth’s sake. Truth attracted, and he, in fact, must +draw to it. I shut the book up, and said, So will I; and, with certain +failures, much interruption by necessary duties, and innumerable +personal shortcomings, so I have. The result has been an ever-increasing +solitude,[4] until at last no eremite of the desert is more alone than I +for years have been. Thus placed, I have thought on many questions, with +books and without them, caring but little what the greatest said, so only +I kept moving onward towards that spot where the light of morning dawned, +or where the still rathelier twilight promised dawning. My attention +always lay between things and thoughts, keeping clean aloof from vain +opinion, which leads to nothing, though she be, according to Pascal, +_Regina del mondo_. As no renown of genius could bring me to respect +any man’s opinion; so I strove that no self-seeking, nor hope out of +some novelty or strangeness to win originality, might bring me to adopt +any principle soever that fell short of justness in the least, or of +sacred truth anyhow attainable by man. As I sank others, so have I sunk +myself and all personal belongings, striving, if I might, to make myself +a trumpet of smooth passage or clear mouthpiece to the truth that lies +behind us all,—behind every man that cometh into the world,—though haply +there be but few who can allow it free enough scope and exit through +them. As in this way I have grown nearly dead both to myself and others, +and want little of emolument and less of glory (accurrent from without), +it seemed not unlikely that so epurated a voice-piece might utter more of +less adulterate truth, than it falls in common to the lot of most to do. +So much am I a mere person (_persona_), mask, thing sounded through, as +that the voice at last seems scarcely to be mine at all, but something +larger, higher, better much, than I pretend to be. I do not even claim a +perfect utterance, or out-put, for what remains of me,—call it trumpet, +mask, person, or what not,—must remain, I know, always beset with some +earth and earthiness that mars a pure transmission. Yet, weak as it may +be and is, the weak things of the world are those that most confound the +mighty ones established of authority by man. Where is any boasting, I +ask, in this; or what of arrogance is here? Will any man spend thirty +years thus to become a voice-tube merely? None the less is it at last a +voice crying in the wilderness, “Desolate are those who in the earth lack +vision of wisdom, or call gold wealth.” Capable and gentle reader, test +this prologue, and try it, believing, that if there be any good thing in +it, solitude and The Alone have wrought it. With them, as by seraphic +marshalling,—with tent pitched, or travelling on, under the night-star or +by day,—you may safely thread the pages following, assured that nothing +but good can issue or accrue therefrom to you. Most excellent reader, +let _Vale Valete!_ fall as the benediction of an eremite upon your ear +to-day; as also upon your pilgrimage hereafter, till the hour vespertine +of sleep drop down, that closes all for each. + + WALTHAMSTOW, E., 1891. + + + + +“Quelle physique corpusculaire, quels atomes déterminent ainsi leur +nature? vous n’en savez rien; la cause sera éternellement occulte pour +vous. Tout ce qui vous entoure, tout ce qui est dans vous, est une énigme +dont il n’est pas donné à l’homme de deviner le mot.”—VOLTAIRE, _Dict. +Phil._, s.v. _Occultes_. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + LIFE OF NOSTRADAMUS 1 + + THE PREFACE OF MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS TO HIS PROPHECIES 42 + + EPISTLE TO HENRY II. 55 + + MAGIC 75 + + HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS 89 + + HENRI QUATRE 128 + + LOUIS XIII. 142 + + LOUIS XIV. 150 + + LOUIS XV. 164 + + ENGLAND 166 + + FRENCH REVOLUTION 227 + + LOUIS XVI. 241 + + THE NATIONAL CONVENTION 272 + + PIUS VI. 280 + + NAPOLEONIC RULE 286 + + LOUIS XVIII. AND LOUIS PHILIPPE 324 + + REPUBLIC, 1848, AND NAPOLEON III. 337 + + APPENDIX 351 + + + + + “In Nature’s infinite book of secrecy + A little can I read.” + + _Anthony and Cleopatra_, i. 2. + + “I am Isaiah,—be it spoken with all humility,—to the + advancement of God’s glory.”—LUTHER’S _Table Talk_, Bohn, p. 12. + + Yes, indeed, Luther, with quite Lutheran humility! + + “Canys gwn a fydd rhag llaw.” + “For I know what has been, and will be hereafter.” + + TALIESSIN. + + “Prophetia est solum futurorum contingentium, quia longe + distant ab humana cognitione; sed secundario ad eam pertinent + præterita et præsentia.”—ST. THO. AQUINATIS, _Summa_, p. 409. + + + + +ORACLES OF NOSTRADAMUS. + + + + +LIFE OF NOSTRADAMUS. + + +Michel de Nostredame was born in Provence, in the town of St. Remy, in +the year 1503, upon a Thursday, the 14th of December, about noon. Tycho +Brahe (1546), D’Herbelot (1625) the great Orientalist, and Bruce (1730) +the Abyssinian traveller, were all born on the same day of the month. +Coincidences such as these are, perhaps, not worth much; yet, do they +interest us less than the rainfall of a month, or the precise pressure +of the wind on Cleopatra’s needle?—which goes by the name of Cleopatra +because Cleopatra had nothing whatever to do with it. Robert Étienne, +the great printer, was also born in 1503. What would, however, more have +affected the family of Nostradamus is the expulsion of the French from +Naples on October 31, 1503, after the famous battles in April, fought on +two consecutive Fridays with disaster to the French; the battles namely, +of Seminara and Cerignola. Many have said that the evil omen attaching to +Friday dates from that period. If we had never heard of Good Friday we +also might have been of their opinion. + +His father, like Milton’s, a notary, was James Nostradamus, a name which +is equivalent to _de Nôtre Dame_.[5] Moreri calls his family “_une +famille noble_,”[6] others say that he was of Jewish descent, but of a +family that had been converted to Christianity, and that he claimed to +be of the tribe of Issachar, deriving thence his gift of prophecy, for +they were “men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel +ought to do” (1 Chron. xii. 32); or, as in Esther i. 13, “the seven +wise men that knew the times.” It is true that but few of the orthodox +commentators interpret these passages as signifying astrological or +prophetic forecast; but that may be, nevertheless, the real meaning (vid. +Poole’s “Synopsis”). + +How could Nostradamus be of Issachar, as that was one of the lost tribes? +would be a natural inquiry enough; and one could only answer it, as the +wit did, in a case somewhat similar, that He could only resemble Issachar +in being a great, “strong ass” (Gen. xlix. 14). + +His mother’s name was Renée de Saint Remy. Her ancestors by the father’s +and mother’s side were men skilled in mathematics and medicine: one was +physician to René, or Renatus, titular King of Jerusalem and Sicily, +and Count of Provence; whilst the other was physician to John, Duke of +Calabria, who was the son of King René. Our author, in his Commentaries, +says that a knowledge of mathematics had traditionally descended (_de +main en main_) to him from his early progenitors; and, in the Preface +to his “Centuries,” he adds: “_Que la parole héréditaire de l’occulte +prédiction sera dans son estomac intercluse_.” + +It was his great-grandfather[7] who gave him, almost as in sport, a first +taste for the celestial sciences. After the death of this relative he +was put to school at Avignon, to study his humanity courses, and thence +he went to the university at Montpellier, to acquire philosophy and the +theory of medicine. + +Montpellier, the Mons Pessulanus of antiquity, contains the most famous +school of medicine in all France. It is ancient, and is said to have +been founded by Arabian physicians when forced to fly from Spain—Moreri +says in the year 1196, by the disciples of Averroes and Avicenna. Its +inhabitants are reputed to be witty and most polite. It once had numerous +noble churches and many religious establishments, but since the Huguenots +became masters of it, in 1561, they ruined all this, and made the city +the head-quarters of their party for a time. Louis XIII. besieged it +in 1622, and took it. His first act was to rebuild the Cathedral of +St. Peter and the other churches; the desecration of all such edifices +being the Puritan and Huguenot fashion there and everywhere. The town +seems always to have been a fief of the Crown of France. But a number +of kinglets, such as the King of Aragon and the King of Majorca, appear +at different times to have had seignorial rights in Montpellier; and +many church councils have been held there. All these matters are of some +slight interest, as furnishing in a filmy fashion a notion of those +influences, mental and physical, that would have been floating around +Nostradamus when studying there. The seizure of the town by the Huguenots +would have occurred some years before his death. As he was a true +Churchman, their successes would have embittered his mind, and may have +influenced some of the visions contained in the “Sixains” and “Présages.” + +It may interest us as Englishmen to know that in the extensive botanical +garden at Montpellier lie the remains of Miss Temple, the Narcissa, +whose death and funeral are so vividly recounted by Young in the +“Night Thoughts.” He appears to have considerably misrepresented the +transaction; but George Eliot has made up for it by a criticism upon him +and his works, conceived, perhaps, in the grossest and worst taste that +criticism from a woman’s pen has ever fallen into. She grows so angry +that she can hardly even see that Young is a poet in any sense of the +word. She might easily have found out that he was, by comparing some of +her own verses with his. + +Another point of interest to us in regard to Montpellier is the reversal +of public opinion touching the climate of the place. Brompton, sixty +or eighty years ago, was, from the mildness and salubrity of its air, +coupled with its then semi-rural aspect, called “the Montpellier of +London.” The analogy could never have been very remarkable, as Brompton +is about on a level with the River Thames, whereas Montpellier’s splendid +promenade of the Place de Peyron is 168 feet above the sea-level, +whilst the whole town runs up the hillside, as its name expresses. +Still, the phrase testifies to the opinion then prevalent. Owing to +the brightness of its atmosphere and the beauty of its suburbs, the +town was long recommended by British physicians as a health-resort to +patients suffering from pulmonary complaints; but the weather-vane of +science has now reversed that opinion entirely. Its climate is found to +be changeable, its sunshine is blazing, its atmosphere is charged with +dust that is impalpable, all the while that it seems to be clear; and its +cold mistral blasts do but portend a spot most singularly hurtful to the +lungs. The fashion varies in localities, drugs, theories, and treatment, +and as a health resort for English people the reputation of Montpellier +has passed away; but the “École de Médecine” still retains its ancient +renown as the central seminary of medical instruction in France. + +Learned and medical as it was in the days of Nostradamus, it could +not escape visitation by a great plague,[8] and Michael Nostradamus +had to retreat to Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux. In these towns he +commenced practice, when about twenty-two years of age, and four years +later he bethought him of returning to Montpellier for refreshment, +and to take his Doctor’s degree. This he got through very quickly, +and in a manner that won him the admiration and applause of the whole +College. In returning to Toulouse he passed through Agen, a town on +the Garonne, where he met with no less a person than the learned Jules +César Scaliger,[9] with whom he entered at once into the most intimate +familiarity. This induced him to take up his permanent residence in the +town. But after a while their cordiality grew less, till rivalry and +pique sprang up between them, and they thenceforth stood aloof from one +another. Here he married a lady “_une fort honorable demoiselle_,” though +history has not divulged her name. By her he had two children, who died +young; she also died. Finding himself again companionless, he returned to +his natal soil of Provence. When he reached Marseilles, he was invited by +the Parliament of Provence to come to Aix, where he stayed three years, +receiving a salary from the city from the time the plague broke out, in +1546. It seems to have raged fiercely, and it is said that he furnished +to the Seigneur de Launay the reports which he has given in his book, “Le +Théâtre du Monde.” + +After the contagion passed away, the town, Moreri records, voted him +for several years following a considerable pension. His services must +consequently have been recognized as valuable. He has left us the +formula of his plague powder in Chapter VIII. of his treatise “Des +Fards.” As a curious instance of the modesty of the women of Aix, he +records that they began to sew themselves up in their winding sheets, as +soon as they were attacked by the contagion, that their bodies might not +be exposed naked after death (“Penny Cyclopædia”). I suppose we may judge +from this that the system of burial during the contagion was as gross and +indecent as in the famous plague of London; or is this only a fanciful +imitation of the story of the women of Marseilles in classical times? + +He went thence to Salon de Craux, which lies midway between Avignon +and Marseilles. Here he married for the second time. The lady’s name +is given by Garencières as Anna Ponce Genelle; Anne Poussart, says +Moreri; others say Pons Jumel. (See the epitaph further on.) There is +the same incertitude as to his family. Jean Aimes de Chavigny, whom we +are following, makes it to consist of six children, three boys and three +girls; while Garencières says three sons and one daughter. + +It was here, relates our memoir, that, foreseeing great mutations were +about to affect all Europe, and that civil wars and troubles were so +soon to come upon the kingdom of France, he felt an unaccountable and +new enthusiasm springing up uncontrollably in his mind, which at last +amounted almost to a maddening fever, till he sat down to write his +“Centuries” and other “Presages,” The first of these “Presages” is dated +1555, and runs as follows:— + + “D’Esprit divin l’ame presage atteinte, + Trouble, famine, peste, guerre courir; + Eaux, siccitez, terre et mer de sang teinte, + Paix, tresac à naistre, Prelats, Princes mourir!” + +He kept them by him for a long time, half afraid to risk the publication; +he foresaw there was danger, and that it would lead to infinite +detraction, calumny, and backbiting, as indeed it finally fell out. A +thing like this is like the fox stolen by the Spartan youth, that eats +the heart out, and is sure to get vent sooner or later. His memorialist +says, that at last, overcome by a desire to be useful to the public, he +produced them. No sooner had he done so than the rumour ran from mouth to +mouth, at home and abroad, that something marvellous and admirable had +appeared. One cannot see of what use they could be to the public, as they +could not possibly be understood till they were interpreted after the +event and by it. In some of the quatrains he says as much himself. He no +doubt published them because he felt an intense longing so to do; and, +when the mind of a man reaches this stage of desire, it will not take +him long to find some excellent reason for carrying out the impulsion. +Public good, the advancement of religion, the sustentation of faith, the +psychological inference as to the immortality of the human soul, or any +other good phrase, will serve a man as a sufficient reason for doing +what he wants to do. That man must be a great searcher into his own +consciousness, if he cannot readily assume that the motive assigned in +such a case is the _causa causativa_ of the act of putting forth. + +Moreri’s account is not exactly the same as that of our memoir. Moreri +describes him as being invited to Lyons in 1547, but as returning very +quickly to Salon, only to find that his popularity at the latter place +had greatly abated. The disappointment he experienced from this treatment +made him withdraw a good deal from society, and commit himself the +more to hard study. He tells us that he had for a long time previously +practised divination; now he began to think himself to be directly +inspired as to the future. From this time, as the lights occurred to his +mind, he began committing them to writing at the moment. He set them down +at first in plain prose, if you can call enigmatical sentences plain +prose; at any rate, they were not written in verse. + +Garencières’ version varies again. With him it is, that Nostradamus found +by experience that the perfect knowledge of medicine is unattainable +without the aid of astrology, to which he now addicted himself. It is +an alluring science, and one towards the pursuit of which his natural +genius strongly disposed him, so that he made very rapid progress in it. +His first publications in this line consisted of almanacs, according +to the custom of the time, for profit and recreation’s sake; and in +these he so happily hit off the conjuncture of events that both he and +his publications became greatly sought after. It is somewhat curious +that so few of these almanacs appear to be now extant. One would have +expected that documents of such interest, once in type, would not perish +entirely from all households and libraries. It may, however, be taken as +a proof of the maelstrom of time that engulfs everything, so that by the +period when posterity grows interested in any event, all its belated +questionings are presented with a universal blank. The spirit of literary +piracy, too, seems to have been rife in those early days. The success of +his work soon became a cause of discredit to him, as it led enterprising +printers and booksellers to vend, under his name, almanacs destitute of +everything that had constituted the merit of his. + +When the work made its appearance, it divided the public. Some called +the prophet a simple visionary, or, in coarser phrase, a fool; others +accused him of magic, and of being in too close treaty with the Devil to +be honest. A few held their judgment in suspense, and would pronounce +no opinion on the subject. A vast number of the grandees and of the +learned, both at home and abroad, thought that he was endowed with a gift +supernatural; and amongst these were Henri II. and Catherine de Medici. +It remained to the _esprits forts_ and the ignorant public, who knew +nothing of him but his name, to pronounce him a charlatan and impostor. +There is one thing certain, he felt much hesitation as to publishing at +all; and, when he took that step at last, he addressed the book to his +infant son, and not to any public character, in the year 1555. At this +period he would be fifty-two. This is not a time of life at which men +usually commence a course of imposture. When he is summoned to the Court +at Paris, loaded with honours and consulted on high matters (_de choses +importantes_), he displays nothing but moderation and good sense, and +returns contentedly to his modest home at Salon. Upon all ordinary lines +of human judgment, such conduct seems to indicate genuineness; and this +is strengthened, if not established, by his genuine gravity of deportment +and serious religious sentiments. Nobody has denied the purity of his +life. Still, a certain Lord Pavillon, of his own day, wrote against him, +or perhaps against this publishers’ figment of a name, rather than his. +Further, we find the book led to the bitter epigrammatic distich of the +poet Jodele, or as others say, of Beza,— + + “Nostradamus cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est, + Et cum falsa damus, nil nisi nostra damus.” + +This can very easily be turned against the piratical almanac makers, +thus:— + + “Vera damus cum verba damus quæ Nostradamus dat; + Sed cum nostra damus, nil nisi falsa damus.” + +In spite of piracy and obloquy, the repute of Nostradamus grew, as we +have said, in influential quarters, until it came to the ears of Queen +Catherine de Medici and Henri II., on the publication, in March, 1555, of +the first seven Centuries of his “Prophecies.” The remaining Centuries, +the Sixains, and Presages, were not published till long after. In the +following year, 1556, they sent for him to attend the Court in Paris: +though Garencières says he left Salon on July 14, 1555, and reached +Paris on August 15th, a particularity which seems to indicate special +knowledge.[10] The Lord Constable Montmorency attended him at his inn, +and presented him to the king in person. The king showed him high +favour, and ordered him to be lodged at the palace of the Cardinal de +Bourbon, Archbishop of Sens, during his stay in the capital. + +When there a severe attack of gout seized him, that lasted ten or twelve +days. His majesty sent him two hundred crowns in gold (two hundred +écus d’or; vid. Moreri) in a velvet purse, and the queen one hundred +crowns (Le Pelletier, i. 92). They then despatched him to Blois, to +visit their children, the royal princes, and give his astrological +opinion. He repaired thither, and seems to have acquitted himself to +the satisfaction of the king. It is quite certain that he did not tell +them precisely what he thought,[11] for the princes were Francis II., +Charles IX., and Henri III., whose tragical fates he has correctly +set out, and with unmistakable clearness, as may be seen (at pp. 84, +86, 96) by the forecasts in his strange book. He, however, cast their +horoscopes and acquitted himself in this, as in all other transactions, +_en homme d’esprit_. He returned to Salon so much encouraged that he +set to work and completed his “Centuries,” consisting of three hundred +more quatrains. These further quatrains he appears to have printed in +1558, but Garencières says that he dedicated them to the king in 1557. +The only thing that is certain is that the Texte-type dates the epistle +June 27, 1558. This “Luminary Epistle” to the king, Garencières tells us, +discovers future events “from the birth of Louis XIV., now reigning, till +the coming of antichrist.”[12] + +Henri II. was killed the following year, 1559, at the tournament of St. +Quentin, as we shall see it fully set forth at Quatrain 35 in Century I. + +He had now become quite a court favourite, for Emanuel, the Duke of +Savoy, visited him at his house at Salon about this period, in the month +of October; and, in the December following, the Princesse Marguerite +de France, sister of Henri II, who by the treaty of peace at Cambresis +was to marry the duke, came also to Nostradamus, entertaining him very +familiarly (Garencières and Moreri). + +Charles IX. made a progress through the kingdom in 1564, to quiet the +cities that had mutinied; and when he came to Provence, on arriving at +Salon, November 17th, he asked first of all for Nostradamus. Nostradamus +was in the suite of magistrates around the king, so that he was presented +on the instant, upon which the king made him his Physician in Ordinary, +and honoured him with the title of Counsellor. He complained rather +bitterly of the neglect with which his fellow-townsmen treated him. César +Nostradamus reports this, saying, “_Et de ce, me souviens fort bien, car +je fus de la partie_” (Moreri). On the return journey he again inquired +for Nostradamus, and gave him two hundred écus. He was at this time over +sixty, and with his health fast breaking under severe attacks of gout. +He died within about sixteen months of this period, and the salary and +profits of Physician in Ordinary must have greatly comforted the old man +in his latter days. He enjoyed now the further satisfaction of being +flocked to by learned men, grandees, and others, who resorted to him far +and near, as to an oracle. “As St. Jerome remarks of Livy, so may we +remark of him,” says his biographer, Jean Aimes, “that those who came to +France sought Nostradamus as the only thing to be seen there.” + +The closing scene is now drawing very near, and we find him much +afflicted with his maladies, notably arthritic gout, as distinguished +from podagra, which Dr. Cullen considers as the seat of idiopathic gout. +He awaited with firmness his climacteric, as they used to designate a +man’s sixty-third year. He died on the 2nd of July, 1566, a little before +sunrise, having all his senses yet about him, for the arthritis turned +to dropsy about eight days previously, and early on the second day of +the month suffocated him. Jean Aimes says that Nostradamus was well +advised of the time, even of the very day and hour, when his death must +take place. The prophet reminded him frequently towards the close of the +previous June that he had written with his own hand, in the Ephemerides +of Jean Stadius, these words in Latin, _Hic prope mors est_ (“Here is +death at hand”). “The day,” continues this friend, “before he exchanged +this life for a better, after I had spent many hours with him, and late +at night was taking leave of him until the following morning, he said, +‘You will not see me alive at sunrise.’” M. le Pelletier gives (i. 91) +Presage 141 as a stanza pointing to his own death; but, as the “Presages” +were not printed till 1568, their authenticity may or may not be accepted +as the reader feels inclined. The lines run thus, and are remarkable +enough, if we admit that they were a genuine forecast; for, although +they assign no specific date, yet they sum up the principal facts rather +fully:— + + “De retour d’Ambassade, don de Roy mis au lieu; + Plus n’en fera; sera allé à Dieu: + Parans plus proches, amis, freres du sang, + Trouvé tout mort près du lict et du banc.” + +The meaning given to this is, that on his return from Arles, whence he +was sent for, in 1564, by Charles IX., to see him a second time, after he +had safely put away the three hundred crowns given him by the king and +queen, his last transaction would be concluded, and he would then render +his soul to God. His nearest relatives, brothers, and friends would find +him dead near his bed, seated, as was customary with him, on the bench +at its foot, as he could there breathe more freely. + +This is the interpretation put upon it by M. le Pelletier. As I +understand César Nostradamus, the king did not send for him to Arles, but +asked again for him on his majesty’s return to Salon; and I should think +the word “ambassade” must refer to some private mission the king had sent +him upon entirely apart from this, and for which he paid him. Be this +as it may, the fact that Nostradamus assigns no date for his death, in +this presage, goes to establish its authenticity, one would incline to +say. For supposing it to have been foisted in, after his death, surely +a fabricator of the marvellous would first of all have made it to show +_trois vingts et trois bis_, and twisted that into some colourable shape. +He would have been little likely to add as a prophetical feature that +the king’s present had been put away in a safe place, as to do so seems +anything rather than a supernatural instinct. It is a touch of prose +more than of the Python. On the whole, I should incline to take the +verse for a genuine emanation from the pen of Nostradamus. Certainly he +would recognize, even medically, that, as he found himself to be growing +“_fort caduc et débile_” towards his climacterical year, he would know +that his dissolution was at hand. A man’s grand climacteric is generally +considered to arrive at 63, though some place it at 81, that number being +composed of 9 times 9. In either of these periods, if sickness occur, it +is considered as especially likely to prove fatal. + +There seems to be a diversity of opinion about this, for some say that +the _annus climactericus_ is 84, or 12 times 7. Aulus Gellius thinks the +opinion to be of immense antiquity, running back to the Chaldeans; and no +doubt Pythagoras derived it from the East. Ficinus explains it by saying +that the body of man is ruled over by each planet in turn for the space +of one year, and, Saturn being the most maleficent, every seventh year +falling to his presidency becomes extremely dangerous. This explanation +would shut out the nines, except in the sixty-third and eighty-first +year, but it would also vitiate the whole scheme of astrology, for the +planet under which a man was born (say he were born under Saturn) would +dominate his body at birth, and be, one must suppose, the ruling planet +that year, and, if it were Saturn, would recur only on his eighth year. +Eighty-four would not be in favour generally, as it consists entirely of +even numbers, though divisible by seven. Many held that only a number +produced by the multiplication of an odd number could be climacterical. +Augustus thought it a subject of great rejoicing when he had passed +over his sixty-third year.[13] Moreri will have eighty-one to be +properly speaking the climacteric, and he notes that at this age died +Plato, Diogenes, Eratosthenes the geometer, and many other illustrious +personages. Some went so far as to say that political bodies had their +climacterical periods; and they certainly, judging from our own country, +have periods of fatal folly, whether or no the nines and sevens collide, +or the stars fight against Sisera. But amongst other oddities of history +may be chronicled the fact that Henri Quatre was the sixty-third King of +France, which made Malherbe talk of— + + “La vaine étude s’applique, + A trouver la climatérique, + De l’éternelle fleur-de-lis”— + +that _fleur-de-lis_ whose terrible withering up in the fatal year of ’93 +Nostradamus so powerfully forecasts. + +Suffice it to say that in this climacterical crisis Nostradamus succumbed +in his sixty-third year to gout, which turned to dropsy.[14] + +Nostradamus was interred at the church of the Franciscan Friars (Les +Cordéliers) at Salon, as it is noted, on the left-hand side of the +church door (Garencières). His widow erected to him a marble tablet, +“representing his figure to the life, and his arms above it.” The +epitaph is as follows, made, they say, in imitation of that great Livy +aforenamed, the Roman historian:— + + D. M. + + CLARISSIMI OSSA + + MICHAELIS NOSTRADAMI, + + UNIUS OMNIUM MORTALIUM JUDICIO DIGNI, + CUJUS PENE DIVINO CALAMO TOTIUS ORBIS, + EX ASTRORUM INFLUXU, FUTURI EVENTUS + CONSCRIBERENTUR. + VIXIT ANNOS LXII. MENSES VI. DIES XVII. + OBIIT SALONE AN. CIↃIↃLXVI. + QUIETEM POSTERI NE INVIDETE. ANNA PONTIA GEMELLA + CONJUGI OPT. V. FELICIT. + + TRANSLATION. + + “Here lie the bones of the illustrious Michael Nostradamus, + whose almost divine pen alone, in the judgment of all mortals, + was worthy to record, under the influx of the stars, the future + events of the whole world. He lived 62 years, 6 months, 17 + days. He died at Salon in the year 1566. Posterity, disturb not + his sweet rest! Anne Ponce Gemelle hopes for her husband true + felicity.” + +The text of this epitaph is that given by Benoist Rigaud in the edition +of Nostradamus published by him in 1568. + +In stature he was somewhat undersized, of a robust body, sprightly, and +vigorous. He had a broad and open forehead, a straight even nose, grey +eyes, of kindly expression, but in anger capable of flashing fire. The +general expression was severe, though pleasant, so that a grand humanity +shone through the seriousness. Even in age his cheeks were rosy. He had a +long thick beard, and excellent health till nearly the close of life; he +had his senses, being alert and keen, up to the very last moment. He had +a good and lively wit, seizing with quick comprehension everything that +he wished to acquire. His judgment was very penetrating, his memory happy +and retentive. He was taciturn by nature, thought much and spoke little; +but at the right time and occasion he could discourse extremely well. He +was quick, and sudden even to irascibility; but very patient where work +had to be done. He slept four or five hours only out of the twenty-four. +He practised freedom of speech himself and commended it in others. He +was cheerful and facetious in conversation, though in jesting a little +given to bitterness. He was attached, so says De Chavigny, to the Roman +Church, and held fixedly the Catholic faith; out of its pale there +was for him no salvation. Though pursuing a line of thought entirely +his own, he had no sympathy with the Lutheran heretics of so-called +Freethought. He was given to prayer, fasting, and charity. As far as +outward observance was concerned, he might be classed with the highly +respectable and decent. Le Pelletier says, “Sa fin fut Chrétienne;” but +he adds a little further on that his style is very much more like that of +the Pagan oracles of Greece and Rome than of the canonical prophets of +Hebrew inspiration. He was very generous to the poor, and held it as a +sort of maxim that in this sense it was legitimate to make friends with +“the mammon of unrighteousness.” + +Jean Aimes de Chavigny, who seems to have come over from Beaune to play +the part of a Boswell to Nostradamus, and, after his friend’s death, +is said to have devoted twenty-eight years of his life to editing the +“Centuries” with notes,[15] says that he collected twelve books of the +“Centuries,” of which vols. vii., xi., and xii. are imperfect. These are +in quatrains, and are classified as _Prophéties_, and they extend to +very remote ages. The _Presages_, we are told, were written between 1550 +and 1567,[16] and were collected by Aimes and reduced into twelve books +in prose, as he thinks them worthy of the attention of posterity. The +few _Presages_ that are in print run to only one hundred and forty-three +quatrains in verse; so we must suppose that those written in prose have +perished entirely. + +Nostradamus left two brothers behind him: one named Bertrand; the +other, Jean, who was his junior, and proctor to the Parliament at Aix, +composed a History of Provence, and also wrote the lives of the Poets of +Provence.[17] + +Moreri states that by his second wife he had six children, three boys +and three girls. Of his sons, César, the eldest, was a person of +demonstratively gay and kindly spirit. It was to him, when quite a child, +that Nostradamus dedicated the first seven of the “Centuries” published +by him. These are the most authentic of all, and Moreri remarks that, if +you wish the quatrains to be without interpolation, you should secure +early editions. The reader will understand that to be now unnecessary, +inasmuch as we have all along been dealing with the _Texte-type_. César +was born at Salon, 1555, and died 1629. He, like his uncle Jean, was +an author, and wrote upon the same topics, leaving in manuscript a +collection of the most remarkable things happening in Provence from +the year 1080 to 1494. In this he included the lives of the poets of +Provence. Many years after his death, his nephew and namesake, César +Nostradamus, who was Governor of Provence and gentleman in waiting upon +the Duc de Guise, found them, and himself worked at them, till, in +1603, the Parliament of the province voted him three thousand livres to +encourage him to complete the work, which he did; and they were finally +printed in Lyons in 1614, under the title of “Chroniques de l’Histoire de +Provence.” He commences with the Celtic Gauls at the early date of the +Deluge. This is worthy of a true scion of the tribe of Issachar. A very +strange story is told of César by La Motte le Vayer in his “Instruction +pour Monseigneur le Dauphin.” He, like his father, Michel, had a taste +for forecasting the future, and had ventured to predict that Pouzin, +which was besieged, would perish by fire; but it was taken by _coup de +main_. Whilst the pillage was going forward, the foolish prophet was, +it is said, seen, match in hand, endeavouring to set it on fire. He was +caught; and Saint-Luc, the commander, asked him if he had prophesied +anything for himself that day. He replied, “No!” on which the general +rode at him with his lance, and killed him on the spot. Moreri relates +this story somewhat differently. If either version were true, it would be +clear that César did not understand “_la parole héréditaire de l’occulte +prédiction_,” and that the lancehead instead was “_dans son estomac +intercluse_.” From other authorities, however, it would seem that he was +busy about his history long after the date thus assigned for his death. +Charles, his brother, was very excellent in Provençal poetry, and several +pieces of his are still extant. Michel’s third son, whose name is not +given us by Moreri, became a Capuchin. + +An anecdote is related by Garencières, which he throws out as “a merry +passage” to re-create his reader. Nostradamus was with Lord Florinville +in Lorraine, at the Castle of Faim. He was attending medically his +lordship’s mother. In the yard where they strolled there were two little +pigs, one white and the other black. His lordship inquired of Nostradamus +jestingly what would be the fate of those pigs. “We shall eat the black +one, and the wolf shall eat the white,” said he. Lord Florinville +secretly ordered the cook to get ready the white one for supper. When it +was spitted ready for roasting, the cook left the kitchen for something, +and in his absence a young tame wolf came in and ate a part of it, so +that it could not appear at table. The cook immediately killed the black +one, and sent it up at the time appointed. His lordship, not knowing what +had happened, said to Nostradamus, “Well, sir, we are now eating the +white pig; how shall the wolf get it?” “I do not believe it,” rejoined +the prophet; “it is the black one that is upon the table.” The cook was +sent for, and by his confession the truth came out, much to the surprise +of everybody present. Another story follows this, that Nostradamus had +said that treasure was hidden in a little hill near Faim, that it would +not be found if sought for, but that, if the ground was dug for any +other reason, it would. Garencières adds that there is great probability +about this, as it is the site of an ancient temple, and many times since +antiquities have been unearthed here. He completes his cock-and-bull +story by saying that many such tales are told of Nostradamus all over +France, but that he passes them by as being “unwilling to write anything +without good warrant.” + +Amongst other nonsensical reports spread was one that he caused himself +to be buried alive, and that he continued to write prophecies. This, no +doubt, was set afloat by those honest publishers who in life had done +him the honour to pirate his almanacs; at any rate, it made for their +interest. It has also been pretended that so many in Salon regarded him +as an impostor, that for security’s sake he was buried in the Franciscan +Church. + +Those who desire the Bibliography of the editions of Nostradamus up to +the year 1840 will consult that which has been admirably drawn up by +Eugène Bareste, Paris, 1840, in his work upon “Nostradamus.” Or they may +find it copied textually, with all due acknowledgment of its excellence, +in the first volume of Le Pelletier’s edition of the “Oracles.” + +The works of Nostradamus, besides the “Prophecies,” seem to have been— + + Several Almanacs, two of which were translated at once into + English, and are given by Watt, “Bib. Brit.” + + “Almanacke for 1559.” London: 1559. 8vo. + + “Almanacke et Prognostications.” London: 1559. 8vo. + +Moreri gives further an— + + Almanac for country labourers, to mark the seasons favourable + for their work. A true predecessor, this, of Moore’s _Vox + Stellarum_. + + “Predictions before 1558.” London: 1691. 4to. This is named by + Watt, and may be a translation of the genuine first edition of + the “Seven Centuries,” but I have not met with it. + + “Prophecies of the Kings and Queens of England.” 1715. This is + the work by D. D. that we have largely quoted from. + + “An excellent Treatise on Contagious Infirmities in 1559-60.” + Translated into English. London: 1559. + + “Traité des Fardements.” Lyon: 1552. + + “Des Confiteurs,” etc. Anvers: 1557. + + “Opuscule de plusieurs exquises Receptes, divisé en deux + parties.” Lyon: 1572. 16mo. This contains both the above. + + “La Remède très utile contre la Peste et toutes Fièvres + pestilentielles.” Paris: 1651. 8vo. + + “Paraphrase de Galien sur exhortation de Menodote aux Études + des Beaux Arts.” Lyon: 1558. 8vo. + +Touching the prophecies of Nostradamus, Théophile de Garencières gives +us an interesting fact, that, after the primer, it was the first book +at school in which he learnt to read. It was the custom in France then +(_i.e._ 1618) to initiate children by that book. They thought the crabbed +and obsolete words, such as long survived in the English law, would give +the scholars some idea of the old French language; so that the book got +republished from year to year like an almanac. He chronicles that many +have run mad from overstudying the prophecies. He dissuades readers from +doing this, because interpretation must always be a little uncertain +where, like an ancient oracle, the author indulges in a double sense, +which he thinks Nostradamus often does. Without a peculiar genius, he +does not suppose it possible to get at a right understanding of the +quatrain. Even when the prophecy is quite plain, as that the Parliament +should put King Charles to death, no reader, until it had happened, could +tell when, or how, it would be brought about. Even his astrological signs +will not fix things, because the planets go and return again to the same +bearings. Some of his reasons are very peculiar, one being that it is +not profitable for the _vulgar_ to have knowledge of the future, that +God reserves the knowledge of the times to Himself, and that it might +trespass upon “business of State” to discover and lay open things which +the prudent wish to conceal; and he concludes, oddly enough, that “for +these reasons (dear Reader) I would not have thee entangle thyself in the +pretentions of knowing future things.” + +He conceives that there are many concurrent causes tending to diminish +the prophetic reputation of Nostradamus. The very ordinary manner in +which he conformed to the rules and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, +would lead no one to infer that he enjoyed any extraordinary favour +from the Almighty; his proficiency in judicial astrology would furnish +matter of prejudice against him in the minds of many learned men; the +very devout suspected him of necromancy, and familiarity with the Angel +of Darkness; finally, the inherent obscurity of his style, has been +rendered still more difficult by the interminable faults introduced by +the copyists and the carelessness of printers. Now, it is admitted, he +says, and by its ablest defenders, that judicial astrology cannot enable +its professor to foretell such particularities as proper names and other +circumstances that hang upon the freewill of men; and, as our author does +foretell such things as these, he must have had recourse to the black +art to obtain his results. Accordingly Lord Florimond de Raimond, in his +“Birth of Heresies,” makes this charge against him; also Lord Spond, in +the third volume of his “Annals,” in 1566, devised this epitaph for him. +“Mortuus est hoc anno nugax ille toto orbe famosus _Michel Nostradamus_, +qui se præscium et presagum eventuum futurorum per astrorum influxum +venditavit, sub cujus deinceps nomine quivis homines ingeniosi suas hujus +modi cogitationes protendere consueverent, in quem valde apposite lusit +qui dixit: _Nostra damus_ cum falsa damus,” etc.[18] + +Provoked thus, Garencières endeavours to prove Nostradamus to have been +enlightened by the Holy Spirit. We shall not follow him in this matter +any further than to avail ourselves of the facts we may light upon in the +course of his arguments, and to record a few of the eulogies upon him +that Garencières gathers from eminent authors in times past. To these we +may add some authorities who in modern times have named him; but these +mostly sum up his forecastings as springing from venality, vanity, and +imposture. + +Of proper names, that Nostradamus has anticipated, the list is +considerable. He names the Lord of Monluc; Captain Charry; Lord de la +Mole, Admiral of the Galleys to Henri II.; Entragues, beheaded by Louis +XIII.; Clarepegne, the headsman; Sinan, the Pasha who destroyed Hungary; +Clément, who murdered Henri III.; the Attorney David and Captain Ampus; +Rousseau, the Mayor of Puy; Louis, Prince of Condé; Sixtus V., calling +him son of Hamont; Gabrielle d’Estrée; Lord Mutonis; Anthony de Sourdis, +Lord Chancellor of France; the Queen Louise; Antony of Portugal. Since +Garencières’ time other names have been identified: Narbon, the Minister +of War; Saulce; Lethuille, for the Tuilleries; Lonole, for Old Noll, +or Cromwell; Montmorency; Le Grand Chiren, anagram of Henri le Grand; +Mendosus, anagram of Vendosme; Norlaris, anagram for Lorrains; Robin, +anagram of Biron; Rapis, anagram for Paris; Esleu Cap, for Capet, or +Louis XVI.; Varennes, the place where Louis was arrested; the play +upon _bour_ and _bon_, for Bourbon (Cent. vii. 44); Ergaste, anagram +of Estrange for Marie Antoinette the Austrian; Mont Gaulfier, for +Montgolfier, the æronaut; the island of Elba, mentioned as Æthalia, the +ancient name of Elba; Sainct Memire, anagram for Sainct Meri; and the +play on “dort leans” for Louis Philippe. This is a goodly list of names +to guess at haphazard. Such chance as could so result would rival any +prophecy in the miraculous nature of its elements. + +Again, as regards the curious things he mentions, one might make out a +long list. The date of the Fire of London. The five hundred Marseillais +that led the attack upon the Tuilleries. The naming of the very year +1792 for the French Revolution; the 22nd of September in that year being +the date from which the Republicans began to reckon anew their era. Many +more might so easily be gathered as to even weary the reader with their +enumeration. + +He mentions the birth of persons that were born after his death. Now, +judicial astrology could give no help in such cases, since to commence +casting a nativity presupposes birth. In his epistle to his son César +we shall see what he says of himself and the gifts he possessed; but +even there he was obliged to be somewhat obscure, to protect himself +from the ridicule of the world on the one side, and from the severities +of the Church on the other. He tells his son to eschew the study of the +future astrologically, to avoid magic, as prohibited by the Church and +Scripture, and that he himself had burnt some books that taught the art +of prophesying, although it is pretty evident that he had first read them +through very carefully himself. He relates that a mighty flame burst +forth from them to the danger of his house, and this he interpreted +to be the consequence of their falsity. But yet he seems to have gone +through a good many of the magical forms when he was about to devote the +night to prophetical studies. He holds that inspired Revelation is “_a +participation of the Eternal Divinity_,” though he scarcely lays claim to +being a prophet in this sense of the word; in fact, he denies himself to +be such a prophet. But, failing to claim inspiration, and denouncing the +practice of astrology and the pursuit of magic, one is left somewhat in +the dark as to what he really did profess to be the source of fatidical +utterance possessed by him. That he had the gift in a marvellous potency +this book will show; and that he openly claimed to possess it his whole +life proves. It is, in fact, from this I should desire to establish that +at least he was no impostor, for he only told others what he began by +implicitly believing himself. + +As to his obscurity, he himself admits it as a thing to be cultivated +both in the times he lived in and in those that were to follow. No +one can truthfully deny that obscurity and prophecy seem to be almost +interchangeable and convertible terms. The prophecies in Scripture are +of such ambiguity that Whitby was commended by many for concluding his +Commentary on the Bible with the General Epistle of Jude, without a word +bestowed upon the Revelations of St. John. There are those who will hold +that prophecies are useless, as they cannot generally be understood until +they have been fulfilled. It is obvious that many prophecies are of +such a nature as that, if they were clearly understood previous to the +event, they would prevent their own fulfilment, and so cease to have been +prophecies. What they foretold would never have occurred. The philosophy +of history is supposed to show that Providence shapes the course of +human events, how much soever humanity may seem at every instant to be +following out its own collective will. This theory is most in favour +amongst erudite modern thinkers, who incline very little towards +acquiescence in the old Church doctrine of Predestination. Yet inspired +prophecy is a collateral proof of the same principle as that which +underlies the philosophy of history. Both of them depend on the finger of +God shaping—first shaping chaos into things, and then things into their +continuous courses. The shaping is not needed more at the first creation +than it is at every successive stage, whether for preservation or for +progression. Again, the interest of uninspired prophecy is for mortal man +not much less vivid; for, if we have interpreted Nostradamus rightly, we +find in him a man living three hundred years ago talking intelligibly, if +not clearly, of things that are happening to-day. If there be a power in +human nature,—latent in the generality, but in a few alert and quick,—to +link far centuries together in anticipatory thought, I take it to be +quite clear, that that one fact must revolutionize the whole scheme of +human philosophy as accepted now, whether it relates to life, to death, +or to futurity. The fatidical capacity implies a spirit of immortality in +man. With that once established, we re-enter upon the domain of faith; +we recognize that the earth is drossy and the body sin; we re-create the +soul, and laugh at the fool (or the philosopher) who doubts, denies, +and ridicules it. It gives new ground to teach the immortality of man; +it lifts us above the dirt-doctrine of gold; it renders poetry once +again possible to lips hallowed with Apollo’s fire; it brings back a +possibility of worship upon earth, and, with that, prayer, praise, and +peace. Bates, the silver-tongued, says well, that for man “it is as +natural to pray as to breathe.” + +Garencières is of opinion that the writings of our prophet were for a +century allowed to “be in darkness,” but we have seen that in his own +day Nostradamus attracted the notice of the learned, of the nobility, +and of the king himself. Garencières says that the first book they gave +_him_ at school after the primer was “The Centuries,” so it was not +neglected then; and M. le Pelletier remarks that Nostradamus’s fame has +now been before the world for three hundred years, with an always growing +reception. Of course, as time wanes, and as fresh quatrains become +interpreted after accomplishment, the series must shine with an ever +augmenting brilliancy and splendour. The kings of France have never been +quite indifferent to the Oracles, or at least to such of them as could +be shown to refer to them individually. It is reported of Charles Edward +Stuart, the Pretender, that he to the last conned[19] over the volume, +anxiously hoping to find in it some stanza promising to his royal line +restoration to the throne of England, but in vain (Chambers’ “Book of +Days,” ii. 13). + +In modern times prophecy is derided, and our seer, obscurely hinting +his strange forecasts, is voted incoherent, rhapsodial, or an impostor. +Almost every one has heard his name mentioned, but that is all. Few who +come across his work accidentally on a bookshelf can make head or tail +of his Provençal and half obsolete terms. Without special study you +cannot understand him; and to study a work that lies under a general +ban of imposture, in a time when only lucrative study is pursued, is +a thing not to be thought of by a _littérateur_ of any intelligence. +Consequently in England it is a name, floating far and wide it may be, +that nevertheless remains but a name and nothing more. I hope, however, +when this book comes to be read by the competent few, it will be seen +that there exists far more than a mere name to be dealt with here; +that in Nostradamus we have the greatest fatidical seer, not divinely +accredited, that the world has ever beheld; that if accepted as being +endowed with a rare and curious foresight,—after the severest inquiry +into what he has done has been instituted by grammarians, historians, +and philosophic critics,—it will next become necessary to try to look +into the causes, and so ascertain how he operated. If we cannot succeed +in that, and yet cannot deny his work, we must add the faculty, so +remarkably developed in him, to the perceptive powers of the human race, +as a sixth sense,—generally latent but sometimes developed,—the faculty +of anticipating the future. Science, so called, must enlarge its narrow +categories, and admit, though never so grudgingly, that a new faculty of +vast import must henceforth be accredited to humanity; a faculty which +the superstitious and the profoundly religious alike have immemorially +admitted, but which philosophers, as such, have as persistently ignored, +denied, or even ridiculed. It has often been said by troubled thinkers, +with a pretentious flourish of baffled profundity, that “true philosophy +begins in doubt.” I would whisper it down the wind, but not in Gath, +that for the most part there it also ends. Anatomy cuts up a dead man to +find life. Analysis reduces final investigation to a _caput mortuum_. +Philosophy begins in doubt, and travels a wide circle to close in doubt +again. Perhaps, after all, the best basis might be faith. Beginning with +faith, haply a man might find God accompanying investigation with him +step by step through life, even in this world and its miraculous garden, +till the hour come for him to step, through the six-foot wicket, into the +Paradise of that glorious world that is adjacent to us but not seen, +where sighs are not heaved, and whose glories are incorruptible. + +When we come to enumerate some few of the opinions that have been +expressed on the writings and character of Nostradamus, it will be seen +that a vast number of them condemn him for charlatanry and imposture, +especially as we approach our own day. For now what is denominated +science accepts nothing for true but what is deducible from the reason; +it takes for granted that nothing can be known respecting the future, +beyond what cultivated prudence can gather from a politic acquaintance +with the past, coupled perhaps with a sagacious estimate of the +principles now at work, and the fruit they are likely to engender. In +fact, what the knowledge of a wise man can enable him to foresee, covers +for such theorists the whole extent and province of all prophecy possible +to man,—the sagacity of Mazarin, which detected the revolutionary element +in the Cardinal de Retz whilst still a youth; or the prediction of Bishop +Butler, in 1741, that the _levelling spirit_ then visible, under the +direction of principles that were atheistic, threatened dangers that +might menace Europe. But to call this prophecy is to be ignorant of what +the word prophecy means. To state it thus, or so to limit it, is to deny +the existence of the prophetic faculty altogether. A direct denial of +the thing is better than a sceptical definition of it. Scepticism, then, +in our day, not believing there can be such a thing as a true presage, +concludes that Mother Shipton and Nostradamus stand on precisely the same +footing. They read a quatrain of Nostradamus, only understand one line +out of four, and say that, although that one may be intelligible, the +Sphinx itself could make nothing of the others, and that out of a number +of such verses it would be marvellous if something curious were not +occasionally let fall. The next inference is that the author set up for a +gift that he did not possess, and soon found the imposture was far more +lucrative than the dull routine of medical practice, as in those times +the superstition of the public was unlimited. The ignorance of the Middle +Ages is pointedly contrasted for us now with the wisdom and knowledge of +our own day. What, prejudice apart, does this mean, if briefly summed +up in an aphorism? Only this: that the wisdom of to-day gives us the +Nihilist of _no faith_, in place of the Astrologer of _too much_. + +We ought to remember in all this that our author had reached the mature +age of fifty-two before he printed one word of the work that we are +spending time over. He tells us that for generations the family of +Nostradamus had inherited and transmitted some share of the prophetic +gift (Garencières’ Preface, p. 16), that it came to him as a natural +genius; in which it seems that his sons partially shared. He had +cultivated it long for his private pleasure, and the request in which his +almanacs stood seems to have first led him to think he might more largely +utilize the faculty. He never appears to have made any large sum of money +through it. He supported himself and brought up his family by steady work +in his professional calling. On the very brink of publicity, anticipating +malign influences, he still hesitated to take the final plunge; and, +when he did take it, he was in his fifty-third year. Men seldom pass +though life performing all its duties with credit and decorum, earn +a competency, and at fifty-two enter upon a career of contemptible +imposture. No; this is not according to human nature. We must acquit him +of imposture. + +Michel Nostradamus was one of the most learned men of his day, the friend +of Jules César Scaliger. He knew many modern languages, and the Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin. He had followed medicine from the age of twenty-two, +took his Doctor’s degree at twenty-six, filled a professorial chair at +Montpellier, and late in life devoted himself to judicial astrology; +in which, and in an intuitive forecast beyond what that can bestow, +he has distanced by far all other competitors in the same line. Let a +reader thoroughly acquaint himself with all that is here set before him +as to Charles I. in England, and its bloody re-enactment in the French +Revolution, letting all the rest stand aside; and, if he can rise from +the perusal, feeling that there is any kind of imposture discoverable +throughout those strange and wonderful revelations, then he himself +possesses so miraculous a form of judgment, as to leave me without a word +further to advance upon the subject. + +M. le Pelletier conceives that the _Commun Advénement_, or _l’avénement +au règne des gens du commun_, which I have rendered “The Vulgar Advent,” +extending from the death of Louis XVI. to the reign of Antichrist, +is the grand object of Nostradamus. It is to paint this lurid epopee +that he devotes three-quarters at least of his quatrains, according +to le Pelletier. Myself, I think this proportion to be overstated. +But our prophet returns to it again and again, elaborates the most +minute details, and concentres upon it as in a focus the brightest +rays of his mystical genius. Some think that Catharine de Medici was +largely influenced in her firm and far-seeing policy by the counsels of +Nostradamus, whom she visited expressly at Salon de Craux, in 1564, with +her son, Charles IX. This may have been so, but it is a great question +whether Nostradamus, for all his visions, curiously as they realize +themselves in time, could advise the queen or anybody else at all better +than any other wise man of elaborate culture could. His visions would +come to him as verses to a great poet, and when written down and the +afflatus fled, he would drop back to the ordinary condition of humanity. +He would drop back to the level of reason and the discourse of science, +with nothing to specially distinguish him from other men well placed to +learn such wisdom and knowledge as this world has to bestow upon them. +To expect more of him is to expect with the commonalty that if you met +Milton in Bread Street he would address you in blank verse, and strain +“Good morning” into metre. Great men cut very plain figures in common +broadcloth. It is the impostor who is magisterial, and puts on the airs +of a Cagliostro. + +Nostradamus is sometimes a pillar of fire, but oftener is he a pillar of +cloud. He is a past master in words, and depicts events with a terseness +that almost baffles parallel; but still his employment of these same +words is more practical than artistic, for he never rises to poetry. As +an accepted visionary he is perhaps less swayed by the imagination than +any man of at all kindred type that one can mention. With him words are +as often used to veil as to unfold his meaning. His contempt for simple +persons, the ignorant, is very broadly marked. Men of knowledge are to +constitute his audience; the heaven of prophecy is in his opinion a +region unfit for children. He, clean contrary to the example set forth +in St. Mark (x. 14), will suffer none such to approach him.[20] He +chiefly predicts the _evil_ to come; what is good only figures in his +pages incidentally, and at long intervals. But here it is to be observed +that the staple of true prophecy must always run parallel with that of +history; whilst, as to the latter, it has grown into an axiom, “Happy is +the country that has no history.” He fatigues while he fascinates us amid +the variety of his combinations; yet a deeper examination will often end +in clothing these riddling and vext allusions in a magical and floating +investment that lifts them up into a calm sublimity. + +Still he is clearly no prophet in the old and Hebrew sense of the +word—like Isaiah, Daniel, David, John,—a man who neither respects his +own person as regards its safety, nor the person of other men as regards +their position. You cannot say of him: “_Scimus quia verax es, non enim +respicis personam hominum_” (St. Matt. xxii. 16), which is the test-touch +all the world over of a true prophet. Le Pelletier’s summing-up is: +_c’est un artiste en pronostics_. There is a Pythic ring in all he +writes and says; a sub-flavour, too, of cabalistic lore far gathered from +those ancient compromising books which he saw fit to burn. The outward +signs of his procedure and methods are palpably magical, as set forth +in the stanzas that open his first Century to the reader. If we know +that he professed Christian orthodoxy, equally we know that he practiced +judicial astrology, and made unquestionable use of the Pagan ritual of +incantation. These rites, uncomprehended by all the erudite in books who +wrote about them, were by the divines and fathers of the early Church +ignorantly attributed to prestidigitation, Toledan art, and fraudulent +compact with the sable fiend. Perhaps they may turn out to have been +merely natural excitations, empirically discovered, tending to enable the +subject of them more fully to reach a state of semi-conscious ecstasy; to +place the cerebral light in the current of latent light that pervades all +space (if such an expression be permissible), and so elicit results that +are ordinarily unattainable by man. Bouys, who wrote in 1806, plainly +considers him to have been a clairvoyant. The animal magnetizers call +him a _crisiaque_. Possibly all these processes only served to place him +in a position favourable to clairvoyance; but on all this, respected and +gentle reader, construct your own opinion. Let the man be to you prophet, +sorcerer, or clairvoyant. Call him what you will, so you free him from +the stigma of impostor. M. le Pelletier’s judgment as to that ought to be +regarded as final: “_L’ampleur de son génie, et la sureté inimaginable de +son coup d’œil, ne permettent guère de la croire._” + +It has been well said that the man and his works are an enigma. +Everything in our author is ambiguous: the man, the thought, the style. +We stumble at every step in the rough paths of his labyrinth. Once we +enter, jeering voices seem to deride us from behind each stanza, strophe, +word. We try to interrogate, but grow silent before a man of emotionless +nerve and of impenetrable mask. What are these “Centuries”? What is +Nostradamus? In them and him all may find something; but no man born of +woman can find _all_. The Sphinx of France is here before us; a riddler, +riddling of the fate of men: a man at once bold and timid; simple, yet +who can plumb his depth? A superficial Christian, a Pagan perhaps at +heart; a man rewarded of kings: and yet, so far as we can see, furnishing +no one profitable hint to them that could make their life run smoother, +or remove a single peril from their path. He leaves a book of things +malign, written by one who, albeit, never spoke a word that _à tous ne +seroit agréable_. Behold this Janus of a double face; his very breath is +double; the essence of ambiguity lies wrapped incarnate in him, and it +moulds the man, the thought, the style. + + + + +PRÉFACE À MON FILS. + +THE PREFACE OF MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS TO HIS PROPHECIES. + + +To Cæsar Nostradamus his son, life and felicity. Thy late arrival,[21] +Cæsar Nostradamus my son, has made me bestow much time, through nightly +vigils, to leave you in writing a memorial to refer to, after the +corporal extinction of your progenitor, that might serve for the common +profit of mankind, out of what the Divine Being has permitted me to learn +from the revolution of the stars. And since it has pleased the immortal +God that thou shouldst come into the natural light of this terrene abode, +and shouldst say that thy years are not yet calculated astronomically, +and thy March months are incapable to receive in their weak understanding +what I must necessarily record [as to happen] after my time:—seeing also +that it is not possible to leave thee in writing what might suffer +injury and be obliterated by time; for the inherited gift of occult +prediction will remain confined to my own bowels:—considering that events +of human proposal are uncertain, whilst all is governed and directed by +the incalculable power of Heaven, guiding us, not by Bacchic fury, nor +yet by Lymphatic[22] motion, but by astronomical assertion—“_Soli numine +divino afflati præsagiunt et spirito prophetico particularia._”[23] + +Although for years past I have predicted, a long time in advance, what +has afterwards come to pass, and in particular regions attributing +the whole accomplishment to divine power and inspiration, also other +unfortunate and fortunate occurrences have been pronounced with +accelerated promptitude which have since happened in other parts of the +world,—for I was willing to maintain silence and to pass over matters +that might prove injurious [if published] not only as relates to the +present time, but also for the most part of future time, if committed +to writing, since kingdoms, sects, and religions will pass through +stages so very contrary, and, as regards the present time, diametrically +opposed,—that if I were to relate what will happen in the future, +governors, sectaries, and ecclesiastics would find it so ill-accordant +with [_si_] their auricular fancy, that they would go near to condemn +what future ages will know and perceive to be true. Considering also +the sentence of the true Saviour, “_Nolite sanctum dare canibus neque +mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte conculcent eas pedibus +suis, et conversi dirumpant vos_” [Matt. vii. 6]. + +This it is which has led me to withhold my tongue from the vulgar, and +my pen from paper. But, later on, I thought I would enlarge a little, +and declare in dark and abstruse sayings in consideration of [_pour_] +the vulgar advent [vid. Le Pelletier, i. 163] the most urgent of its +future causes, as perceived by me, be the revolutionary changes what +they may, so only as not to scandalize the auricular frigidity (of my +hearers), and write all down under a cloudy figure that shall essentially +and above all things be prophetical. Although “_Abscondidisti hæc a +sapientibus, et prudentibus, id est, potentibus et regibus, et enucleasti +ea exiguis et tenuibus._”[24] By the grace of God and the good angels, +the Prophets have had committed to them the spirit of vaticination, by +which they see things at a distance, and are enabled to forecast future +events. For there is nothing that can be accomplished without Him, whose +power and goodness are so great to all His creatures as long as they put +their trust in Him, much as they may be [exposed] or subject to other +influences, [yet] on account of their likeness to the nature of their +good guardian angel [or genius] that heat and prophetic power draweth +nigh to us, as do the rays of the sun which cast their influence alike +upon bodies that are elementary and non-elementary. As for ourselves +personally who are but human, we can attain to nothing by our own +unaided natural knowledge, nor the bent of our intelligence, in the way +of deciphering the recondite secrets of God the Creator. “_Quia non +est nostrum noscere tempora, nec momenta_,”[25] etc. Although, indeed, +now or hereafter some persons may arrive to whom God Almighty may be +pleased to reveal by imaginative impression some secrets of the future, +as accorded in time past to judicial astrology, when [_que_ for _quand_] +a certain power and volitional faculty came upon them, as a flame of +fire appears.[26] They grew inspired, and were able to judge of all +inspiration, human and divine, alike. For the divine works, which are +absolutely universal, God will complete; those which are contingent, or +medial, the good angels direct; and the third sort come under the evil +angels.[27] + +Perhaps, my son, I speak to thee here a little too occultly. But as +to the hidden vaticinations which come to one by the subtle spirit of +fire, or sometimes by the understanding disturbed, [it may even be, +by] contemplating the remotest stars, as being intelligences on the +watch, even to giving utterance to declarations [that] being taken down +in writing declare, without favour, and without any taint of improper +loquacity, that all things whatsoever proceed from the divine power of +the great eternal Deity from whom all goodness emanates. Further, my son, +although I have inserted the name of prophet, I do not desire to assume a +title of so high sublimity at the present moment. For he who “_Propheta +dicitur hodie, olim vocabatur videns_;”[28] for, strictly speaking, my +son, a prophet is one who sees things remote from the knowledge of all +mankind. Or, to put the case; to the prophet, by means of the perfect +light of prophecy, there lie opened up very manifestly divine things +as well as human; which cannot come about, seeing that the effects of +future prediction extend to such remote periods. Now, the secrets of God +are incomprehensible, and their efficient virtue belongs to a sphere +far remote from natural knowledge; for, deriving their immediate origin +from the free will, things set in motion causes that of themselves could +never attract such attention as could make them recognized, either by +human augury, or by any other knowledge of occult power; it is a thing +comprised only within the concavity of heaven itself, from the present +fact of all eternity, which comes in itself to embrace all time. + +Still, by the means of some eternal power, by an epileptic Herculean +agitation, the causes by the celestial movement become known. I do +not say, my son, in order that you may fully understand me, that the +knowledge of this matter cannot yet impress itself upon thy feeble brain, +that very remote future causes may not come within the cognizance of a +reasonable being; if they are, notwithstanding, purely the creation of +the intellectual soul of things present, future things are not by any +means too hidden or concealed. But the perfect knowledge of causes cannot +be acquired without divine inspiration; since all prophetic inspiration +derives its first motive principle from God the Creator, next from good +fortune, and then from nature. Wherefore the independent causes being +independently produced, or not produced, the presage partially happens, +where it was predicted. For the human understanding, being intellectually +created, cannot penetrate occult causes, otherwise than by the voice of +a genius by means of the thin flame (vid. page 76) [showing] to what +direction future causes incline to develop themselves. And further, my +son, I implore you never to apply your understanding on such reveries and +vanities as dry up the body and bring perdition to the soul and disturb +all the senses. In like manner, I caution you against the seduction of a +more than execrable magic, that has been denounced already by the sacred +Scriptures, by the divine canons of the Church—although we have to exempt +from this judgment Judicial Astrology. By the aid of this it is, and by +divine revelation and inspiration, united with deep calculations, we +have reduced our prophecies to writing. And, notwithstanding that this +occult philosophy was _not_ reproved by the Church, I have felt no desire +to divulge their unbridled promptings. Although many volumes have come +before me, which had laid hidden for many ages. But dreading what might +happen in the future, after reading them, I presented them to Vulcan, +and as the fire kindled them, the flame, licking the air, shot forth an +unaccustomed brightness, clearer than the light is of natural flame, +resembling more the explosion of powder, casting a subtle illumination +over the house as if the whole were wrapped in sudden conflagration.—So +that at last you might not in the future be abused by searching for the +perfect transformation, lunar or solar, or incorruptible metals hidden +under the earth, or the sea, I reduced them to ashes.—But as to the +judgment which perfects itself by means of the celestial judgment, that +I am desirous to manifest to you: by that method you may have cognizance +of things future, avoiding all fantastic imaginations that may arise, +and limiting the particularity of the topics by divine and supernatural +inspiration; harmonizing with the celestial figures these topics, and +that part of time, which the occult property has relation to, by the +potential virtue and faculty divine, in whose presence the three aspects +of time are clasped in one by eternity—an evolution that connects in +one causes past, present, and future—“_quia omnia sunt nuda et aperta_, +etc.”[29]— + +From all which, my son, you can easily comprehend, notwithstanding +your tender brain, the things that are to happen can be foretold by +nocturnal and celestial lights, which are natural, coupled to a spirit of +prophecy,—not that I would assume the name or efficacy of a prophet, but, +by revealed inspiration, as a mortal man the senses place me no farther +from heaven than the feet are from the earth. “_Possum non errare, falli, +decipi_,”[30] (albeit) I am the greatest sinner in this world, and heir +to every human affliction. But being surprised sometimes in the ecstatic +work, amid prolonged calculation, and engaged in nocturnal studies of +sweet odour, I have composed books of prophecies, containing each one +hundred astronomic quatrains of forecasts, which I have tried to polish +through obscurely, and which are perpetual vaticinations, from now to +the year 3797. It is possible that this figure will make some lift up +their forehead, at such a vast extent of time, and variety of things to +take place under the concave journey of the moon; and this universal +treatment of causes, my son, throughout the earth, which, if you reach +the natural age of man, you will see in your climate, under the heaven of +your proper nativity, as things that have been foreseen. + +Although the everlasting God alone knows the eternity of the light +proceeding from Himself, I say frankly to all to whom He has decreed +in long and melancholy inspiration to reveal His limitless magnitude, +which is beyond both mensuration and comprehension, that by means of +this occult cause divinely manifested, principally by two chief causes, +comprised in the understanding of the inspired one who prophesies. One is +that which comes by infusion, which clarifies the supernatural light, in +him who predicts by astral process, or forecasts by inspired revelation, +which is practically a participation in the divine eternity, by which +means the prophet comes to judge of that which his share of divine spirit +has given him, by means of communication with God the Creator, and the +natural endowment accorded him. It is to know that what is predicted is +true, and has had a heavenly origin; that such light and the thin flame +is altogether efficacious; that it descends from above, no less than does +natural clearness; and natural light renders philosophers quite sure of +their principles, so that by means of the principles of a first cause +they have penetrated the profoundest abysses and attained the loftiest +doctrines. + +But to this end, my son, that I may not wander too profoundly for the +future capacity of thy senses, and also because I find that letters shall +suffer great and incomparable loss, and that I find the world before +the universal conflagration, such deluges and deep submersion, that +there will remain scarcely any land not covered with water, and that +for so long a period, that everything will perish except Ethnographies +and Topographies. Further, after and before these inundations, in many +districts the rains will have been so slight, and there will fall from +heaven such an abundance of fire and incandescent stones, that scarcely +anything will remain unconsumed, and this will occur a short time before +the last conflagration. Further, when the planet Mars completes its +cycle, at the end of his second period, he will recommence his course. +But some will gather in Aquarius through several years, and others in +Cancer, which will be of still longer duration. Now that we are conducted +by the moon, under the direction of the Creator, and before she has +finished her entire circuit the sun will come, and then Saturn. Now, +according to the celestial signs, the reign of Saturn shall come back +again, so that, all calculated, the world is drawing on towards its +anaragonic revolution. + +From the time I am writing this, before 177 years 3 months and 11 days, +by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and more still by inundations, the +world between this day and that, before and after, shall be diminished, +and its population so reduced that there will hardly be hands enough to +attend to agriculture, and the lands will be left as long without culture +as they have been under tillage. This, so far as celestial judgment +manifests, that we are now in the seventh millenary, which completes all +and introduces us to the eighth, where is the upper firmament of the +eighth sphere, which, in a latitudinary dimension, is where the Almighty +will come to complete the revolution, where the celestial figures will +return to their courses, and the upper motion which renders the earth +stable for us and fixed, “_non inclinabitur in seculum seculorum_,”[31] +unless His will be accomplished, and no otherwise. + +Although by ambiguous opinions exceeding all natural reason by +Mahometical dreams, also sometimes God the Creator by the ministry of +angels of fire, and missive flame, presents to the external senses, +even of our eyes, the causes of future predictions, that indicate the +future event which must manifest itself to him who presages anything. +For the presage which is made by the exterior light comes infallibly to +judge partly with and by means of the exterior flame; although truly the +part which seems to come by the eye of the understanding springs only +from the lesion of the imaginative sense. The reason is too evident, +the whole is predicted by the afflatus of divinity, and by means of the +angelic spirit inspired to the man prophesying, rendering him [as it +were] anointed with vaticinations, visiting him to illuminate him, and, +stirring the forefront of his phantasy by divers nightly apparitions no +less than daily certitude, he prophesies by astronomic administration +conjoined with the holiest future prediction, taking nothing into his +consideration but the hardihood of his free courage. + +Come at this hour to understand, my son, that I find by my revelations +[astral], and which are in accordance with revealed inspiration, that +the sword of death is on its way to us now, in the shape of pestilence, +war (more horrible than has been known for three generations of men), +and famine, that shall fall upon the earth, and return upon it at +frequent intervals. For the stars accord with such a revolution, and with +the written word, “_Visitabo in virgâ ferrea iniquitates eorum, et in +verberibus percutiam eos._”[32] For the mercy of God, my son, will not +be spread abroad for a time, till the major part of my prophecies shall +have been accomplished, and have become by accomplishment resolved. Thus +oftentimes in the course of these sinister storms the Lord will say, +“_Conteram ego, et confringam, et non miserebor._”[33] And a thousand +other accidents will come by waters and continual rain, as I have more +fully and at large set forth in my other Prophecies, which are drawn +out at length, _in solutâ oratione_;[34] (in these I) designate the +localities, times, and terms prefixed, that all men who come after +may see, recognizing the circumstances that come about by infallible +indications. As we have marked by the others where we speak more clearly, +for although they are covered with a veil of cloud, they are clear +enough to be comprehended by men of good intelligence: “_Sed quando +submoventa erit ignorantia_,”[35] the total will stand out with greater +clearance still. Making an end here, my son, take now this gift of thy +father, Michael Nostradamus, hoping to expound to thee each several +prophecy of these quatrains here given, beseeching the immortal Father +that He will endue thee with a long life of happy and prospering felicity. + + From Salon, this 1st of March, 1555. + + + + +EPISTLE TO HENRY II. + + +To the most invincible, very puissant, and most Christian Henry King of +France the Second: Michael Nostradamus, his most humble, most obedient +servant and subject, wishes victory and happiness. + +For that sovereign observation that I had, O most Christian and very +victorious King, since that my face, long obscured with cloud, presented +itself before the deity of your measureless Majesty, since that in that +I have been perpetually dazzled, never failing to honour and worthily +revere that day, when first before it, as before a singularly humane +majesty, I presented myself. I searched for some occasion by which to +manifest good heart and frank courage, by the means of which I might +grow into greater knowledge of your serene Majesty. I soon found in +effect it was impossible for me to declare it, considering the contrast +of the solitariness of my long obnubilation and obscurity, and my being +suddenly thrust into brilliancy, and transported into the presence of the +sovereign eye of the first monarch of the universe. Likewise I have long +hung in doubt as to whom I ought to dedicate these three Centuries to, +the remainder of my Prophecies amounting now to a thousand. I have long +meditated on an act of such audacity. I have at last ventured to address +your Majesty, and was not daunted from it as Plutarch, that grave author, +relates in the life of Lycurgus, that, seeing the gifts and presents that +were made in the way of sacrifice at the temples of the immortal gods in +that age, many were staggered at the expense, and dared not approach the +temple to present anything. + +Notwithstanding this, I saw your royal splendour to be accompanied with +an incomparable humanity, and paid my addresses to it, not as to those +Kings of Persia whom it was not permissible to approach. But to a very +prudent and very wise Prince I have dedicated my nocturnal and prophetic +calculations, composed out of a natural instinct, and accompanied by a +poetic fervour, rather than according to the strict rules of poetry. Most +part, indeed, has been composed and adjusted by astronomical calculation +corresponding to the years, months, and weeks, of the regions, countries, +and for the most part towns and cities, throughout Europe, Africa, and +a part of Asia, which nearest approach [or resemble] each other in all +these climates, and this is composed in a natural manner. Possibly some +may answer—who, if so, had better blow his nose [that he may see the +clearer by it]—that the rhythm is as easy to be understood, as the sense +is hard to get at. Therefore, O most gracious King, the bulk of the +prophetic quatrains are so rude, that there is no making way through +them, nor is there any interpreter of them. Nevertheless, being always +anxious to set down the years, towns, and regions cited, where the events +are to occur, even from the year 1585, and the year 1606, dating from +the present time, which is the 14th of March, 1557. + +Then passing far beyond to things which shall happen at the commencement +of the seventh millenary, deeply calculated, so far as my astronomic +calculus, and other knowledge, has been able to reach, to the time when +the adversaries of Jesus Christ and of His Church shall begin to multiply +in great force. The whole has been composed and calculated on days and +hours of best election and disposition, and with all the accuracy I could +attain to. At a moment [blessed] “_Minerva libera et non invita_,”[36] my +calculations looking forward to events through a space of time to come +that nearly equals that of the past even up to the present, and by this +they will know in the lapse of time and in all regions what is to happen, +all written down thus particularly, immingled with nothing superfluous. + +Notwithstanding that some say, “_Quod de futuris non est determinata +omnino veritas_,”[37] I will confess, Sire, that I believed myself +capable of presage from the natural instinct I inherit of my ancestors, +adjusted and regulated by elaborate calculation, and the endeavour to +free the soul, mind, and heart from all care, solicitude, and anxiety, +by resting and tranquilizing the spirit, which finally has all to be +completed and perfected in one respect _tripode æneo_ [by the brazen +tripod]. With all this there will be many to attribute to me as mine, +things no more mine than nothing. The Almighty alone, who strictly +searches the human heart, pious, just, and pitiful, is the true Judge; +to Him I pray to defend me from the calumny of wicked men. Such persons, +with equal calumny, will bring into question how all your ancient +progenitors the Kings of France have cured the evil; how those of other +nations have cured the bite of serpents; others have had a certain +instinct in the art of divination, and other faculties that would be too +long to recount here. Notwithstanding such as cannot be restrained from +the exercise of the malignancy of the evil spirit, [there is hope that] +by the lapse of time, and after my extinction here on earth, my writings +will be more valued than during my lifetime. + +However, if I err in calculation of ages, or find myself unable to please +all the world, may it please your Imperial Majesty to forgive me, for +I protest before God and His saints, that I purpose to insert nothing +whatever in writing this present Epistle that shall militate against the +true Catholic Faith, whilst consulting the astronomical calculations to +the very best of my knowledge. For the stretch of time of our forefathers +[_i.e._ the age of the world] which has gone before is such, submitting +myself to the direction of the soundest chronologists, that the first +man, Adam, was about one thousand two hundred and forty years before +Noah, not computing time by Gentile records, such as Varro has committed +to writing, but taking simply the Sacred Scriptures for the guide in my +astronomic reckonings, to the best of my feeble understanding. After +Noah, from him and the universal deluge, about one thousand and fourscore +years, came Abraham, who was a sovereign astrologer according to some; he +first invented the Chaldæan alphabet. Then came Moses, about five hundred +and fifteen or sixteen years later. Between the time of David and Moses +five hundred and seventy years elapsed. Then after the time of David +and the time of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, born of a pure +Virgin, there elapsed (according to some chronographers) one thousand +three hundred and fifty years. + +Some, indeed, may object to this supputation as not true, because it +varies from that of Eusebius. Since the time of the human redemption to +the hateful apostacy of the Saracens, there have been six hundred and +twenty-one years, or thereabouts. Now, from this it is easy to gather +what time has elapsed if my supputation be not good and available for +all nations, for that all is calculated by the celestial courses, +associated in my case with an emotion that steals over me at certain +subsecival hours from an emotional tendency handed down to me from a +line of ancestors. But the injuriousness of our time, O most serene +Sovereign, requires that such secret events should not transpire, except +in enigmatic sentences, having but one sense and one only meaning, and +quite unmingled with calculation that is of ambiguity or amphibology. +Say, rather, under a veiled obscurity from some natural emotional +effusion, that resembles the sentential delivery of the thousand and two +Prophets, that have been from the Creation of the world, according to +the calculation and Punic Chronicle of Joel: “_Effundum spiritum meum +super omnem carnem, et prophetabunt filii vestri, et filiæ vestræ._”[38] +But this prophecy proceeded from the mouth of the Holy Spirit, which was +the sovereign power eternal, in conjunction with the celestial bodies, +has caused some of the number to predict great and marvellous events. + +As to myself in this place, I set up no claim to such a title—never, +please God. I fully confess that all proceeds from God, and for that +I return Him thanks, honour, and immortal praise, and have mingled +nothing with it of the divination which proceeds _à fato_, but _à Deo, à +naturâ_,[39] and for the most part accompanied with the movement of the +celestial courses. Much as, if looking into a burning mirror [we see], as +with darkened vision, the great events, sad or portentous, and calamitous +occurrences that are about to fall upon the principal worshippers. First +upon the temples of God, secondly upon such as have their support from +the earth [_i.e._ by the kings], this decadence draweth nigh, with a +thousand other calamitous incidents that in the course of time will be +known to happen. + +For God will take notice of the long barrenness of the great Dame, who +afterwards will conceive two principal children. But, she being in great +danger, the girl she will give birth to with risk at her age of death in +the eighteenth year, and not possible to outlive the thirty-sixth, will +leave three males and one female, and he will have two who never had +any of the same father. The three brothers will be so different, though +united and agreed, that the three and four parts of Europe will tremble. +By the youngest in years will the Christian monarchy be sustained and +augmented; heresies spring up and suddenly cast down, the Arabs driven +back, kingdoms united, and new laws promulgated. Of the other children +the first shall possess the furious crowned Lions, holding their paws +upon the bold escutcheon. The second, accompanied by the Latins, shall +penetrate so far that a second trembling and furious descent shall be +made, descending Mons Jovis [at Barcelona] to mount the Pyrenees, shall +not be translated to the antique monarchy, and a third inundation of +human blood shall arise, and March for a long while will not be found in +Lent. The daughter shall be given for the preservation of the Christian +Church, the dominator falling into the Pagan sect of new infidels, and +she will have two children, the one fidelity, the other infidelity, by +the confirmation of the Catholic Church. The other, who to his great +confusion and tardy repentance wished to ruin her, will have three +regions over a wide extent of leagues, that is to say, Roumania, Germany, +and Spain, which will entail great intricacy of military handling, +stretching from the 50th to the 52nd degree of latitude. And they will +have to respect the more distant religions of Europe and the north above +the 48th degree of latitude, which at first in a vain timidity will +tremble, and then the more western, southern, and eastern will tremble. +Their power will become such, that what is brought about by union and +concord will prove insuperable by warlike conquest. By nature they will +be equal, but exceedingly different in faith. + +After this the sterile Dame, of greater power than the second, shall be +received by two nations, by the first made obstinate by him who had power +over all, by the second, and third, that shall extend his forces towards +the circuit of the east of Europe; [arrived] there his standards will +stop and succumb, but by sea he will run on to Trinacria and the Adriatic +with his mirmidons. The Germans will succumb wholly and the Barbaric sect +will be disquieted and driven back by the whole of the Latin race. Then +shall begin the grand Empire of Antichrist in the Atila and Xerxes, [who +is] to descend with innumerable multitudes, so that the coming of the +Holy Spirit, issuing from the 48th degree, shall make a transmigration, +chasing away the abomination of Antichrist, that made war upon the royal +person of the great vicar of Jesus Christ, and against His Church, and +reign _per tempus, et in occasione temporis_ [for a time, and to the end +of time]. This will be preceded by an eclipse of the sun, more obscure +and tenebrose than has ever been since the creation of the world, up to +the death and passion of Jesus Christ, and from thence till now. There +will be in the month of October a grand revolution [translation] made, +such that one would think that the librating body of the earth had lost +its natural movement in the abyss of perpetual darkness. There will be +seen precursive signs in the spring-time, and after extreme changes +ensuing, reversal of kingdoms, and great earthquakes [_i.e._ wars]. +All this accompanied with the procreations of the New Babylon [Paris], +a miserable prostitute big with the abomination of the first holocaust +[death of Louis XVI]. It will only continue for seventy-three years seven +months. + +Then there will issue from the stock so long time barren, proceeding from +the 50th degree, [one] who will renovate the whole Christian Church. A +great peace, union, and concord will then spring up between some of the +children of races [long] opposed to each other and separated by diverse +kingdoms. Such a peace shall be set up, that the instigator and promoter +of military faction by means of the diversity of religions, shall dwell +attached to the bottom of the abyss, and united to the kingdom of the +furious, who shall counterfeit the wise. The countries, towns, cities, +and provinces that had forsaken their old customs to free themselves, +enthralling themselves more deeply, shall become secretly weary of their +liberty, and, true religion lost, shall commence by striking off to the +left, to return more than ever to the right. + +Then replacing holiness, so long desecrated by their former writings +[circulating slanders], afterwards the result will be that the great +dog will issue as an irresistible mastiff [Napoleon?] who will destroy +everything, even to all that may have been prepared in time past, till +the churches will be restored as at first, and the clergy reinstated in +their pristine condition; till it lapses again into whoredom and luxury, +to commit and perpetrate a thousand crimes. And, drawing near to another +desolation, then, when she shall be at her highest and sublimest point +of dignity, the kings and generals [_mains militaires_] will come up +[against her], and her two swords will be taken from her, and nothing +will be left her but the semblance of them. [The following paragraph +I can make nothing of, so I give it in the words of Garencières and +in inverted commas.] “From which by the means of the crookedness that +draweth them, the people causing it to go straight, and not willing to +submit unto them by the end opposite to the sharp hand that toucheth the +ground they shall provoke.” Until there shall be born unto the branch +a long time sterile, one who shall deliver the French people from the +benign slavery that they voluntarily submitted to, putting himself under +the protection of Mars, and stripping Jupiter [Napoleon I.] of all his +honours and dignities, for the city constituted free and seated in +another narrow Mesopotamia. The chief and governor shall be cast from the +midst, and set in a place of the air, ignorant of the conspiracy of the +conspirators [Fouché, Duc d’Otranto, etc.] with the second Thrasibulus, +who for a long time had prepared all this. Then shall the impurities and +abominations be with great shame set forth and manifested to the darkness +of the veiled light, shall cease towards the end of his reign, and the +chiefs of the Church shall evince but little of the love of God, whilst +many of them shall apostatize from the true faith. + +Of the three sects [Lutheran, Catholic, and Mahometan], that which is +in the middle, by the action of its own worshippers, will be thrown a +little into decadence. The first totally throughout Europe, and the +chief part of Africa exterminated by the third, by means of the poor in +spirit, who by the madness engendered of libidinous luxury, will commit +adultery [_i.e._ apostatize]. The people will pull down the pillar, and +chase away the adherents of the legislators, and it shall seem, from +the kingdoms weakened by the Orientals, that God the Creator has loosed +Satan from the infernal prisons, to make room for the great Dog and Dohan +[Gog and Magog], which will make so great and injurious a breach in the +Churches, that neither the reds nor the whites, who are without eyes and +without hands [meaning the latter Bourbons, “who learn nothing and forget +nothing”], cannot judge of the situation, and their power will be taken +from them. Then shall commence a persecution of the Church such as never +was before. Whilst this is enacting, such a pestilence shall spring up +that out of three parts of mankind two shall be removed. To such a length +will this proceed that one will neither know nor recognize the fields +or houses, and grass will grow in the streets of the cities as high as +a man’s knees. To the clergy there shall be a total desolation, and the +martial men shall usurp what shall come back from the City of the Sun +[Rome], and from Malta, and the Islands of Hières [off Marseilles], and +the great chain of the port shall be opened that takes its name from the +marine ox [Bosphorus]. + +A new incursion shall be made from the maritime shores, eager to give the +leap of liberty since the first taking by the Mahometans. Their assaults +shall not be at all in vain, and in the place where the habitation of +Abraham was, it shall be assailed by those who hold the Jovialists +[followers of Jupiter (Napoleon I.?)] in reverence. The city of Achem [in +the Island of Sumatra] shall be encompassed and assaulted on all sides +by a great force of armed men. Their maritime forces shall be weakened +by the Westerns. Upon this kingdom a great desolation shall come, and +the great cities shall be depopulated, and such as enter in shall come +under the vengeance of the wrath of God. The Holy Sepulchre, for so long +a period an object of great veneration, shall remain exposed to the +blighting dew of evening under the stars of heaven, and of the sun and +moon. The holy place shall be converted into a stable for cattle small +and large, and applied to other base purposes. Oh, what a calamitous +time will that be for women with child! for then the Sultan of the East +will be vanquished, driven for the most part by the Northern and Western +men, who will kill him, overthrow him, and put the rest to flight, and +his children, the offspring of many women, imprisoned. Then will come to +its fulfilment the prophecy of the Royal Prophet, “_Ut audiret gemitus +compeditorum, et solveret filios interemptorum._”[40] + +What great oppression shall then fall upon the princes and rulers of +kingdoms, even on those who are maritime and Oriental, their tongues +intermingled from all nations of the earth! Tongues of the Latin nations, +mingled with Arabic and North-African communication. All the Eastern +kings will be driven away, overthrown, and exterminated, not at all by +means of the kings of the North and the drawing near of our age, but +by means of the three secretly united who seek out death and snares by +ambush sprung upon one another. The renewal of this Triumvirate shall +endure for seven years, while its renown shall spread all over the world, +and the sacrifice of the holy and immaculate wafer shall be upheld. Then +shall two lords of the North conquer the Orientals, and so great report +and tumultuary warfare shall issue from these that all the East shall +tremble at the noise of these two brothers of the North, who are yet +not brothers. And because, Sire, by this discourse I almost introduce +confusion into these predictions as to the time when the event of each +shall fall out; for the detailed account of the time that follows is very +little conformable, if at all, to what I gave above, that indeed could +not err, being by astronomic rule and consonant with the Holy Scriptures +themselves. + +Had I wished to give to every quatrain its detailed date, it could +easily have been done, but it would not have been agreeable to all, +and still less to interpret them, Sire, until your Majesty should have +fully sanctioned me to do this, in order not to furnish calumniators +with an opportunity to injure me. Always reckoning the years since the +creation of the world to the birth of Noah as being 1506 years, and +from that to the completion of the building of the ark at the period +of the universal deluge 600 years elapsed (let them be solar years, or +lunar, or mixed), I hold that the Scripture takes them to be solar. At +the conclusion of this 600 years, Noah entered the ark to escape the +deluge. The deluge was universal over the earth, and lasted one year and +two months. From the conclusion of the deluge to the birth of Abraham +there elapsed 295 years, and 100 years from that to the birth of Isaac. +From Isaac to Jacob 60 years. From the time he went into Egypt until his +coming out of it was 130 years; and from the entry of Jacob into Egypt +to his exit was 430 years; and from that to the building of the Temple +by Solomon in the fortieth year of his reign, makes 480 years. From the +building of the Temple to Jesus Christ, according to the supputation of +the Hierographs, there passed 490 years. Thus by this calculation that +I have made, collecting it out of the sacred writings, there are about +4173 years and eight months less or more. Now, from Jesus Christ, in that +there is such a diversity of opinion, I pass it by, and having calculated +the present prophecies in accordance with the order of the chain which +contains the revolution, and the whole by astronomical rule, together +with my own hereditary instinct. After some time, and including in it the +period Saturn takes to turn between the 7th of April up to the 25th of +August; Jupiter from the 14th of June to the 7th of October; Mars from +the 17th of April to the 22nd of June; Venus from the 9th of April to the +22nd of May; Mercury from the 3rd of February to the 24th of the same; +afterwards from the 1st of June to the 24th of the same; and from the +25th of September to the 16th of October, Saturn in Capricorn, Jupiter +in Aquarius, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Pisces, Mercury within a month +in Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces; the moon in Aquarius, the Dragon’s +head in Libra, the tail in her sign opposite. Following the conjunction +of Jupiter to Mercury, with a quadrin aspect of Mars to Mercury, and the +head of the Dragon shall be with a conjunction of Sol with Jupiter, the +year shall be peaceful without eclipse. + +Then will be the commencement [of a period] that will comprehend in +itself what will long endure [_i.e._ the vulgar advent of the French +Revolution], and in its first year there shall be a great persecution of +the Christian Church, fiercer than that in Africa [by the Vandals from +1439 to 1534], and this will burst out [_durera_] the year one thousand +seven hundred and ninety-two; they will think it to be a renovation of +time. After this the people of Rome will begin to reconstitute themselves +[in 1804, when Napoleon is emperor], and to chase away the obscurity of +darkness, recovering some share of their ancient brightness, but not +without much division and continual changes. Venice after that, in great +force and power, shall raise her wings very high, not much short of the +force of ancient Rome. At that time great Byzantine sails, associated +with the Piedmontese by the help and power of the North, will so restrain +them that the two Cretans will not be able to maintain their faith. The +arks built by the ancient warriors will accompany them to the waves of +Neptune. In the Adriatic there will be such permutations, that what was +united will be separated, and that will be reduced to a house which +before was a great city, including the Pampotan and Mesopotamia of +Europe, to 45, and others to 41, 42, and 47. And in that time and those +countries the infernal power will set the power of the adversaries of +its law against the Church of Jesus Christ. This will constitute the +second Antichrist, which will persecute that Church and its true vicar, +by means of the power of the temporal kings, who in their ignorance will +be reduced by tongues that will cut more than any sword in the hands of a +madman. + +The said reign of Antichrist will only last to the death of him who was +born near the [commencement] of the century, and of the other in the +city of Plancus [Lyons], accompanied by him the elect of Modena, Fulcy +by Ferara, upheld by the Adriatic Piedmontese, and the proximity of the +great Trinacria [Sicily]. Afterwards the Gallic Ogmion shall pass the +Mount Jovis [Barcelona], accompanied by so great a number that from +afar the Empire shall be presented with its grand law, and then and for +some time after shall be profusely shed the blood of the innocent by +the guilty recently elevated to power. Then by great deluges the memory +of things contained in such instruments shall suffer incalculable loss, +even to the Alphabet itself. This will happen among the Northerns. By +the Divine Will once again Satan will be bound, and universal peace +established amongst mankind, and the Church of Jesus Christ delivered +from all tribulation, although the Azostains [debauched voluptuaries] +would desire to mix with the honey the gall of their pestilent seduction. +This will be near the seventh millenary, when the sanctuary of Jesus +Christ will no longer be trodden down by the infidels who come from the +North; the world [will be then] approaching its great conflagration, +although by my supputation in my prophecies, the course of time runs much +farther on. + +In the epistle that some years since I dedicated to my son Cæsar +Nostradamus, I have openly enough declared some points without presage. +But here, Sire, are comprised many great and marvellous events to +come, which those who follow after us shall see. And during the said +astrological supputation, harmonized with the sacred Scriptures, the +persecution of the Ecclesiastics shall take its rise in the power of the +kings of the North, united with the Easterns. And this persecution shall +last eleven years, or somewhat less, by which time the chief Northern +king shall pass away, which years being run, a united Southern king +shall succeed, which shall still more fiercely persecute the clergy of +the Church for the space of three years by the Apostolical seduction of +one who will take away all the absolute power from the Church Militant, +and holy people of God who observe its ritual, and the whole order of +religion shall be greatly persecuted and so afflicted that the blood +of true ecclesiastics shall float everywhere. To one of those horrible +temporal kings such praise shall be given by his adherents that he will +have shed more human blood of innocent ecclesiastics, than any could +do of wine. This king will commit crimes against the Church that are +incredible. Human blood will flow in the public streets and churches, +like water after impetuous rain, and will crimson with blood the +neighbouring rivers, and by another naval war redden the sea to such +a degree that one king shall say to another, “_Bellis rubuit navalibus +æquor._”[41] Then in the same year and those following there will ensue +the most horrible pestilence and the most astonishing on account of the +famine that will precede, and such tribulation that nothing approaching +it ever happened since the first foundation of the Christian Church; +this also throughout all the Latin regions, leaving traces in all the +countries under the rule of Spain. + +Then the third King of the North [Russia?], hearing the complaint of the +people from [whom he derives] his principal title, will raise up a mighty +army, and pass through the limits [_destroits_] of his last progenitors +and great-grandfathers, to him who will [_qui_ for _lui qui_] replace +almost everything in its old condition. The great Vicar of the Cope shall +be put back to his pristine state; but, desolated and abandoned by all, +will return to the sanctuary [that was] destroyed by Paganism, when the +Old and New Testament will be thrust out and burnt. After that Antichrist +will be the infernal prince. Then at this last epoch, all the kingdoms +of Christianity, as well as of the infidel world, will be shaken during +the space of twenty-five years, and the wars and battles will be more +grievous, and the towns, cities, castles, and all other edifices will +be burnt, desolated, and destroyed with much effusion of vestal blood, +married women and widows violated, sucking children dashed and broken +against the walls of towns; and so many evils will be committed by means +of Satan, the prince infernal, that nearly all the world will become +undone and desolated. Before the events occur certain strange birds +[imperial eagles] will cry in the air, “_To-day! to-day!_” and after a +given time will disappear [June, 1815]. After this has endured for a +certain length of time [twenty-five years he has said before, 1790 to +1815], there will be almost renewed another reign of Saturn, the age of +gold [this might be the discovery of California, but for what follows]. +God the Creator shall say, hearing the affliction of His people, Satan +shall be precipitated and bound in the bottomless abyss, and then shall +commence between God and men a universal peace. There he shall abide for +the space of a thousand years, and shall turn his greatest force against +the power of the Church, and shall then be bound again. + +How justly are all these figures adapted by the divine letters to visible +celestial things, that is to say, by Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and +others in conjunction with them, as may be seen more at large by some +of the quatrains! I would have calculated it more deeply, and adapted +the one to the other; but, seeing, O most serene King, that some who are +given to censure will raise a difficulty, I shall take the opportunity +to retire my pen and seek my nocturnal repose. “_Multa etiam, O Rex +potentissime præclara, et sane in brevi ventura, sed omnia in hâc tuâ +Epistola, innectere non possumus, nec volumus, sed ad intellegenda quædam +facta, horrida fata pauca libanda sunt, quamvis tanta sit in omnes tua +amplitudo et humanitas homines, deosque pietas, ut solos amplissimo +et Christianissimo Regis nomine, et ad quem summa totius religionis +auctoritas deferatur dignus esse videare._”[42] But I shall only +beseech you, O most clement King, by this your singular and most prudent +goodness, to understand rather the desire of my heart, and the sovereign +wish I have to obey your most excellent Majesty, ever since my eyes +approached so nearly to your solar splendour, than the grandeur of my +work can attain to or acquire. + + _Faciebat_ MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS. + _Solonæ Petræ Provincæ._ + + From Salon this 27th June, 1558. + + + + +MAGIC. + + +Before we enter upon the historical application of those quatrains which +admit of interpretation, it will be well to devote a little attention +to the views of magic entertained by Nostradamus, to learn from his +own mouth what class of readers he proposed to address, and to gather, +as far as we may be able, in what manner he proceeded to cultivate the +spirit of prophecy and the divine gift with which he thought himself to +be endowed. Were he even as certainly an impostor as Cagliostro, this +inquiry would have an interest of its own attaching to it; but if we can +for a moment suppose that he genuinely believed himself to be endowed +with a faculty of divination, the investigation of that assumption on +his part would present a considerable psychological interest merely as a +human phenomenon. On the other hand, if he were a man truly gifted with +forecast, I do not know that, in this age of scepticism as to things +spiritual, anything more wholesome could be proposed to our contemplation +than a prophetic record fulfilling itself before the eyes of disbelievers +and gainsayers; who, wishing to scoff and desiring to suppress such +things, find themselves utterly powerless to annul the harmony between +the vision recorded three hundred years ago and the event of yesterday. +Whether such things are or not, it will be for the reader, when he has +gone through the book, to say. At present we will only busy ourselves +with what Nostradamus says of himself. He is a notability and worthy of +criticism, be the final verdict for or against him. + +At the end of Century VI. occur four Latin lines headed— + + +LEGIS CANTIO CONTRA INEPTOS CRITICOS. [I. 51.] + + Qui legent hosce versus maturè censunto, + Profanum vulgus et inscium ne attrectato, + Omnesque Astrologi, Blenni, Barbari procul sunto. + Qui aliter facit, is ritè sacer esto. + +The sense of these lines is much clearer than the prosody, but that +matters little. + +_Translation._ + +AN INCANTATION IN ARREST OF INEPT CRITICS. + + Let those who read these verses meditate them seriously! + Let the profane and ignorant vulgar not handle them! Let + astrologers, fools, and savages stand off! Who acts contrary to + this, let him be cursed according to the rites of magic. + +We now come to the magic formula. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 1._ [I. 52.] + + Estant assis de nuict secret estude, + Seul, reposé sur la sele[43] d’airain, + Flambe exigue sortant de solitude, + Fait prospèrer[44] qui[45] n’est à croire vain. + +_Translation._ + + Gathered at night in study deep I sate, + Alone, upon the tripod stool of brass, + Exiguous flame came out of solitude, + Promise of magic that may be believed. + + Being seated at night and wrapt in secret study, entirely + alone, I placed myself on the brazen tripod of prophecy. A + still small flame came forth of solitude, helping me to realize + successfully what it will not prove vain to have believed. + +The reader will here refer to the “Préface à mon fils,” p. 48. + + “L’entendement créé intellectuellement ne peut voir + occultement, sinon par la voix faicte au lymbe moyennant + la exigue flame, en laquelle partie les causes futures se + viendront à incliner.” + +This passage conveys in prose what the last and the following quatrain +conveys in verse. + + +THE MAGICAL CALL BY WATER. [I. 53.] + +_Century I.—Quatrain 1._ + + La verge[46] en main mise au milieu de BRANCHES, + De l’Onde il mouille et le limbe,[47] et le pied: + Un peur et voix fremissent par[48] les manches; + Splendeur divine, Le Divin prés s’assied. + +_Translation._ + + The rod in hand set in the midst of the Branches, + He moistens with water both the fringe and foot; + Fear and a voice make me quake in my sleeves; + Splendour divine, the God is seated near. + +To make this entirely clear is almost impossible. But what we _can_ +get at is very curious, showing as it does, if nothing else, that the +border-land of the unseen world was actually contiguous with that of the +world of Nostradamus. They even overlapped, in his estimation, so as to +form an intermediate neutral territory like the marches in the North, +where the inhabitants of each district could meet and communicate. We +are positive that this is all illusive, superstitious, demoniacal. It +may be so. But one effect it undeniably produces. It unites man more to +the universe, and less to the world; it makes death less strange and +less cold, and furnishes to the soul, and the things of the soul, more +nutriment than it can extract from modern life and culture. + +The general meaning seems to be that he sat with a wand, branch, or +divining-rod of laurel, probably forked like the winchel rod of the +water-finders, one fork being held in each hand. This in some way had +power to evoke his Genius (or _génie familier_, as Le Pelletier styles +it). When he appeared, he moistened in the brazier that held water, +himself, the fringe of his robe (_limbe_), and his foot. The rod, held as +I have suggested, then becoming electrical, caused fear with the sound of +a voice and a shuddering up to the elbows. Then shone forth the fatidical +splendour of a divine light, and the Deity is present, seated near to him. + +M. le Pelletier tells us that there was a pagan rite of the god Branchus +that corresponded with this fatidical ceremony practised by Nostradamus. +He even suggests that this very Branchus might have been the familiar +spirit of our prophet. It must be admitted that in the _texte-type_, in +the words “_au milieu de_ BRANCHES,” _Branches_ is printed in capital +letters, so that the probable reason for that peculiarity is that the God +_Branchus_, as well as the _branches d’un laurier_, is shadowed forth. +But to suppose that a pagan deity could ever be either the familiar +or the guardian angel of a son of the Church of Rome makes such a +Renaissance-jumble of the two religions that I think we had better not +meddle with it. + +As to the assertion that there was a pagan rite of Branchus, I doubt it +much; and, if there were, certain it is that Nostradamus speaks here far +too covertly for us to assume from his writing that he was discharging +any rite special to Branchus. He seems to be following out the usual +magical forms employed for establishing vaticinatory connection with +the other world, or setting up the counter analogy between mind and +spirit, according to that beautiful esoteric verse in Ecclesiasticus +(xlvii. 24), “All things are double, one against another; He hath made +nothing imperfect.” Were such things never to interlink, men might well +say, as they do now in the wisdom of science, that spirit and intellect +are not doubles, and that no knowledge can be reached save by physical +experiment. In this case there will be a particular link missing if +science be right. The sage, _Estant assis de nuict secret estude_, will +earnestly desire such assumption may prove to be erroneous. He will +readily formulate with St. Paul that the invisible things from creation +may be known from the visible; but also that the visible things can +never be understood but by the invisible. Recollect that the visible is +not visible to the visible, but to the invisible alone. The eye is the +machine of sight, but not sight; and who has seen the eye of the eye? + +The Greek myth about Branchus, so far as I can see, is this, with sundry +forms and variations. He was a youth of Miletus. The reputed son of +Smicrus (_Lempriere_), or Macareus Varro says, but begotten by Apollo. +The mother dreamed that the sun entered her mouth, and, passing through +her, the child at birth was named _Branchus_, or βρόγχος, the throat. +Afterwards he kissed Apollo in the woods, and became endowed with the +gift of prophecy. He had a temple at Didyma, which Pausanias calls the +Temple of Apollo; but Varro goes on to say that after the kiss of the +god he prophesied, but quickly after disappeared, when a grand temple +was jointly dedicated to him and to Apollo,—_Philesius_, from φιλεῖν, to +kiss. His oracles at Didyma were inferior to none but Delphi. The name +Didymean, _double_ or _twain_, was from the double light of the sun and +its reflection in the moonlight. Sun-touched and moon-struck madness and +inspiration may in Branchus be said to meet, as out of one throat come +things good and evil. The name Didymean was changed to Branchidæ Strabo +(Book xiv.) relates that the priests of this grand temple betrayed its +treasures to Xerxes, and accompanied him in his retreat to escape the +punishment of their sacrilege. They had settled near to Sogdiana, when +Alexander arrived there (Strabo, Book xi.); he destroyed them and their +city. This Byronical madman, who could see no iniquity in the slaughter +of thousands to gratify the lust of a crack-brained ambition, thought +to promote morals by slaughtering the descendants of traitors, they, +the descendants, being innocent of everything except being born. The +Milesians had long ago rebuilt the temple of Branchus on such a scale +that in magnitude it surpassed all others in Greece. It was, in fact, too +big to be roofed in, being four or five stadia in compass. Those who wish +to see more can consult Suidas, s. v., βραγχίδαι. + +The gloss of M. le Pelletier on the quatrain is as follows: that +Nostradamus, wand in hand, touches the branches of the tripod, like +the priests of Branchus (this I have tried to expunge), and invokes +his familiar spirit, which appears to him in the vapour floating above +a basin of water, which he had consecrated beforehand according to +prescribed magical rites, and in which he dips the fringe of his garment, +and his feet. An involuntary shivering (_peur_) agitates his hand when +about to write from the dictation (_voix_) of the spirit. The fatidical +light shines, and the angel is seated at his side. Le Pelletier takes +occasion here to remark that mediums at this day write under a spirit of +dictation, to which they simply lend their arm as an instrument. + +Garencières’ interpretation is that of most of the old commentators, even +down to the time of M. Bareste, 1840. The rod is a pen, in the middle of +the branches means his fingers, the water is the ink, and wetting limb +and foot is covering the paper all but the four margins. It is hardly +unfair to say that this is both nonsensical and ignorant, although not +devoid of ingenuity. I think it will fit the circumstances far better to +take it, as I have done, that the wand was a forked laurel branch that +dipped forcibly, like the winchel rod, when Nostradamus held it over the +water, that it strained, as the hazel-rod does, almost to breaking; and +that at this invitation it is to be supposed that the spirit appears. The +incantation being completed and successful, the operator must be supposed +to set aside the winchel, and assume the pen, quaking with a solemn sense +of the spiritual presence. This fear was, Garencières says, to prevent +the puffing up of pride, as we read in Daniel, John, and the 4th of +Esdras. + +Readers who take no interest in this, and are consequently weary by this +time of the length we have run into in the investigation, will leap over +what follows to get to the next quatrain. + +M. le Pelletier refers to Ficinus’ translation of Jamblicus’ “De +Mysteriis Ægyptiorum,” 1607. He gives the Latin and French. I will merely +introduce here the English translation, as the book is of easy reference +to those who wish to examine further for themselves the sources which +Nostradamus had consulted, and from which he drew his summary exposition. + + “The sibyl at Delphi received the god in two forms,—either by a + subtle and fiery spirit, which burst forth upon any one through + the crevice of some cavern, or else sitting on a brazen seat of + four or three feet in the inner shrine, dedicated to the god, + and where she was exposed on two sides to the divine influx, + whence she was irradiate with a divine light” (p. 66). + + “Now, the prophetess of Branchus either sits upon a pillar, or + holds in her hand a rod bestowed by some deity, or moistens + her feet or the hem of her garment with water, or inhales the + vapour of water, and by these means is filled with divine + illumination, and, having obtained the deity, she prophesies. + By these practices she adapts herself to the god, whom she + receives from without” (p. 67). + + “Porphyrius says that the art [or magic] is not to be despised + which, out of certain vapours due to fire under favourable + stellar influences, forms the images of gods spontaneously + appearing in the air, in a certain degree like the gods + themselves, and possessing a very similar efficacy” (p. 91). + + “For amongst the demons there is one who is chief, and who + exercises influence at the moment of birth, and apportions to + each his demon (or familiar). After this there is present to + each one his own guardian, that develops a _cultus_ congruous + to his nature, and teaches him both his name and the most + suitable form of invocation (to bring him when required), and + this method is most congenial to the demons” (p. 171). + +These forms of Jamblicus are analogous to those employed by Nostradamus; +but there the person prophesying wets the feet and fingers, whilst +according to our version of the quatrains it is the demon or spirit +applies them to himself: _Le Divin près s’assied_. In Jamblicus the one +who prophesies becomes possessed by entry of the spirit. Nostradamus +describes an external and visible presence which corresponds to +Porphyrius’ account of _deorum idola in aere_. + + +CORPOREAL DEMONS. [I. 59.] + +_Century I.—Quatrain 42._ + + La dix Calendes d’Avril de faict gotique + Resuscité encor par gens malins: + Le feu estainct, assemblée diabolique + Cherchant les os du Damant et Pselin.[49] + +_Translation._ + + The 10th of the Calends of April Gothic computation have + been again put in practice by sorcerers (_gens malins_). The + lights put out, the diabolic assembly searching for the Demon + [_Damant_ for _Démon_] treated of by Michael Psellus. + +The _texte-type_ is most corrupt in this quatrain; for _Damant et Pselin_ +read _Démon e or ex Pselin_, the demon as treated of by Psellus. + +The scholium of M. le Pelletier on this is—The magical incantations, +which were successful formerly when wrought on the night of Good Friday, +were re-introduced into practice by sorcerers of skill on the 10th Calend +of April according to the ancient computation (_de faict gotique_). In +a note added he professes that the 10th Calend Old Style would be the +last day of March by the Gregorian, and he thinks it probable, that +Nostradamus here designates some particular year, when Good Friday fell +on the 31st of March. Garencières upon this notes that it falls on the +23rd of March, called Gothic, because adhered to by the northern nations +long after the Gregorian had been adopted at Rome. I do not see how the +10th Calend could ever fall on the 31st, nor indeed what the 31st has to +do with the matter. Those who are more familiar with such calculations +may perhaps explain. Like the witches’ sabbath, these diabolic meetings +were accompanied by the lewdest rites, as will at once be seen by the +following passage from Psellus, which I leave untranslated. It is from +the Latin translation of Psellus by Marsilius Ficinus, and will be found +in his collected works (ii. 884) in folio ed. 1641. + + “Euchetæ et gnosci, ut dæmonia toto concipiant pectore, + nefanda sacrificia perpetrant. Conveniunt die quo passus est + Salvator,[50] vespere, statutum in locum, unà cum puellis sibi + notis, et post quædam sacra extinctis luminibus,[51] mistim + coëunt, sive cum sorore, sive cum filiâ, sive cum quâlibet” + (_Psellus_ as above, p. 884). + + “There is a further kind of vaticination by a basin, by means + of which rustics frequently predict. Just as there is a mode + of predicting by means of the air and the leaves of trees, so + there is a kind of predictive power in the basin, known and + practised by the Assyrians, which has a great similarity to + this incarnation or coupling of demons with matter. Thus those + about to prophesy take a basin full of water, which attracts + the spirits moving stealthily in the depths (_dæmonibus + congruentem in profunda repentibus._) Le Pelletier translates + this, _approprié à l’usage des démons cachés au fond des eaux_. + The basin then, full of water, seems in sort to breathe (or + move) as with sounds (_s’il allait émettre des sons_); it + seems to me that the water was agitated with circular ripples, + as from some sound emitted below. Now, this water diffused + through the basin differs but little in kind from water out of + the basin, but yet it much excels it from a virtue imparted to + it by the charms [that have been droned over it], and which + have rendered it more apt to receive the spirit of prophecy. + For this description of spirit is tetchy and terrene, and + much under the influence of composite spells. When the water + begins to lend itself as the vehicle of sound, he [the spirit] + also presently gives out a thin reedy note [of satisfaction], + but devoid of meaning; and close upon that, whilst the water + is undulating, certain weak and peeping sounds whisper forth + predictions of the future. A spirit of this kind is vagrant + everywhere, for he is endowed with the solar pass [so that our + terrestrial atmosphere lies everywhere open to him], and that + order of spirits, in the work appointed to it, speaks at all + times with a subdued voice, that by its indistinct obscurity + it may be less easy to seize the falsehoods that it utters” + (Psellus as above, p. 885). + +From the mode in which Psellus describes the matter in hand, it is very +perceptible that he was no great conjuror, and was merely speaking upon +hearsay and report. If lies were the business of the spirit, he would be +no prophet. Again, if he wished to circulate lies, he must still make +things clear enough to his votaries for them to circulate them and work +mischief thereby. Are we to suppose that, like an abandoned human being, +he had some sense of shame left still, and, like Lord John Russell, would +only tell as few lies as possible? Psellus’s demon is so foolish that he +would soon have been without any one to consult his shrine. He could not +have given a reason for his own conduct, in the past or present, and was +the last being that any one would resort to to anticipate intelligence +of the future. Still the procedure might have been somewhat as Psellus +describes it, although the reasons could not. + +An historian of the fourth century, and a man of veracity, Marcellinus +has given us curious details of how prophetical tripods were considered +by the Romans in his day. It comes out quite naturally in the judicial +proofs investigating a conspiracy against the life of Valens the Emperor; +what we should call a state trial. The conspirators were put to the +torture, and as an item in the indictment the figure of a little table +becomes prominent, as to which the accused were questioned by the judges. +At last one of them, Hillarius, broken by pain, revealed the secret in +these words: + + “Honoured judges, we constructed this unfortunate little + table that you see here after the fashion of the tripod + [or, more strictly, the cauldron[52]] at Delphi, with dark + incantations, out of branches of laurel; and with imprecations + of secret song, and numerous ceremonies repeated over daily, + we consecrated it by magic rites, till at last we put it in + motion. When it reached this capacity of movement, as often as + we wished to interrogate it by secret inquiry, we proceeded + thus. + + “It was placed in the middle of a room (_in medio domûs_) + purified throughout by Arabian perfumes; a round dish was + simply laid upon it, formed of a composite material of many + metals. On the phlange of its outer round were skilfully + engraved the scriptile forms of the alphabet separated into + as many exactly measured spaces. Over this basin (or dish) + a man stood clothed in linen garments and shod with linen + socks, his head bound round with a turban-like tuft of hair, + and bearing a rod of vervain, the prospering plant. After + we had favourably conciliated the deity, who is the giver + of all presage, with duly formulated charms and ceremonial + knowledge, he communicated a gentle movement to a ring that + hung suspended over the basin.... This was tied up by an + exceedingly fine Carpathian thread, which had been initiated + with mystical observances. This ring, moving by little leaps + or jumps, so as to alight upon the distinct intervals with the + separate letters inscribed, each in its compartment to itself, + gives out in heroic verse answers suitable to the inquiries + made, comprehended perfectly in number and measure; such as + are called Pythic, or those delivered by the oracles of the + Branchidæ. + + “To us inquiring who should succeed to the present empire, + because it had been already mentioned that it would be one + entirely suitable [to our aim and purpose], the leaping ring + had glanced upon the two syllables THEO. With the last addition + of a letter [that is, D], a man present exclaimed, ‘THEODORUM,’ + the fatal necessity of the portent indicating as much. + Nothing further was sought upon this head; for it was agreed + amongst us that this was the individual we wanted” (_Ammianus + Marcellinus_, Rerum Gestarum, xxix. 1). + +In this case the ambiguity of the oracle is due to the precipitance of +the inquirers. The oracle was true as far as they allowed it to proceed, +but had they waited to spell it out they would have learned that the +name was not THEOD_orus_, but THEOD_osius_ the Great, who was to be the +successor to Valens. + +This is an authentic passage of high interest. It shows considerable +analogy with the table-turning of the moderns; it also gives insight +into singular and elaborate processes of divination by magic as being +frequently practised at Rome in the fourth century. Clearly the Pagans +had no notion in that century that oracles had at all finally ceased on +a Good Friday in the first century, or that Pan, the god of rumour, was +dead. The sun still shone to them as the Apollo of prophecy, and they +still sought presage of a spirit who was made free of the solar order +(_qui solarem ordinem est sortitus_). + + + + +HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS. + + +I shall now give a few detached historical fragments that relate to +France, commencing with the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, 1559, and running +down to the death of Louis XV., 1774, in chronological order, just as M. +le Pelletier has found the counterpart to lie embedded in the quatrains +of Nostradamus, in a fashion seemingly interpretable to him. This, for +any but French readers, will probably be sufficient to indicate the style +and value of the presages enveloped in the strange and fatidical diction +of the quatrains. I doubt not but that, by original research instituted +and by careful re-reading of the text throughout, a good many more of the +mysterious stanzas might be unravelled and elucidated; also by collation +of all that has been written by commentators on our author, a good deal +of light might be thrown upon what they have done, even where their own +interpretation has fallen short of clearness. All that my book purposes +to accomplish is,—at least for England,—to establish, without doubt, +and at once, for all future time, that Nostradamus is no impostor, but, +when rightly understood and unlocked, a very wonderful anticipator of +events to happen hereafter; and, farther than this, that his works are, +to all intents and purposes, the most startling oracles ever put on +paper by mortal man not professing divine inspiration. From immemorial +time instances of human prescience have occasionally been manifested. +The whole human race has an ardent and ingrain desire to search into and +anticipate futurity. Very few individuals, however, have from time to +time been able to gratify and keep alive their passion in this respect. +But no one has done so in a degree that at all sets him on a par with +Nostradamus in the felicitous and reiterated coruscations whereby he has +anticipated the more prominent points and epochs of time Future; and +sometimes in minuteness he even mentions by name some individual who +emerges though it be but for an instant from the general obscurity of his +life. + + +THE PEACE OF CATEAU-CAMBRESIS (APRIL 3, 1559). [I. 71.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 52._ + + La paix s’approche d’un costé, et la guerre + Oncques[53] ne fut la poursuitte si grande: + Plaindre hômes, femmes, sang innocent par terre, + Et ce sera de France a[54] toute bande. + +_Translation._ + + Peace approaches on one side, and [as to] war + Never was the pursuit of it so great: + Men and women [have cause] to weep innocent blood on earth; + All through France it shall be from end to end. + +The peace was that concluded with Spain at Cateau-Cambresis, whilst the +war, carried on with such hot pursuit, was the civil conflict that raged +between Romanist and Calvinist. This it was made men and women lament +the blood spilt upon the earth in all parts of France, from north to +south. + + +DEATH OF HENRI II. (JULY 10, 1559). [I. 72.] + +_Century I.—Quatrain 35._ + + Le lyon jeune le vieux surmontera + En champ bellique par singulier duelle: + Dans cage d’or[55] les yeux lui crevera, + Deux classes[56] une,[57] puis mourir, mort cruelle. + +_Translation._ + + The young lion shall overcome the old + On the field of war in single combat [duelle]; + He will pierce his eyes in a cage of gold. + This is the first of two loppings, then he dies a cruel death. + +Montgomery, who at the moment of the narrative bore the name of Captain +Coryes (Garencières, p. 25), afterwards became Earl of Montgomery, +overthrew Henri II. (_le vieux lion_) in the tournay-lists or duel, and +pierced him above the eye through the gilt visor of his helmet. This is +the first of the two blows that will destroy the dynastic tree of the +house of Valois. Henri II., wounded mortally, shall be the first to die a +violent death; whilst his son, Henri III., will be the second, who fell +by the hand of Jacques Clément. + + +August 1. 1589. + +This is a very celebrated quatrain. It is found in the earliest edition +of the quatrains published at Lyons in 1555, containing merely 300 +quatrains. It lifted Nostradamus into celebrity at once. He had applied +it to Henri II. several years before it happened, and had even announced +it as a prediction to the King himself. He was well known to Henri II., +to whom he dedicated the last three Centuries, in a long and curious +epistle, which we have already given in full. The King seems to have +had infinite confidence in Nostradamus, for he let him draw the royal +horoscope, as well as that of his two children, in 1556. + +The story of this is curious, as given by Guynaud in his “Concordance +des Prophéties de Nostradamus,” 1712,[58] pp. 86-91. Henri II., it +would seem, proclaimed a tournament in the Rue St. Antoine, the site of +the Bastille, then in the country, for July 1, 1559, in honour of the +marriage of his daughter Elizabeth of France with Philip II. of Spain. He +listed himself as one against all comers. The joust being nearly over and +the sun setting, the Duc de Savoie begged him to quit the running, as his +side was already victorious; but the King wanted to break another lance +over it, and commanded the young Comte de Montgommeri, captain of his +Scotch Guard, to run a tilt in conclusion. He excused himself, but the +King insisted and grew angry. Of course the young man then obeyed, put +spurs to his horse, and struck the King upon the throat, below the vizor. +His lance shivered, and the butt raising the vizor, a splinter wounded +the King above the right eye, cutting several of the veins of the _pia +mater_. The King swooned. He lived on, however, for ten days in terrible +agony, as foretold in the prophecy, _Deux classes une, puis mourir, mort +cruelle_. Nostradamus styles both of them lions, as they both fought +under that device. The King wore a gilt helmet, so that the _cage d’or_ +was literally fulfilled. + +The strange part is that another astrologer, named Luc Gauric, had once +been visited by the King in company with two other gentlemen, to whom +he feigned to give precedence; but the astrologer, perhaps knowing him, +insisted on addressing him first, and told him he would die in a duel. He +also prophesied a violent death to the King’s companions, and managed to +displease the whole trio. The King said of this, “We are making peace now +with the King of Spain, so it is not very likely that I shall challenge +him, and as a king I could in no other way be challenged, whatever may +be the fate of the other gentlemen.” Guynaud quotes this story from +the Princesse de Clèves, who, in the second volume of her writings, +represents the Court as discussing the credibility of astrologers, the +prevalent opinion apparently being rather strong against them. Still, +we know that Henri II. greatly honoured Nostradamus. Prophetic warning +is evidently futile, for the King had two separate warnings and heeded +neither. + + +PRINCESSE DE CLÈVES. [II. 145.] + + Quelques jours après, le Roy étoit chez la Reine à l’heur du + Cercle; l’on parla des Horoscopes et des prédictions. Les + opinions étaient partagées sur la croyance que l’on y devoit + donner. La Reine y ajoûtait beaucoup de foi; elle soûtint + qu’après tant de choses qui avaient été prédites, et que l’on + avait vu arriver, on ne pouvait douter qu’il n’eut quelque + certitude dans cette science. D’autres soûtenaient, que parmi + ce nombre infini de prédictions, le peu qui se trouvaient + veritables, faisait bien voir que se n’etait qu’un effet du + hazard. + + “J’ai eu autrefois beaucoup de curiosité pour l’avenir,” dit + le Roy; “mais on m’a dit tant de choses fausses et si peu + vraisemblables que je suis demuré convaincu que l’on ne peut + rien savoir de véritable. Il y a quelques années qu’il devint + ici un homme d’une grande reputation dans l’Astrologie. Tout le + monde l’alla voir, j’y allai comme les autres, mais sans lui + dire qui j’étais, et je menai Monsieur de Guise et Descars, je + les fit passer le premier. L’Astrologue neanmoins s’addressa + d’abord à moi, comme s’il m’eut jugé le maitre des autres: + Peut-être qu’il me connaissait; cependant il me dit une chose + qui ne me convenait pas, s’il m’eut connu. Il me predit que + je serai tué en duel. Il dit ensuite à Monsieur de Guise, + qu’il serait tué par derrière, et à Descars, qu’il aurait la + tête cassée d’un coup de pied de cheval. Monsieur de Guise + s’offensa quasi de cette prédiction, comme si l’on eut accusé + de devoir fuir. Descars ne fut guerre satisfait de trouver + qu’il devait finir par un accident si malheureux. Enfin nous + sortimes tous très malcontents de l’astrologue. Je ne scais + ce qui arrivera à Monsieur de Guise et à Descars, mais il n’y + a guerre d’apparence que je sois tué en duel. Nous venons de + faire la paix le Roy d’Espagne et moi, quand nous ne l’aurions + pas faite, je doute que nous nous battions, et que je le fisse + appeller comme le Roy mon père fit rappeller Charles Quint.” + +The story, as told by the Princesse de Clèves, is fuller than I have +given it, but does not correspond at all with the version given to Lord +Bacon when in France, as told to him by Dr. Penn, who said (Bacon’s +“Essay on Prophecies”) that the queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, was +given to curious arts, and caused the King’s nativity to be cast under a +false name. The astrologer adjudged that he should be killed in a duel. +The queen laughed, supposing her husband to be above challenges to duel; +“but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of +Montgomery going in at his beaver.” History, in events large or small, +hath so many variants that any man, whose view of things is a little +sinister, may well be allowed to say all history is a variant of truth, +and all that is sure in it is that it cannot be relied upon at all. In +this case the astrologers were right, spite of the odds against them. + + +ARREST OF MONTGOMERY (MAY 27, 1574). [I. 73.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 30._ + + Celuy qu’en[59] luitte[60] et fer au faict bellique + Aura porté[61] plus grand qui luy le prix, + De nuict au lict six luy feront la pique, + Nud, sans harnois, subit[62] sera surprins.[63] + +_Translation._ + + To him who in strife and armour in the warlike field + Shall have carried away the prize from one greater than himself. + By night in bed six men will stab him; + Unprotected he will be surprised naked and unarmed. + +This means that Montgomery, who in joust (_au faict +bellique_,—_bellique_, we are told, means an engagement on horseback) +with lance in hand will have carried away the prize from Henri II. (_plus +grand que luy_) will be suddenly surprised in bed at night, naked and +unarmed, by six men, who will deliver him into the vengeful hands of +Catherine de Medici. + +Some say the dying King gave him free pardon; others report that he fled +to England to save himself: but at any rate he came to England, and there +embraced Protestantism. When he returned to France, he placed himself +at the head of the revolted Huguenots in Normandy, and was besieged in +Domfront by the Marshal de Matignon and a large force, to which he was +obliged to surrender. The terms of the surrender guaranteed his life, +but by express command of Catherine he was arrested in his own castle +of Domfront on the night of May 27, 1574, by six gentlemen of the royal +army, and carried to the Château of Caen, thence to the Conciergerie at +Paris, and there immured, where the great tower still goes by his name. + + +THE REGENCY OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI (1559-1574). [I. 74.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 63._ + + La Dame seule au regne demeurée, + D’unic esteint premier au lict d’honneur; + Sept ans sera de douleur esplorée, + Puis longue vie au regne par grand heur. + +_Translation._ + + The lady shall remain to rule alone, + Her unique spouse dead, who was first in the field of honour. + She will weep for grief through seven long years, + And gifted with long life will reign long. + +Catherine de Medici did not put off her weeds till August 1, 1566, seven +years and a few days from the death of the King in July, 1559, on her +return from a progress with her son Charles IX., in the course of which +she had visited all the mutinous cities throughout the kingdom, with a +view to satisfy them. She survived till the year 1589, and practically +retained the whole power during the reigns of her two eldest sons, +François II. and Charles IX., but she entirely lost it on the succession +of Henri III. + +The quatrain applies to no one so well as to Catherine de Medici; and, +if it be allowed to be realized as to her person, there is no denying +the singular exactitude of the prophecy. We have no evidence that the +Queen applied the quatrain to herself, or that her contemporaries bore +it in mind; but the second line is remarkable as assuming with reposeful +confidence the previous death of the King as predicted. The third line +is a startling example of the precision with which our prophet can mark +out the duration of a period: seven years the Queen is to wear mourning, +and she does so all the time she is travelling. The sceptical will say +she did it to fulfil the prophecy; but it looks rather as if that had +fallen quite out of remembrance, and as if it was due much more to +policy, and for the purpose of creating sympathy, during her state tour, +than to motives either of superstition or any singular attachment to her +deceased husband. The quatrain is most unobtrusively worded, and yet so +confidently assured and searching, that it seems to me, as if perfectly +unbiassed and disinterested observers might take it as a kind of moral +voucher for the simple integrity of its author. I merely draw attention +to it so far, and every reader will form his own judgment upon the point. +I hold myself aloof from theory; but this is how the particular fact we +are upon impresses my mind, and probably it may affect many others in +the same way. + + +EXTINCTION DES VALOIS (1559-1589). [I. 77.] + +_Presage 40._ + + De maison sept par mort mortelle suite; + Gresle, tempeste, pestilent mal, fureurs: + Roi d’Orient, d’Occident tous en fuite, + Subjuguera ses jadis conquereurs. + +_Translation._ + + The death of the house of seven by a suite of deaths, + Hail, tempest, pestilent evil, fury. + A king of the East will put all the West to flight, + And will subdue his at-one-time conquerors. + +The house of Valois consisted of the seven children of Henri II. By the +death of the fourth son, Henri III., in 1589, the whole of the seven were +dead except Marguerite, who married Henri IV., so that the family may +well be said to have died out by a suite of deaths (_mortelle suite_). +Heresy was rampant (_pestilent mal_) and civil war. Soliman II., called +the Magnificent, threatened all Christendom, and recovered all the Holy +Places that the Crusaders had wrested from his predecessors. + + +CIVIL WAR (1575, 1576). [I. 78.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 11._ + + Des septs rameaux à trois seront reduicts, + Les plus aisnés seront surprins[64] par mort, + Fratricider les deux seront seduicts, + Les conjurés en dormans seront morts. + +_Translation._ + + The seven branches when they shall be reduced to three, + And the four eldest shall have been surprised by death, + The two (males) shall entertain fratricidal aims, + And the conspirators sleeping shall be reduced to death. + +This means that, when the seven are become but three (_i.e._ the three +youngest), Henri III. and the Duc d’Alençon will enter upon a fratricidal +war. In 1575 Alençon escaped from the Court, where he was under +surveillance, and put himself at the head of the Malcontents, who were +in alliance with the Huguenots. He was successful, and forced the edict +of pacification, May 14, 1576, upon his brother the King. Daniel, in his +“History of France” under Henri III., shows that they mutually sought +each other’s death by dagger and poison. The Guise (_les conjurés_) and +the Leaguers will come by their deaths from indulging in a false security. + + +THE MURDER OF HENRI III. (1589). [I. 79.] + +_Century V.—Quatrain 67._ + + Quand chef Perouse n’osera sa tunique, + Sans au couvert tout nud s’expolier.[65] + Seront prins[66] sept, faict aristocratique! + Le père et fils morts par poincte au colier. + +_Translation._ + + When the chief of Perouse dare not risk casting off his tunic + Without stripping himself entirely naked, + The last of the seven taken, what an event in the upper circles! + Father and son killed by a stab in the throat. + +When Sixtus V. (_chef de Perouse_) will not dare to excommunicate Henri +III., having already lost England in 1534, and feeling he must not be +entirely stripped by a further Gallican schism, will be rid of the +posterity of Henri II. (_seront prins sept_) by a tremendous event in +aristocratic circles. Father and son will both perish by a thrust in the +throat. + + +DEATH OF THE GUISE (DECEMBER 23, 24, 1588). [I. 80.] + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 60._ + + Les sept enfans en hostaine[67] laissés; + Le tiers[68] viendra son enfant trucider[69]; + Deux par son fils seront d’estoc percés; + Gennes Florence les viendra enconder.[70] + +_Translation._ + + Seven children will be left in his house; + The _tiers état_ will come to murder his child; + Two will have been pierced by the sword of his son; + Genoa and Florence will come to disorder them. + +This is, Henri II. at his death will leave seven children in his house. +The _Conseil des Seize_ (_le tiers_) will incite Jacques Clément to go to +St. Cloud to assassinate Henri III., because he has caused Henri de Guise +and the Cardinal to be slain by sword thrusts. Then Charles Emmanuel I., +Duke of Savoy (_le Génois_), and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma (_le +Florentin_), General of Philip II., will come to make war on Henri IV., +who will be compelled by Farnese to raise the siege of Paris (1590) and +Rouen (1592) with precipitation. + +Parma was, originally, of Etruscan foundation (Bouillet, “Dictionnaire +d’Histoire” _s.v._ Parme), and in this respect rises above Florence, the +capital of Modern Tuscany. This justifies Nostradamus in designating the +Duke of Parma as _Florence_. Genoa, by synecdoche, may stand for Savoy, +as being its more commercial emporium. + + +BURIAL AT ST. DENIS OF THE LAST OF THE VALOIS (1589-1610). [I. 82.] + +_Century I.—Quatrain 20._ + + Serpens[71] transmis en la cage de fer + Où les enfans septains du Roy sont pris, + Les vieux et peres sortiront bas[72] de l’enfer,[73] + Ains mourir voir de fruict mort et cris. + +_Translation._ + + The coffin being lowered behind the grille of iron, + Where the seven children of the King are buried, + The ancestors of the Valois will rise from the depths of the tomb, + And cry out to see their withered fruit thus die. + +Henri III. was deposited, provisionally, in 1589, at Compiègne, in +the Abbey of St. Corneille; and it was only in 1610 that his body was +conveyed to the vaults of St. Denis, at the same time with the bodies of +Henri IV. and Catherine de Medici. This quatrain is not very remarkable, +but the interpretation hangs pretty well together. It has perhaps this +value, that it shows us one incident in a vast procession of historical +dissolving views that seem to have passed before the eye of Nostradamus, +and one would say in chronological sequence, which he must himself have +broken up purposely afterwards, fearing that the chronological clue would +often render the prophecy too open to interpretation to be good for +either his own safety or the public advantage. + + +MARRIAGE OF FRANÇOIS II. AND MARY STUART (APRIL 24, 1558). [I. 84.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 39._ + + Premier fils vefve[74] malheureux mariage + Sans nuls enfants, deux Isles en discord, + Avant dix-huict incompetant âge.[75] + De l’autre près[76] plus bas sera l’accord. + +_Translation._ + + The eldest son leaves, with his wretched marriage, + Widow, no children, and two isles in strife, + And dies before eighteen, incompetent of age. + The younger son will marry earlier still.[77] + +The matter seems to stand thus. François II., eldest son of Henri II., +shall die and leave his wife, Mary Stuart, a widow without children, +after an unhappy marriage that extends over less than two years, before +he is eighteen, or of competent age. The particularity of this detail +is wonderful, and far more like history than prophecy, except as to the +brevity with which it is expressed. His enunciations amount to hints +only, but they are so pregnant that, when you fill in the indispensably +connected particulars, the statement reads like history. So here the +instant you recognize that François II. is the subject of the lines, you +refer to history for his birth and death, January 19, 1543, December 15, +1560—that is, 17 years, 10 months, and 15 days, or a month and 15 days +short of 18 years. _Avant dix-huict_ is Nostradamus’s phrase. Again, +his death establishes discord between Elizabeth of England and Mary of +Scotland (_deux Isles en discord_). Charles IX., his younger brother, was +affianced to Elizabeth of Austria when still younger, at eleven years of +age, though he did not marry till twenty. This is how M. le Pelletier +harmonizes the line. But, as affiancing is not marriage, this cannot have +any affinity at all with marrying at an incompetent age. I should propose +to read the line thus. Of the younger one afterwards, and lower down, +will the concordance, account, or accord be given; and accordingly we +shall have now to enter upon several stanzas that relate to Charles IX. + + +CHARLES IX. (_Le roi farouche_). (1560-1574). [I. 86.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 66._ + + Le grand Baillif d’Orleans mis à mort + Sera par un de sang vindicatif: + De mort mérité ne mourra ni par sort; + Des pieds et mains mal le faisoit captif. + +_Translation._ + + The great Bailiff of Orleans shall be put to death + By one of vindictive blood: + Not undeserved death shall he die, nor by fate; + For they will insecurely make him captive by feet and hands. + +Jérôme Groslot shall be arrested November 9, 1561, and condemned by the +Inquisition to beheadal for delivering the city to the Calvinists. But +he will not suffer the death merited, nor undergo his fate; his keepers +being bribed, he shall escape. + + +DEFECTION OF ADMIRAL COLIGNY (1559-1567). [I. 87.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 75._ + + Le grand pillot[78] par Roy sera mandé,[79] + Laisser la classe[80] pour plus haut lieu atteindre: + Sept ans après sera contrebandé,[81] + Barbare armée viendra Venise craindre.[82] + +_Translation._ + + He who shall have been appointed admiral by the king, + Shall leave the fleet to take a higher post; + Seven years later, shall take the opposite side to the king; + Venice shall dread an army of barbarians coming. + +Gaspard de Coligny, made grand-admiral by Henri II., in 1552, shall quit +the fleet in 1559, on the death of the King, and place himself at the +head of the Calvinist party. In 1562 he will be general of their forces, +and in 1567—that is, seven years after withdrawal from the fleet, he will +head the rebellion in the civil war. At the same moment Venice will dread +the armies of Selim II., that will wrest Cyprus from her in 1570. The +peace between the Catholics and Protestants was signed at St. Germain in +this very year. The Venetians, however, in this year gained the naval +victory of Lepanto over the Turks in 1570. + + +MURDER OF LOUIS DE BOURBON, PRINCE OF CONDÉ (MARCH 13, 1569). [I. 88.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 41._ + + Bossu sera esleu par le conseil: + Plus hideux monstre en terre n’apperceu. + Le coup voulant crevera l’œil[83] + Le traistre au Roy pour fidelle receu. + +_Translation._ + + Crookback shall be elected by the council: + A more hideous monster never seen on earth. + An intentional shot pierces the eye of the traitor + Who had sworn to be faithful to the king. + +Prince Louis of Condé, the Humpback, shall be elected general-in-chief by +the council of notables of the Calvinists. Such a monster of wickedness +was never seen on earth. Montesquiou killed him with a pistol-shot in +the eye, who had twice escaped from his treasonous practices against +the King. Here Nostradamus’ forecast is miraculously clear, although it +has baffled Guynaud to find its concordance with events. He here also +exhibits his religious partisanship. A hunchback is always considered to +be morally as well as physically deformed; and, as Louis de Bourbon took +the side of the Calvinists, he became at once to our prophet _le plus +hideux monstre en terre_. Evidently, however, he was a grand fighting +fellow, and spent his life in camps, if we go no further than Moreri for +his history. He was condemned for a conspirator in 1560 to lose his +head. But the sentence was never carried out, as King François II. died +at the moment, and none was bold enough to see to it. When Charles IX. +set him at liberty, the _Cour des Pairs_ found out that he was innocent, +and declared him so. He perished at the battle of Jarnac. He had his leg +broken by the kick of a horse, and was seated at the foot of a bush when +Montesquiou, captain of the Duke of Anjou’s guards, saw him, and, for +some old pique, coolly, but like the veriest coward, shot the wounded +Condé in the eye with his pistol. The body was conveyed for burial to St. +George of Vendôme, either by chance or insult, on the back of a she ass, +at Jarnac; which led to one of those impromptu epitaphial epigrams that +the French turn so prettily: + + L’an mil cinq cens soixante neuf, + Entre Jarnac et Chateauneuf, + Fut porté mort sur une ânesse + Le grand ennemi de la Messe. + + (_v._ MORERI, _s.v._ _Louis de Bourbon_.) + + +ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY (AUGUST 24, 1572). [I. 89.] + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 47._ + + Le Noir[84] farouche, quand aura essayé + Sa main sanguine par feu, fer, arcs tendus,[85] + Trestous le peuple sera tant[86] effrayé + Voir les plus grans par col et pieds pendus. + +_Translation._ + + The savage king, when he shall have tried + His blood-stained hand with fire, sword, and bows, + All the people shall be terrified + To see the great hung by the neck and feet. + +When Charles IX. shall exercise his sanguinary hand with fire, the sword, +and the arquebus, the people will be horrified to see the great Calvinist +lords strung up by the neck and feet. One of the savage amusements of +Charles, in hunting, was to cut off at a single blow the heads of any +asses or pigs he came across on the way. During the very massacre he +placed himself at a window of the Louvre and took several shots with +a long arquebus at the Huguenots who fled from the other side of the +Seine in the Faubourg St. Germain. The body of Coligny was dragged by +the populace, at the end of a rope, through all the mud of the kennels, +and then hung up by one foot to the gibbet at Montfauçon. This 24th of +August fell on a Sunday. The King himself died two years after, with some +suspicion of poisoning. He is said to have been a man of high courage +and of a lively, quick wit, possessing a good share of eloquence; was +given much to dissimulation; and full of oaths, unreasonably violent, +and without self-control. He turned a verse well, and loved hunting. +His poems still remain, but I do not know they can ever command a +single reader. In speaking of poets, he used to say they ought to be +well fed, like good horses, but not satisfied, or they become lazy. The +world in general prefers to starve them if they are first-rate, and +enrich them if they are second-rate. We cannot expect people to reward +what they cannot understand: though inevitable, we cannot but deplore +the arrangement. With good abilities, Charles had so little judgment +that his actions would always have been mischievous; the best thing +that could have happened was his death at twenty-four. He is said to +have remarked, when dying, that he was glad to die young and have no +children, for he had sadly learnt, in his own case, how miserable is +the conduct of a prince who mounts the throne a child, and so governs +through the ministry of others. This only shows a little recovery to +sober reason, but none of the remorse that is attributed to him on his +death-bed, as being the ostensible author of the blackest act that has +ever disfigured Christianity or stained Europe. In perfidy and crime it +cannot be surpassed, nor as the outcome of religious perversion. The +crimes of an atheistic democracy, perpetrated two hundred years later on +the same theatre precisely, have only been able to surpass it, in the +carnal lusts exhibited, in the inhuman degradation of the body of man, +and in the ubiquity of iniquity, when the whole people are thirsting to +satiate their debased passions in sin. Nostradamus has elsewhere called +Paris the City of the Sword. It is the wine-press of the earth, fat with +the blood of man: Lutetia of mud and blood. Haussmann rebuilt it, but +nothing can cleanse it. Their very guillotine is an instrument contrived +to publicly gratify the populace in its tiger-taste for the reek of blood +in the streets of the City of Blood. If you wish to see the disgrace of +religion, read Sully’s description of the endeavour of the ferocious +priests on that day to have _his_ blood. Look also on the medal of +Gregory XIII.,[87] struck rejoicingly to commemorate that awful crime. +Bonanni shows it; and, as a work of medallic art, the head of the Pope +is of the very highest order of beauty and Italian grace. But, then, it +commemorates the blood of sixty thousand victims, he says. Ranke (ii. 69) +puts it at fifty thousand. Take this number, if you like; it is enough +to satisfy the successor to St. Peter, to whom the special mandate was +addressed, “Feed my sheep,”—as other shepherds do for the butcher, is +the Gregorian gloss. Tradesmen, however, have the decency to shut the +shambles on the Sunday morning; but the _servus servorum_ is at home in +_his_ ministrations on the Dominical day. That Sunday in August is indeed +a Saints’ rubric! For that day there is no need of a calendar. Time, +till the world ruptures, can never forget it,—nor forgive. + +_Le noir farouche_ of this quatrain is, by Guynaud, p. 113, said to stand +for Admiral Coligny, who is designated, according to him, very variously +in the quatrains. The _noir farouche_ alludes to his rough and forbidding +exterior. _Le grand Pillot_ (VI. 75) is another epithet; _le tiran_ +(Présage III.) another. The conclusion of the quatrain is admitted, +both by Le Pelletier and Guynaud, to stand for Coligny. In the earlier +portion, most will, I think, prefer to take _noir_ as the anagram of +_Roi_. + +Guynaud gives a surprising account from the historians of Provence and +France, of what happened to Coligny when he was at Angoulême in 1568. He +set up a gibbet there, and on his own authority hanged upon it Michel +Grêlet, Guardian of the Cordéliers, and a most zealous preacher against +the heretics. In his dying speech on the scaffold, the latter said, +“Admiral, you put me to death very unjustly. I am going to God now to +give account to Him of my actions; but remember, you and all the people +present here to-day, I predict that in a short time you will yourself be +thrown from an upper window, and your body will be cut to pieces.” The +histories go on to say that an Italian cut off Coligny’s head to send it +to Cardinal de Lorraine at Rome, whilst other men cut off his hands and +other parts of his body; also that at about six in the morning the mob +found his body on a dunghill in a stable, dragged it to the Seine, and +threw it in. It was again fished out, and hung by the foot to the gibbet +of Montfauçon, where it became blackened in the smoke of the fires that +were lighted below it. (Guynaud, “Concord. Nostra.,” p. 113.) + + +_Sixain 52._ [I. 90.] + + La grand’ Cité qui n’a pain à demy + Encor un coup la Sainct Barthelemy + Engravera au profond de son ame: + Nismes, Rochelle, Geneve et Montpellier, + Castres, Lyon, Mars entrant au Belier, + S’entrebattront; le tout pour une Dame. + +_Translation._ + + The great city that has bread at only half rations + Will have the further blow of Saint Bartholomew + Cut deep into its soul: + Nismes, Rochelle, Geneva, and Montpellier, + Castres, Lyons, with Mars entering the Ram, + Will fight one another; and all for the Queen mother. + +The great city is, of course, Paris, and _une Dame_ is the Queen, +Catherine de Medici. It has to be borne in mind that these sixains +were not published till thirty-three years after the massacre of St. +Bartholomew’s. Naturally, the prediction loses all special authority +in this case. It raises, however, a singular question: Why, if it was +written after the event, it was not rendered more explicit, if those who +published it had an interest in augmenting the fame of the prophet? It +looks very much as if the testamentary duties were performed in perfect +good faith, mechanically, and without even understanding the purport or +meaning of the words. + +Another passage relating to St. Bartholomew’s massacre occurs in the text +of 1605, and its authority is no greater than that of the sixain just +quoted, as it was not published till after the event. It goes, however, +to strengthen the remark I above made. Those who caused the work to be +printed seem to have been perfectly unconscious of the meaning of the +stanzas; they regarded the whole procedure as a mere form of respect to +the memory of a celebrated relative. Their duty was clear to them, and +they performed it; but the writings were to them perfectly unintelligible. + +Presage III. (ii. 252) is dated as if written January, 1555, and for +anything that I can see there is nothing whatever to make one doubt but +that it was so. Having made this point as clear as I can, the reader will +take it or reject it as he pleases. + + Le gros airain qui les heures ordonne, + Sur le trespas du Tyran cassera:[88] + Pleurs, plaintes et cris, eaux, glace pain ne dône + V. S. C.[89] paix l’arme passera. + +_Translation._ + + The brazen bell that rings the daily hours + Will play full volley at the tyrant’s death: + Tears, cries, and groans; the waters freeze up bread, + With son of Charles the Fifth a peace is made. + +The tyrant here is interpreted by Guynaud (p. 107) as Coligny, and he +appends some interesting remarks from Favin’s “Histoire de Navarre,” +touching St. Bartholomew’s Day in Paris. He says they marked the +lodgings of the Huguenots that they might know where to find them in the +hurry, and it was arranged that at the tocsin of the great bell at the +palace, as well as that of the church of St. Germain de l’Auxerrois, they +were to lay violent hands (_main-baisse_) on all the heretics. Two p.m. +was the hour appointed. The Catholics who went into the street were to +distinguish themselves by a white cross upon their hats. The bodies of +the slain were for the most part thrown into the river. Mezerai records +that the queen-mother hastened the signal by a full hour, and that it +was, contrary to arrangement, started by the bell of St. Germain de +l’Auxerrois, although that was immediately followed up by the big bell of +the palace. + +Coligny was slain in bed, and flung out of window in his shirt only. His +face, being covered with blood, the Duc de Guise coolly wiped it with his +handkerchief, to assure himself that it actually was Coligny. We shall +shortly see this bloodthirsty villain himself murdered at Blois. + +The massacre continued the whole week through, for seven days that is, +but the chief fury had spent itself by Tuesday night. The Janus Gallicus +professes, though how Aimé could have any certainty of it I cannot tell, +that Nostradamus, by _tyran_, alludes to Coligny, and says that the +bell tolled so long that it broke. The quatrain does not necessitate +the supposal of any such thing, and I believe the fact is not elsewhere +recorded. Of course, if it be, it would be so literal a fulfilment that +all the sceptical world would immediately take advantage of what I have +pointed out, that this is a prophecy _après coup_. If so doing should +rejoice anybody, I can only say that he has my consent. My business is +to put the facts, without a shred of disguise, before the reader; he can +weave them into theories for himself. If I at any time manifest what I +think, he will be pleased to accept it merely as a contribution towards +the same end. + +In January, 1572, the river Seine was frozen over for a long time, and +the roads became almost impassable. This _may_ perhaps be thought to +interpret _eaux glace pain ne dône_, with such hieroglyphic symbolism +of scarcity as oracular utterance delights in. It is pretty certain +that provisions did not enter Paris that winter with their usual flow. +In allusion to the army mentioned, Guynaud says that the Duc d’Anjou +marched with fifty thousand men to the siege of Rochelle, where, after +firing thirteen thousand shots, they at last effected a breach. What they +battered down, oddly enough, was the Boulevard of the Gospel (_Boulevard +de l’Évangile_), but they could not storm it, and lost twenty thousand +men without taking the place. + +In that eulogium on Catherine de Medici which de Brantôme (“Panthéon +Littéraire,” ii. 116) calls her Life, he relates that she died of a +broken heart, from grief at having consented to the massacre on this +ill-starred day, and that without intending it she (p. 133) had invited +the nobles and lords of the land to gather to it. The Cardinal de Bourbon +said to her, “Madam, you have brought us all to the butchery without +intending it.” This touched her to the quick; she took to her bed and +never left it again. One can only say this does not quite accord with +Mezerai and her sounding the tocsin an hour earlier by anticipation. +Further, as the massacre took place in 1572, and the queen-mother did not +die at Blois till 1589, seventeen years after, her heart resisted grief +much as granite does vinegar. The lady must originally have possessed a +very good heart. De Brantôme says poison was talked of; but he considers +the broken heart more likely. + + +CIVIL WAR UNDER HENRI III. (1559-1589). [I. 93.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 55._ + + En l’an qu’un œil en France regnera + La Cour sera en un bien fascheux trouble: + Le Grand de Blois son amy tuera; + Le regne mis en mal et doute double. + +_Translation._ + + In the year when a one-eyed man shall reign in France + The Court shall be in very vexatious trouble: + The great one of Blois shall kill his friend; + The Kingdom, plunged into evil and doubt, shall divide in two. + +M. le Pelletier’s version here seems to be a little forced. The one-eyed +man he makes to be Henri II., whose eye was destroyed by Montgomery’s +lance. The Court is to be in great embarrassment. Henri III. (_le Grand +de Blois_) will convoke at that place the States-General, and will +there assassinate the Duc de Guise, first taking with him, in Italian +fashion, the Holy Communion, as a sign of entire reconciliation. Then the +desolated kingdom will divide into two camps—the Royalists on one side, +and the Leaguers on the other. + + +REGENCY OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI (1537-1574). [I. 94.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 29._ + + La vefve[90] saincte entendent les nouvelles + De ses rameaux mis en perplex et trouble: + Qui[91] sera duict[92] appaiser[93] les querelles + Par son pourchas[94] des razes[95] fera comble. + +_Translation._ + + The holy widow shall receive news + Of the difficulties that perplex and trouble her children; + He whom she calls home to quiet disturbances + Shall bring them to a crisis by his pursuit of shaven heads. + +There is a little difficulty in applying the epithet _saincte_ to the +queen-mother, and Garencières supposes it to signify _Roma la Santa_; +but, if so, the rest will have no meaning. Nostradamus is so entirely +for Henri II., his wife, and the Romish Church, that in spite of his +designating her son _le roi farouche_, he might think the term _saincte_ +not inappropriate to her. She sent a private despatch to her son, +Henri III., to hurry back from Poland, as we shall see him doing in +the next quatrain cited, that he may take the direction of the French +Government. He enters into an alliance with Henri IV. and the Huguenots +to counterbalance the Catholic League. Thence follows the murder of the +Cardinal, brother of the Duc de Guise, who was murdered by the King’s +order on December 24, 1588, one day after his brother. This is the +prosecution of the Church (_pourchas des razes_), coupled with the +repression of the League, which culminates the crisis. The only jarring +word in this concordance, when once it is comprehended, lies in the +word _saincte_, to which I have already drawn attention, and which may +be explained by the devotion felt by Nostradamus to the crown of France +and to Rome. It is evident that Brantôme was able to regard her as a +most admirable and lovable lady. The tocsin and the blood spoil our +appreciation. + + +HENRI III. RENOUNCES POLAND (JUNE 26, 1574). [I. 96.] + +_Century VII.—Quatrain 35._ + + La grande Pesche[96] viendra plaindre,[97] plorer + D’avoir esleu: trompés seront en l’âge: + Guiere[98] avec eux ne voudra demourer: + Deceu[99] sera par ceux de son langage. + +_Translation._ + + The great gambler[100] shall complain and weep + To have elected him: deceived in his age: + The duke had no desire to stay with them: + He will be slain by men of his own tongue. + +Poland, then, will deplore having elected the Duc d’Anjou in 1573, for +he stayed only one year with them, and absconded on the 26th of June +at night, at his mother’s summons, to France. The Comte de Fanchin, +the Grand Chamberlain, was sent after him, and overtook him at Piesna, +a frontier town in Austria, but the duke was deaf to all intercession +(Guynaud, p. 119). He never took the Polish throne because he wished it, +but because he was pressed by the Court of France; and now French affairs +called him back. Guynaud thinks that the last line means that his friends +deceived him into taking it; but this is because he did not discover the +Latin meaning in _deceu_. For certainly Nostradamus meant that he would +go home to die by Clement’s hand, as he shows in as many words a little +later on. Guynaud says that Poland had been deceived as to the prince’s +age, and that he was represented to be much older than he really was. + + +EDICT OF POITIERS (OCTOBER 3, 1577). [I. 97.] + +_Century V.—Quatrain 72._ + + Pour le plaisir d’edict voluptueux, + On mestera le poison dans la foy: + Venus sera en cours si vertueux,[101] + Qu’obfusquera du soleil tout aloy.[102] + +_Translation._ + + To pass an edict of a sugared sort, + They’ll mingle poison with our holy faith: + And Venus darken, in her course robust, + All law and light from out the sacred Sun. + +The Sun, in Nostradamus, often stands for the Church or Christianity, +by him believed to be within the palisade of Popery. It might also mean +France, whose King’s name was _Rex Christianissimus_. Louis XIV. assumed +the device of the sun, with the motto _nec pluribus impar_. Venus stands +for sensual pleasure—the world triumphant over the Church. The edict of +Poitiers, October 8, 1577, so far favoured the Protestants that they were +authorized to hold public services on the reformed footing. Calvinist +ministers might marry, and auricular confession was suppressed. Thus +did Henri III. mingle the poison of unchastity, etc., with the Catholic +faith. The licence of morals (_Vénus_) became unbridled and tarnished the +law of Christendom (_Soleil_). + +Guynaud interprets with Le Pelletier in this, and considers the poison +to consist particularly in freeing the Huguenots from the Sacrifice of +Penance; in condemning the monastic orders; in encouraging unchastity, +by allowing the Calvinist ministers to marry; in abandoning confession. +_Vénus sera_ is a line showing that many monks will quit the cloisters +to indulge in marriage and _other_ debauchery. The last line may be +understood, that the glory of the King will be tarnished, and make him to +be ill thought of by the Catholics; or that it will obscure faith in the +Church (p. 122). + + +JOURNÉE DES BARRICADES (MAY 12, 1588). [I. 98.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 50._ + + La république de la grande cité + A grand rigueur ne voudra consentir: + Roy sortir hors par trompette cité, + L’eschelle au mur la cité repentir. + +_Translation._ + + The Republic of the great city (Paris) + Would not submit itself to the very rigorous treatment; + The King summoned by trumpet to quit the city, + Which is called to repent by the ladder at the wall. + +This quatrain and the event it prefigures are alike wonderful. +Garencières is much puzzled over it. What city has a commonwealth? Is it +Venice, Genoa, Geneva, Luca? He cannot tell. However, the “great city” +in Nostradamus almost always stands for Paris. The League, mistress in +Paris, would not submit to the coercive measures of Henri III., and by +a call to arms—perhaps the old tocsin of St. Germain de l’Auxerrois +sounding the while—told him, as _par trompette_, he had better quit the +city with all speed. Trial and sentence in one word, “Take yourself +off,”—for the first time uttered to a king of the race Capetian, in some +eight hundred years of history. Later on, the drumming and trumpeting +crack-brained citizens, with nothing about them to be called sane +but their river, will feel themselves called to repentance when the +escalading ladders are laid by Henri III. to the wall. + + * * * * * + +Let it be noted now that this _Day of the Barricades_ is very remarkable, +and, as such, is not to be found at all in Bohn’s “Index of Dates.” +It was, however, repeated in the civil war of the Fronde, August 26, +1648; in the three days’ war, July 27, 28, 29, 1830, that set Philippe +Citoyen on his rickety perch; and again in June 23, 1848. But close on +two hundred years after, in 1789, when the philosophic Republic was at +hand and the Bastille was taken; when another Capet was to be handled +by the mob; offering _cul pour tête_ to the admiration of a wise world, +then was to be best discerned the result of this first reaction from St. +Bartholomew’s Day; pretty well that tocsin of treason has rung alarum to +a world on fire. A further curious analogy demands attention here. The +Popes of Rome were the earliest patrons of the principle of regicide, and +Clément the monk, whom we shall soon introduce, was the first to practise +it; here we see the Catholic League to be the first organized body to +repudiate kingship, to set up a republican form, and consecrate a day +to revolt and insurrection, which has become memorable in history for +ever, though forgotten by Bohn, as _la Journée des Barricades_. But what +shall we say of this forecast by Nostradamus, fifty-three years before +the event happened? He is, I think, the first who ever put in type the +word _Republic_, as representative of rebellion and revolt, throughout +the modern world. But here we have it,—the dough of prophecy made out of +the ground wheat-seed of time, and baked by the oven of events into the +bread of history; not Walpole’s lies, nor the principles, mostly false, +that philosopher Hume finds so cleverly for us, but the facts divested of +motive,—like a petrified coral reef of insect humanities concreted into +permanence and solidity by the death of myriads. For those who can see, +it lies all contained in that linear rune, _La république de la grande +cité_. + + +MURDER OF THE DUC DE GUISE (DECEMBER 23, 1588). [I. 99.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 51._ + + Paris conjure un grand meutre commetre, + Blois le fera sortir en plein effect: + Ceux d’Orleans voudront leur chef remettre; + Angers, Troye, Langres leur feront un meffait. + +_Translation._ + + Paris conspires to commit a great murder; + Blois will carry it into full effect: + The Orléanois will try to place a Leaguer at their head; + Angers, Troye, Langres will try and undo this. + +Henri III. at Paris contrived the murder of the Duc de Guise, who had +incited and led the Parisians on the day of the Barricades, when Henri +was compelled to fly to Chartres. Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, +was murdered the day after the Cardinal, his brother, had been, at +the Convention of the Estates at Blois. The murder took place at the +Château de Blois. The Orléanois, on learning this, rose against Balzac +d’Entragues, the governor of the town, and set Charles de Lorraine, +Chevalier d’Aumale, at their head,—he was one of the chiefs of the +League,—whilst Angers, Troyes, and Langres took the side of Henri III. +It is not very easy, says Le Pelletier, to distinctly prove the exact +position taken up by these three towns, but Nostradamus habitually puts a +part to stand for the whole. In the divided interests various cities took +differing sides. At the time he wrote there was nothing to show that such +internecine separations would take place. He clearly anticipated them, +and, so far, is absolutely right. We cannot, it seems, prove him to be +right in all the details; but equally, there is nothing to show him wrong. + + +LE DUC DE MAYENNE (1589-1593). [I. 100.] + +_Century I.—Quatrain 85._ + + Par la response de dame Roy troublé, + Ambassadeurs mespriseront leur vie: + Le Grand ses freres contrefera doublé + Par deux mourront ire,[103] haine, et envie.[104] + +_Translation._ + + The King shall be troubled by the Queen-mother, + The deputies at risk of life remonstrate: + The Guise will act for both his brothers dead, + The two whom envy, hatred, malice slew. + +Henri III. will be troubled by the response of Catherine de Medici, who +disapproves of the murder of the Guise; the deputies (_ambassadeurs_) +from both Paris and Blois make lively remonstrance at the peril of their +lives. The Duc de Mayenne (_le Grand_), when proclaimed chief of the +League, will take the title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, and, +as if doubled in authority, will represent his two brothers, Henri de +Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine, whom the envy, hatred, and malice +of Henri III. and his Court had assassinated. We seem to have here a +republic tempered by daggers, in place of what followed, a tyranny +tempered with epigrams. This active forging of daggers, knives, and +sword-cutlery in France, to carve out an idol of a republic, with its +blood-stained heathen Phrygian cap; taken together with its repetition +sixty years later, in the Barricades of the Fronde, August, 1648, was +clearly generating the poison and concentrating its venom for the most +startling act of death known to mankind, but one, in all history,—at +Whitehall, on that wintry 30th of January, 1649,—the venom, that by the +subtle inoculation of a Raleigh could, for a time, strike silly such a +soul as Milton’s—“Psalmist of Paradise,”—who, but for this damned virus +in the world, might have taught men how to realize a paradise on earth. + + +CRIME OF JACQUES CLÉMENT (AUGUST 1, 1589). [I. 102.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 36._ + + Un grand Roy prins[105] entre les mains d’un Joyne[106] + Non loin de Pasque, confusion, coup cultre.[107] + Perpet,[108] captifs temps que foudre en la husne,[109] + Lors que trois freres se blesseront et murtre.[110] + +_Translation._ + + A great King taken by a young man’s hand + Close upon Easter, confusion, and a knife: + There’s powder on the tower for captives then, + Three brothers perish; this death takes the last. + +Henri III., in his camp at St. Cloud, will be struck by the hand of a +young monk,—_Joyne_ might easily be a misprint for _Moyne_. Jacques +Clément was twenty-five. He came straight from receiving the Communion +(_non loin de Pasque_). He thought he did God service (_confusion_); he +struck him in the lower bowel with a knife. The crime will be committed +when the Parisians are cut off (_captifs_) by the King beleaguering, +and his vengeance is ready to fall upon their ramparts. This murder +completes the violent deaths of the three sons, the issue of Henri II. +and Catherine de Medici. + +There is no occasion to call attention to the remarkable lucidity of this +forecast, when once the linguistic difficulties of its conveyance have +been studiously solved. The demilune towers projecting at intervals from +the wall, as at the Haute Ville, Boulogne, well enough represent the +_husne_, or tower of vantage, in the quatrain, they need but a shield or +belvidere added. + + +DEATH OF HENRI III. (AUGUST 2, 1589). [I. 103.] + +_Présage 58._ + + Le Roy-Roy n’estre, du Doux la pernicie,[111] + L’an pestilent, les esmues[112] nubileux. + Tien[113] qui tiendra, les grands non letitie,[114] + Et passera terme de cavilleux.[115] + +_Translation._ + + The twice King dies, by Clement hand is slain; + War and revolt make the year pestilent. + Hold who hold can, the great oppose not well, + Live laughter down and teach the cavillers. + +This is a most singular prophecy. Henri III., King, first of Poland +then of France is quaintly called _Roy-Roy_. _Le Doux_ is an excellent +synonym for _Clément_, all must admit. The year was harassed by civil +and religious war, and the Leaguers (_les esmues_) begin to grow anxious +about the consequences. Let Henri IV. hold hard his own, the lilied +sceptre: “Let Curzon holde what Curzon helde” be his motto. The time is +passed for the Catholic grandees (_les grands_) to woo Lætitia. The King +can laugh now at the laughers of the Guise; he laughs best who laughs +last. + +The murder by Clément of the anti-papal king, Henri III., followed very +close upon the setting up of Jesuit Clubs in Paris under papal sanction +(Elliot’s _Horæ Apoc._, iii. 321). The pulpits also had been filled by +clerical preachers of sedition and bloodshed. Precisely two hundred +years later the Bastille was taken, and in the Jacobin Clubs of that +day were hung, says Alison, the pictures of Clément and Ravaillac, in +the gloomy rooms of the old convent, in which they met like night-birds +of ill-omen, and within little wreaths beneath each picture might be +seen inscribed the words, “He was fortunate; he killed a king.” This +is so sentimental, petty, and petulant, that it would move to laughter +any large good-natured mind, were it not for the slaver of malignity +that accompanies everything that drops from the tongues of that sack of +reptiles gathered out of the Jacobin dunghill, as they crawled forth one +by one poisoning and to poison. + + + + +HENRI QUATRE. + + +THE COMING OF HENRI IV. (AUGUST 2, 1589). [I. 105.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 50._ + + Mendosus[116] tost viendra à son haut regne, + Mettant arriere un peu les Norlaris:[117] + Le rouge blesme, la masle à l’interregne, + Le jeune crainte, et frayeur Barbaris. + +_Translation._ + + Mendosus shall soon come to his high dominion, + Setting back those of Lorraine a little. + The old cardinal pale, the male of the interregnum, + The young man timid, and the barbarian alarmed. + +Henri IV. the heretic Vendôme, changed his religion thrice. Jeanne +d’Albert, his mother, brought him up a Protestant. To escape St. +Bartholomew’s Day, he professed Catholicism, in 1572. In 1576, he +turned to Protestantism, to head the Calvinist party. He declared +himself Catholic to take the throne of France. Through the Salic law +he ascended, to the exclusion of the Lorraine princes (_Norlaris_). In +this way, he shut out the old Cardinal de Bourbon, pale (_blesme_,) with +age, the Duc de Mayenne, Lieutenant General of the kingdom during the +interregnum, the young Duc de Guise, and the barbarously savage Philip +II. of Spain, who had pretensions to the crown through Elizabeth his +wife, the daughter of Henri II. + +The Cardinal is _rouge_ because of the dress of all cardinals. Philip +allied himself with the Guises, and supported the Catholic League. + + +THE DEPRESSION OF THE DE GUISE FAMILY (1589-1593). [I. 107.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 18._ + + Le rang Lorrain fera place à Vendosme, + Le haut mis bas, et le bas mis en haut, + Le fils de Mamon sera esleu[118] en Rome, + Et les deux Grands seront mis en defant. + +_Translation._ + + The house of Lorraine yields to the Vendôme, + The high put low, the low put high instead, + The son of Mamon they elect at Rome, + And the Pretenders both are in default. + +The house of Lorraine is now eclipsed by that of Vendôme. Mayenne, the +chief, is put down, and _le petit Béarnais_, Henri IV., rises to respect +and power. This heretic son of mammon is accepted by choice at Rome for +King of France, and neither of the Pretenders will ever be king. + +The Cardinal de Bourbon had been actually proclaimed King by the League, +as Charles X., but he was dead in 1590. Isabella, the daughter of Philip +II., was incapable by the Salic law. So that the only two remaining were +the Duc de Mayenne and the young Duc de Guise. They were shut out by +Henri IV. and never reached the throne. + + +HENRI IV. ABJURES PROTESTANTISM (JULY 21, 1593). [I. 108.] + +_Presage 76._ + + Par le legat du terrestre et marin, + Le Grande Cape[119] à tout s’accommoder; + Estre à l’escoute tacite[120] Norlarin,[121] + Qu’à[122] son advis ne voudra accorder. + +_Translation._ + + Before the legate of the earth and sea, + Henry the Great will yield to all required: + Mayenne to all will listen and not speak a word, + And will grant nothing of his own free will. + +Sixtus V. had boldly fulminated an excommunication against Henri Quatre, +the Great Capet, but the latter subscribes to all required by the legate +of him who can bind and loose all on the earth and sea. He abjures +Protestantism at St. Denis, on July 25, 1593, the Archbishop of Bourges +officiating. The Duc de Mayenne (the _Lorraine_), Lieutenant-General of +France and Master of Paris for the League, will look on in silence, and +as far as he can will prevent Paris from receiving the King. The city did +not open its gates to him till March 22, 1594, eight months after the +abjuration. + + +MARSEILLES TAKEN BY THE SPANIARDS (FEBRUARY 17, 1696). [I. 109.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 88._ + + De Barselonne par mer si[123] grand’ armée, + Toute Marseille de frayeur tremblera: + Isles saisies, de mer ayde fermée, + Ton traditeur[124] en terre nagera.[125] + +_Translation._ + + From Barcelona a great fleet shall come, + And terror strike into the town Marseilles: + The isles are seized, and help by sea cut off, + But the betrayer is made swim on land. + +A Spanish fleet of a dozen galleys, commanded by Charles Doria, was sent +by Philip II. to help the Leaguers. He took possession of the islands +Château d’If and Ratonneau, and thus cut off all help to seaward. Charles +de Casau (_le traditeur_) was consul, and proposed to place the city in +the hands of the Spaniards; Pierre Libertat, however, ran him through +with a sword, and the populace dragged the dead body through the muddy +channels of the streets. + +Guynaud refers to the same event as fulfilling this quatrain in the time +of Henri IV., but by a misprint gives 1536 instead of 1596. The islands +he mentions are those of St. Honnorat and of St. Marguerite. Black’s +pretentious _Imperial Gazetteer_ professes to give a plan of the town, +and you see a number of nameless vermicelli streets running all about, +but not a single island off the coast is visible. One may suppose, +however, that the islands are there, and that all the four were occupied +by the Spaniards. + + +BIRON’S PUNISHMENT (DECEMBER 2, 1602). [I. 110.] + +_Sixain 6._ + + Quand de Robin[126] la traisteruse enterprise, + Mettra Seigneurs et en peine un grand Prince, + Sceu[127] par la Fin[128] chef on lui tranchera. + La plume au vent, amye dans Espagne,[129] + Poste[130] attrappé estant dans la campagne, + Et l’escrivain dans l’eaüe se jettera. + +_Translation._ + + When Biron’s treason and disastrous act, + Shall put King Henry and his Lords in fear, + Lafin betrays him, and the King beheads. + Treason dispatched to Spain in amity,[131] + The carrier caught when he has entered France,[132] + And the scriv’ner will throw himself into the water. + +One thing has carefully to be borne in mind in relation to the Sixains, +that they were presented to Henri Quatre, and printed for the first time +in 1605. That is to say, they first appeared three years after this had +happened. To the sceptically disposed they can furnish no authority, but +to ordinary men, who only look for ordinary evidence, it will appear that +there is very little as to style that would not appropriately spring +from the pen of Nostradamus; and further, that if they are forgeries, +the forgers have not taken advantage of their knowledge of the events +to make the prophecies any clearer or more striking. These are quite as +enigmatical as if our author had written them, and I think that common +sense will generally be content to take them for what they are worth, and +will regard them as probably genuine “chips of the old block” and as such +very curious. + +Guynaud in his _Concordance_, p. 137, gives a full and interesting +account of Biron; chiefly extracted from Davila, Montluc, De Thou, +Mezeray, Le Père Anselm, and so forth, where the reader can refer for +further details, if interested. I may just note that I have copied the +date of December 2, 1602, from Le Pelletier, but that Moreri gives the +date of Biron’s decapitation as July 31, 1602, in the Court of the +Bastille. The name of the messenger (_poste_) was Picoté, a native of +Orleans, sold, as they say, to the King of Spain (Guynaud, p. 140). + +Garencières has (p. 464) a very elaborate annotation upon this stanza, +giving the whole history of Biron and Lafin in twenty-eight folio pages. +Biron appears to have been a vain, a violent, and foolish man, though +of great courage and audacity in war, which made him highly valued by +Henri IV. After Amiens he refused to go to quiet the towns of Picardy, +unless his statue were erected in brass before the Louvre. His sudden +prosperity had turned his head. The treasonous proposals with Spain +were, that he was to have a daughter of the Duke of Savoy in marriage, +500,000 crowns, and sovereign rights in Burgundy. These were negotiated +through Lafin; and Lafin told the King. The whole trial is given, with +Biron’s defence in reply, which is audacious and eloquent, but much +of it is highly contradictory. He was condemned and executed in the +court of the Bastille, on July 31, 1602, which coincides with Moreri. +The superstitious, ignorant, violent, but able soldier comes out most +characteristically. He shows in emergency great rapidity of thought, +decision, and presence of mind; but a deficient judgment, very little +principle, and an overwhelming conceit, that, encouraged by success, +almost merged into madness. A man of this sort is always a compound of +inconsistencies; accordingly he said to the Chancellor, in speaking +of death, “I have not been afraid of it these twenty years.” And that +was true, when in war, a duel, or hot blood; but in the court of the +Bastille he was thought to show great fear of dying. In earlier life he +had wondered at himself for fearing nothing from the thrust of a sword, +though very nervous over the prick of a lancet, when he had occasion to +“be let blood,” as they used to phrase it. The fear of death is most +in apprehension; but the apprehension is most, perhaps it may be said, +of the wicked in cold blood, and of the good in violence, and when the +blood is hot, if but the least pause give time for reflection to enter. +Garencières notes that the greatest courage and stoutness of a man is +nothing in comparison of the weakness of human nature. + +Two of Biron’s adventures with astrologers are so characteristic of the +manners of the time, as recounted by Guynaud [p. 137, etc.], that I +think the reader should not be deprived of them. Whatever is strange and +rivets the attention must have something of humanity in it, and repay the +record, though a few superior people may look down upon such trifling. +I shall give them at the risk of running this annotation to too great +length. + +When at Court with his father, at the age of eighteen or twenty, he had a +duel, and killed his man. He had to hide for this, till his father could +sue out his pardon, through the Duc d’Espernon, to whom fortunately the +father was known. He took the disguise of a letter-carrier, and in this +garb consulted an astrologer called La Brosse, who lived in a garret +at the top of a house near the Luxembourg. He told the man that it was +his master’s horoscope he had need of. La Brosse told him that one day +he would be a very great man, in fact, might almost be king, but for +a _caput algol_ that stood in the way. What this was the man would not +explain. Biron, however, continuing to press very hard, got him to say +at last that he would be beheaded on a scaffold. Upon this, he burst out +with the want of judgment he showed all through his life (forty years +in all) and beat the old man mercilessly, leaving him nearly dead. He +locked him maliciously into his room, took away the key with him, and +kicked down the little ladder that gave access to the loft. But still he +believed what had been communicated. + +On another occasion he consulted César, who was thought at the time to +be the most able astrologer in France. This man also affirmed that he +would have good fortune in almost everything. Except for a blow from a +Burgundian from behind, he might even be king. But he could not get from +him a word more. + +When he was confined in the Bastille, a friend called on him, and +Biron asked him to ascertain for him from what part of the country the +executioner of Paris was; and when he came back and told him that he was +a Burgundian, Biron changed colour and said—“There will be no reprieve +then; I am as good as dead.” + +Now as to the fulfilment of the last two lines. It will appear that my +rendering is right, and that the scrivener will throw himself into the +water. The scrivener turns out to be a man named Nicholas l’Oste, born +at Orleans, secretary to Lord Villeroy, Chief Secretary of State, who, +finding him a most capable person, confided much in him, and the more +so that Oste’s father had spent the greater part of his life in his +service. When Lord Rochepot was starting as ambassador for Spain, Oste +begged to accompany him as secretary. Villeroy immediately recommended +him, and he was engaged. In a few months’ time he mastered the language +to such perfection, and so thoroughly accommodated himself to Spanish +manners, that he might well pass for a true-born Spaniard. When Rochepot +had got the treaty at Vervins ratified, the King of Spain gave him rich +presents—a chain of jewels, and six gold chains valued at a hundred and +fifty crowns apiece—to distribute amongst his suite, as he thought fit. +Oste was so full of himself that he thought he ought to have one of them, +but his master thought otherwise; on which, says Garencières, “the Devil +crept into his soul,” and, as he wanted money to supply his debaucheries, +he determined to betray the State secrets which passed through his hands. + +With this in view, he applied to Don Fanchese, a Secretary of State, and +made his proposals, but the dignified Spaniard, for some reason or other, +received him coolly. “The Catholic King was in good amity with the most +Christian one, and required to know no more than the French Ambassador +should communicate to him.” Nothing discouraged, our traitor hurries +off to Don Ydiaques, another secretary, and there meets with excellent +reception. He was presented to the Duke of Lerma, to whom he betrayed the +Alphabet of Ciphers. He received twelve hundred crowns upon the spot, +and was promised the like amount as a yearly pension. By his means the +Spanish Council knew the contents of all French instructions as soon +as the ambassador himself. When La Rochepot’s mission ended, Oste got +back into Villeroy’s service, and so was able to maintain correspondence +with Spain. Tuxis was ambassador from Spain in Paris, and after him Don +Baltazar de Caniga. With these men he established a close intimacy, so +that finally the Council in Spain got his letters before Des Barreaux at +Madrid could receive those from Henri IV. + +Des Barreaux told the King that he was always now forestalled. Oste had +let a certain reprobate Raffis into his secret, and this fellow, who had +been banished, in order to obtain a reprieve of sentence, betrayed Oste +to Des Barreaux. When he got his pardon, he gave up the name of Oste. +Raffis came to Paris to communicate with Villeroy, and orders were given +to detain the two Spanish couriers that had reached the post-office. +They then kept a watch upon Oste, who was “doing his devotions at the +Charter-house of Paris,”—excellent Catholic, plotter as he was. On +reaching the post-office, he soon found he was betrayed; and Descardes, +who was to watch him, did not let him out of his sight until he brought +him to Villeroy’s. When there, he thought his man was safe, and went to +announce his capture to Villeroy. Oste instantly ran down to the stable, +where his horse stood, still saddled, and galloped away. A hue and cry +was soon raised. Oste got a Spanish disguise at De Cuniga’s, and made +off post-haste for Luxembourg. Postmasters were forbidden to let out +horses to any one; but at Meaux the postmaster had received the order +too late, for Oste was already on horseback, but no sooner did he begin +to gallop than his horse fell under him. His look of dismay impressed the +postillion who accompanied him, and he told his master on his return. The +postmaster told the sheriff, who came up with him at the second ferry of +_la Ferte sous Jouare_; but he was already on the boat, and threatening +the ferryman’s life, the man put him ashore, in spite of the sheriff’s +commands, shouted to him from the bank. He rushed into the bushes and +brambles near the Marne, hoping to escape in the darkness of the night, +the sheriff scattered his men everywhere, raised the whole country side, +and caused bonfires to be lighted in all directions. Oste crept from bush +to bush, but, either accidentally or with intention, fell into the river +Marne and was drowned. His hat was found next day, stopped between two +posts, and his body two days later. So befitting a close to the career +of a gifted dastard is a wholesome exemplar of retributive justice, and +should not easily be suffered to fall out of men’s recollection. Horace +thinks that lame-foot Justice always trips the sinner. No doubt, if we +could see both worlds; but, as we cannot, I wish that here the lame +foot were considerably less lame. In England law and the lawyers, her +two crutches, seem to reduce Justice to a gouty incapable. With our new +Palace of Justice the morals of a Court seem to have dawned upon us. + + +POPULARITY OF HENRI IV. (AFTER HIS DEATH). [I. 112.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 70._ + + Au chef du monde le grand Chyren[133] sera, + Plus outre après aymé, craint, redouté; + Son bruit et los[134] les cieux surpassera, + Et du seul titre victeur[135] fort contenté. + +_Translation._ + + Chief of the world _Henri le Grand_ shall be, + More loved in death than life, more honoured he: + His name and praise shall rise above the skies, + And men will call him victor when he dies. + +French self-esteem has always appropriated to France a throne of +pre-eminence beyond all other thrones. If it were possible, they would +set theirs above that of Jupiter. They pretend a most manly contempt +for kings. But the throne, you are to remember, is the work of _sans +cullottes_, French cabinet-makers, and therefore the best thing of +its kind in the universe, and so _chef du monde_. If Nostradamus is no +prophet for you, you shall at least admit that he was a Frenchman. The +Frenchman whips the old world, and the American whips creation. The rest +of us may look forward to an eternity of corporal punishment in spite +of the nominal abolition of slavery. Condillac will furnish the logical +distinction, that establishes the honour of the throne, when a manly +contempt has been duly engendered for the sanctity of the king’s majesty. +Honest Democrat! Do you read Condillac? + +One of Voltaire’s rhetorical squibs in the _Henriade_, which the French +are so indulgent as to call not only verse, but poetry, runs— + + “Il fut de ses sujets le vainqueur et le père.” + + “He was the papa and conquestor of his people.” + +When our Charles II. was addressed as “the father of his people,” he said +he thought that he might be of a good many of them. But Henri Quatre is +too noble a creature for any good and wise man to wish to dwell long upon +his foibles. What a contrast between him and the Napoleons! + + + + +LOUIS XIII. + +(1610-1643.) + + +PUNISHMENT OF THE GREAT MONTMORENCY (OCTOBER 30, 1632.) [I. 113.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 18._ + + Le lys Dauffois[136] portera[137] dans Nanci + Jusques en Flandres electeur de l’Empire; + Neufve obturée[138] au grand Montmorency, + Hors lieux prouvés[139] delivré[140] á clere peyne.[141] + +_Translation._ + + The Dauphin shall carry his lily standards into Nancy, just as + in Flanders the Elector of Trèves shall be carried prisoner of + the Spaniards into Brussels. A new prison will be given to the + great Montmorency, who will be delivered for execution into the + hands of Clerepeyne. This man will behead him in a spot not + devoted to executions. + +I have given this in prose, as it could only yield ingenious doggerel in +verse. + +Louis XIII., of whom it may be remarked that he was the first who bore +the title of Dauphin de France since the publication of Century IX., in +1566, entered Nancy on September 25, 1633, a day after his army. In 1635 +he enters Flanders on behalf of the Elector, whom the Spaniards had, on +the 26th of March of that year, carried prisoner to Brussels. Nostradamus +then reverts to October 30, 1632, when the great Montmorency was executed +for rebellion, being first confined in the newly built (_neufve obturée_) +Hotel de Ville at Toulouse. In the courtyard of this building Clerepeyne, +a soldier, shall cut off his head, and not, as ought to have been the +case, at the place appointed for public executions, such as was _La +Grève_ at Paris. + +It so happens that Clerepeyne’s name is fully attested by Étienne +Joubert and by the Chevalier de Jant, both contemporary with the event. +Further than this, M. Motret has brought to light, after minute historic +research, that the family, by solicitation of the King, could obtain +only two concessions of mere formality—that the execution should be with +closed doors, and by a soldier in lieu of the common headsman. The _place +publique_ or _marché_ would be the place mentioned in the official order. + +If the reader will carefully give his attention to the full drift of +this quatrain, when the mere difficulty of verbal contortion has been +resolved, he must feel that the prognostication has to be reckoned as +one of the most astounding of oracles ever set forth in history. A +French King takes Nancy. The Elector of Trèves is bandied about between +France and Spain, like a shuttlecock of State; and then, by name, comes +the execution of the great Montmorency, detailed with, it is true, the +brevity of Tacitus, but, when understood, with a singular felicity of +detail implied in the pregnant words _neufve obturée_, of the newly built +town hall. Not in the market-place is he executed, but in the central +courtyard. Let _clere peyne_ (_clara pœna_) stand merely for celebrated +attainder, the thing is still prodigious beyond all precedent. But when +you know, in addition, that a part of Nostradamus’s prophetic method +consists in using every possible play of words, including paronomasia +and anagram, and you find that the soldier who acted as headsman—a man +called upon by chance to gratify the almost absurd sensibilities of the +family—was _Clerepeyne_, a name that corresponds to a tittle with the two +words employed by the prophet, then, indeed, the marvel mounts into the +stupendous. It cannot be paralleled out of the works of the individual +we are busy with. It is incredible, and yet you must believe it. It is +not to be understood, but it must be accepted. Joubert, de Jant, the +Curé de Louvicamp, and Motret, have all contributed to its historical +confirmation on independent lines. It was in print, beyond possibility +of gainsaying, more than fifty years before any of the events occurred. +Clerepeyne could not have been even born at the time his name was being +put through the printing press at Lyons. The mind that can realize all +these details, and then be content to fall back upon chance to explain +them, or upon the verbal fact that visions must be visionary—an axiom +quite as philosophic, by-the-bye, as Hume’s “Essay on Miracles” is +built upon—is a mind not at all to be envied. Such incredulity is more +astounding than the prophecy itself. It is easier to believe the prophecy +than the philosopher who says he does not believe it. The Tower is below +London Bridge. Has anybody ever asked “why?” This 18th quatrain of +Century IX. of Nostradamus is just as much a fact as the Tower of London +is, and vastly more impregnable. Intelligent people will be amused by an +explanation; but the substantive fact can stand without any, till the +day of Doom if necessary. It is only some human popinjay, Plato Pry, +the philosopher, who would like to gossip to us the _How_, and so sport +another borrowed feather in his feather-brain,—or hum us with another bee +from his bonnet; that hive of mad insects. + + +THE CONSPIRACY OF CINQ MARS (MARCH 13, 1642.) [I. 115.] + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 68._ + + Vieux Cardinal par la jeusne deceu,[142] + Hors de sa charge sa verra desarmé, + Arles ne monstres[143] double[144] soit apperceu; + Et Liqueduct[145] et le Prince embausmé. + +_Translation._ + + The old cardinal is supplanted by a young man, and will see + himself deprived of his charge, and disarmed. [Le Pelletier + renders]: If Arles you do not show, in a manner that shall be + visible, a counterpart of the treaty, then the man who will + cause himself to be conveyed by water will be embalmed, and the + Prince also. + +The above is the contortion to which Le Pelletier resorts to force out +of it the sense it undoubtedly contains. My proposed reading reduces the +difficulty. + +The old Cardinal Richelieu shall find himself supplanted by the young +Cinq Mars. He was but twenty-two when he achieved this bit of dexterous +Court intrigue against Richelieu,[146] the most _rusé_ fox in Europe, as +rumour ran. + +Cinq Mars was his own _protégé_, and no doubt threw him with a trick +learned from his master. A sprightly youngster of the apt breed can learn +such things quickly. But when the cardinal was at Arles he learnt that a +certain treasonable treaty was negotiated with Spain by his rival in the +name of the King’s brother, and this made known brought Richelieu back to +power straight. Now, if we read the line + + Arles, le monstre double soit apperceu: + + At Arles, let the monster diploma (treacherous treaty) be discovered,— + +or Cinq Mars himself might be the double monster,—it would be but a +gentle emendation in a classic line, and it makes the sense run well. +Richelieu returned by water (_Liqueduct_) from Tarascon to Lyons, by the +Rhone, with his bed upon the boat, but sick unto death, carrying Cinq +Mars and De Thou prisoners along with him. In the same style he descended +the Seine from Fontainbleau to Paris, where he died, two months later, on +December 4, 1642. Louis XIII. died on the 14th of the following May. Both +were embalmed, which was the practice then customary. The King when dead +becomes a Prince again, when the breath was out of the body that 4th of +December. Le roi est mort, vive le Roy Louis XIV. + + +IMPROVEMENT IN FIREARMS (1630-1671.) [I. 116.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 44._ + + Quand l’animal à l’homme domestique,[147] + Après grands peines et sauts viendra parler, + Le foudre à vierge[148] sera si[149] malefique, + De terre prinse[150] et suspendue en l’air. + +_Translation._ + + When the dog,[151] after many trials, shall begin to leap and + speak, the powder loaded by ram-rod shall spread destruction + round (_sera très malefique_.) Powder taken from the earth and + exploded in the air. + +When the firelock shall have been invented after many trials, and shall +speak through the mouth of the gun, with recoil [_sauts_, or kick], +after the powder-charge is well driven home with the ram-rod, it will +be most murderous by explosion in the air. The invention of the musket +dates 1630. Troops, Le Pelletier says, were first armed with it in +1671. Nostradamus, it is to be observed, anticipates by an ingenious +amplification and periphrasis the very name _chien_, by which the French +designate this portion of the lock. It would not have served its purpose +for the name of the same thing in English. This anticipation of the slang +term of manufacture, a hundred years before the thing itself was used or +named, seems to show an intimacy with what would be called matters of +chance, that is inconceivable and beyond all comprehensibility. + +I cannot but append here a translation of Guynaud’s remarks upon this +quatrain. They are, I think, the funniest that occur in the whole book. +He says: + + “Nostradamus warns us here that two prodigious things are + to occur at last: one, that the industry and care of man + will arrive at such a point that a domestic animal, such as + dogs are, will be got to speak. For to imagine that this can + be intended of birds is out of the question quite, as they + are excluded from the list of domestic animals created by + God for the service of man, as quadrupeds are. The words of + the two first lines of the prophecy are _Quand après grande + peine l’animal domestique viendra parler à l’homme et qu’il + sautera_,—just as dogs do in approaching their master. A + further thing is to happen that is no less astonishing: a demon + is to mingle himself with powder, and suddenly transport a girl + into the air, when she will remain suspended for possibly a + whole day long, according to these words: ‘_La foudre à vierge + sera si malefique; de terre prinse et suspendue en l’air_.’ + The critics may suppose that to mean that the girl will be + hanged; but this is not so, in my opinion, because the word + _malefique_ is derived from the Latin _maleficus_, which in + itself indicates a maleficent spirit delighting to work evil, + as the devil always is.”—GUYNAUD, “Concordances,” p. 271. + + + + +LOUIS XIV. + +(1643-1715.) + + +COMMENCEMENT OF HIS PERSONAL REIGN (MARCH 10, 1661). [I. 118.] + +_Quatrain added to the Xth Century._[152] + + Quand le fourchu sera soustenu de deux paux,[153] + Avec six demy-corps[154] et six sizeaux ouverts, + Le très puissant Seigneur, heritier des crapaux, + Alors subjugera sous soy tout l’univers. + +_Translation._ + + When a fork sustained by two stakes (_i.e._ V, _fourchu_, + sustained by two stakes upright, II. = M, a thousand,) and six + half horns and six scissors open (CCCCCC, XXXXXX). (Half horn + is the _cor de chasse_, or French horn cut in half, like a C, + making altogether 1600). + + The very mighty King, inheritor of the toads, shall subjugate + to his power the whole universe. + +These two first lines are clumsily employed in giving the date, but still +were in print fifty-five years before the date named. + +Mazarin died on March 9, 1661. The following day Louis XIV. became full +inheritor of the lilies, took the reins of government, and subjected +everything to his will. + +Upon this Le Pelletier remarks that the toads, as emblematic of France, +were standards borne under the early kings of the Merovingian race. +The _fleurs-de-lys_ were of later introduction, under Clovis, son of +Childeric I., the founder of the Christian monarchy of the Franks. + + +TREATY OF WESTPHALIA, ETC. (1648-1661). [I. 119.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 7._ + + Le grand conflit qu’on appreste à Nancy; + L’Æmathien[155] dira, tout je soubmets; + L’isle Britanne par[156] vin sel en soucy; + Hem-mi[157] deux Phi[158] longtemps ne tiendra Metz. + +_Translation._ + + A great conflict will approach Nancy; + The Æmathion will say, I submit all to me; + The isle of Britain will be agitated for lack of force and wisdom; + Metz will not hold out long against the two Philips. + +Nancy was taken in 1660 by the French, when they razed the fortifications +and united it with France. It appears to me that the first two lines of +this quatrain should have formed the last two, but how any such error as +that could have crept in is quite inexplicable. The reader will discern +that a difference of about twelve years exists between the dates involved +in the two distichs, that, as they are given, they are contrary to +chronology, and that for such disarrangement no reason is assignable. If +this is the way in which visions presented themselves to our seer, there +is no reason to suppose, as I do, that he shook up the separate quatrains +purposely to destroy a sequence that would have rendered them too easy of +interpretation. It might have been a printer’s error. + +We have already seen what is the classical meaning to be attributed +to Æmathion—that it relates to the sun and to Alexander the Great. In +Nostradamus it refers to Louis XIV. (_Louis le Grand_). Of him it is +to be remembered that he assumed as his emblem and that of France, the +sun, with the motto _Nec pluribus impar_. Now, the sun, in the language +of alchemists, stands for gold, and, in the metaphorical language +of the Church, for Christianity. Gold is all the Christianity that +many Christians possess. _Les Solaires_, in Nostradamus, is used for +Christians. It is especially connected with France, inasmuch as her +King is held at Rome, that centre of titles and of prelatical humility, +to be _Christianissimus_. But this stout Capetian glorious King meant +it of sovereignty. It was to signify, as Nostradamus has it, _tout je +soubmets_. What is this man’s own choice of a posy, to be cut around his +signet? _Nec pluribus impar._ What is the axiom his blind self-pride +invents when the death of Mazarin emancipates him from tutelage, and +he grips the reins of France in his sole left hand (in 1661)? _L’État, +c’est Moi._ Can insolence rise higher? Wait an odd century or so and +see a scaffold spring before your Tuilleries windows, see an Æmathion, +but twice removed in blood, roll his head, red, gushing, spurting, and +bounding on the sawdust-sprinkled planks there; its motto, could it +speak, would be your axiom recast fatally, _L’État du Capet!_ (_Caput!_) + +We have not quite concluded yet. When the treaty of Westphalia shall be +agreed to between France and Philip IV. of Spain in 1648, and before +the war of Succession to seat Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., on +the throne, Metz shall be ceded to France, and lose for ever its title +of Imperial City, between the two Philips—Philip IV. and Philip V., +_protégé_ of France. + +England about the same time, in revolution kindled by that imp of +malevolence, Richelieu, shall behead its king, 1649, and be in anxiety +because of the want of force and wisdom (_vin et sel_). This symbol Le +Pelletier interprets thus: Wine is the symbol of force, because of its +_heat_; and salt, because of its incorruptibility, is the symbol of +_wisdom_. I think it clear that this is not to be the interpretation +here. He does not allude to _want_ of force and wisdom; but anxiety +(_soucy_) is caused by force and wisdom (_à l’envers_, as he puts again +in reference to England, Century IX. 49; vol. i. 141) applied in the +wrong direction. + +This, though a highly unsatisfactory quatrain, as I have shown above, +is, nevertheless, one of the most remarkable of the whole series. The +time of the Westphalian treaty synchronises with the revolt in England—a +revolt which we have seen to be fostered out of mere pique by the +vulpine Richelieu; a Churchman plotting royal murder, taught by Rome’s +consent that regicide was God’s service, when a king (Henri III.) stood +in her way; and when the Church once corrupted herself, baptizing her +St. Bartholomew whose emblem was a knife, in blood, she absolved Paris, +[_cité au glaive_, i. 182] who in midsummer madness stained her kennels +red. The example of Whitehall—in re-enactment before the Tuilleries +(_vin et sel à l’envers_), with force and wisdom converted into violence +and democratic sensibility,—next turned Paris _rouge_, and the blood +carnation burst into bloom at every street corner. + + “When nations are to perish in their sins, + ’Tis in the Church the leprosy begins;” + +says the wise, mild, thoughtful, but much underrated bard, Cowper, who +has done Gilpin inimitably, and Homer better than anybody else, by a long +way. + + +LOSS OF DE LA FERRIÈRE’S SQUADRON (1655). [I. 121.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 87._ + + Classe[159] Gauloise n’approche de Corsegue,[160] + Moins de Sardaigne, tu t’en repentiras: + Trestous mourrez frustrés de l’aide grogne; + Sang nagera, captif ne me croiras. + +_Translation._ + + Approach not Corsica, thou fleet of France, + Nor yet Sardinia, lest thou rue the chance: + For ye no headland aids, ye all shall die, + The captive drown, for unbelieved am I. + +M. le Pelletier tells us of a French squadron, commanded by the Chevalier +de la Ferrière in 1655, that foundered in the Gulf of Lyons in coasting +Corsica and Sardinia. All hands perished: they did not, he says, pass +Cape Pourceau. He points out that _Grogne_ is the synonym of Pourceau, +which is a cape with a little port in the Mediterranean. This may have +more to support it than appears at first sight, but I think it much +simpler to take it for what it says. _Grogne_ is the same as _Groin_, +cape, or headland which runs out into the sea. In other words: nothing +will put off to you from the headland where you founder; there will +you all be drowned; for what the better will your master pilot be for +this advertisement of mine? Jean de Rian was this master pilot, and _Le +Captif_ was his nickname, as he had been a slave. + +Though perfectly useless for interpretation, Garencières makes +annotations on this quatrain, that have an interest of their own. He +takes the fulfilment to have been in 1555, just about the time when the +quatrains were copied out for presentation to Henri II. But he remarks +that _Greigne_, which is the word in his reading, signifies _galley_ in +the Provençal language, which was that of Nostradamus by his mother’s +side; and this makes very good sense: “they shall all founder without a +galley putting out to them from the shore.” + +Of course Garencières knows nothing about Jean de Rian, or the curious +precision with which Nostradamus gives us his nickname _Captif_; but he +appends to his “Poor prisoner, thou shalt not believe me” the following +comment that is worth recording, as it may furnish a link to some inquiry +in the future: + + “We find in this work many examples of those who went to + consult with the author concerning the success of their + undertakings, as did the Earl of _Sommerive_, before the + besieging of Bagnole; to whom he answered, that he should leave + the trees loaded with a new kind of fruit, that is to say, the + rebels, whom he caused to be hanged on the trees.” + + +FORTIFICATIONS OF VAUBAN AND THE CANAL OF LANGUEDOC (1659-1666). [I. 122.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 93._ + + Les ennemies du fort bien esloignés, + Par chariots conduict le bastion, + Par sur les murs de Bourges esgrongnés,[161] + Quand Hercules bastira l’Hæmathion. [162] + +_Translation._ + + When the enemy are driven from French soil, + And earthworks or bastions are brought by carts; + When the walls of Bourges have crumbled by time, + Then will Æmathion undertake a work of Hercules. + +When the peace of the Pyrenees, concluded with Spain in 1659, had removed +the enemy from the French frontiers, and Vauban had invented earthworks: +at least so says Le Pelletier; Nostradamus only says he used them. Moreri +tells us that the castle of Grosse Tour at Bourges was not repaired by +Louis XIV., and was already partly ruined in 1651. This line seems to +be a whimsical, but special announcement of the fact. Then Æmathion, +or Louis XIV., will undertake the Herculean labour of constructing the +Canal of Languedoc, which opened the Mediterranean to the ocean. It was +begun by Paul Riquet in 1666, and terminated in 1681. It cost thirty-four +million francs. It is said that when Vauban visited it he gave some +useful hints that were acted upon with advantage. Vauban, like Turenne, +was a glory, not to France, but to mankind. He was truly great, for he +despised riches, and loved truth to indiscretion; yet his life shows that +in judgment he much excelled those who loved truth less. + + +PEACE OF THE PYRENEES (NOVEMBER 7, 1659). [I. 123.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 58._ + + Au temps du dueil que le felin[163] monarque, + Guerroyera le jeune Æmathien: + Gaule bransler, perecliter la barque,[164] + Tenter[165] Phossen,[166] au Ponant[167] entretien. + +_Translation._ + + When the court of France shall be in mourning, the cat-like + monarch shall make war against the young Æmathien. France will + stagger; the bark of St. Peter be in danger. Marseilles will be + taken. Two great personages will meet in the West of France. + +More at large this may be read, that at the death of Louis XIII., when +the French Court is in mourning, shrewd Philip IV. of Spain will make +war on the boy King. France will be greatly shaken (1648-1653) by the +civil war of the Fronde, whilst Rome will be endangered by the growth of +Jansenism. This is Le Pelletier’s version. Garencières says that Paris +is signified, as she carries a ship represented in her arms. The 2nd of +March, 1660, Louis XIV. enters Phocea or Marseilles by a breach, after +which it submits to him. He then hurries to the west of the Isle of +Conference on the Bidassoa, and there concludes the peace of the Pyrenees +with Philip IV., and marries his daughter, the infanta Maria Theresa, of +Austria. + + +THE EXPEDITION TO IRELAND IN SUPPORT OF JAMES II. (1689-1691). [I. 125.] + +_Century II.—Quatrain 68._ + + De l’Aquilon les efforts seront grands, + Sur l’Ocean sera la porte ouverte, + Le regne en l’Isle sera reintegrand, + Tremblera Londres par[168] voilles[169] descouverte. + +_Translation._ + + Ireland, on the north of England, shall make great efforts. The + door of the ocean shall be opened to the fleets of France; the + kingdom in the island of Ireland shall be set up again; London + shall tremble at the discovery of sails. + +When William III., in 1688, shall have established himself on the throne, +when James II. absconded; Ireland will still be a stronghold, and the +French fleets, commanded by Château Renaud and Tourville, will convoy the +King to Ireland, in spite of the combined fleets of England and Holland, +in 1689-1690. They will become masters of the sea, and London will for +a moment tremble before the fleets of Louis XIV. This is Le Pelletier’s +statement. After the fight off Beachy Head on June 30, 1690, it seems to +have been pretty much as he relates; for Smollett’s account (ed. 1822, i. +93) is that; + + “Torrington retreated without further interruption into the + mouth of the Thames; and, having taken precautions against any + attempts of the enemy in that quarter, returned to London, the + inhabitants of which were overwhelmed with consternation.” + +There is a most remarkable passage in the work of M. Bouys on this +quatrain. He professes to apply it to the coming victory that was to +confer on Napoleon the coveted command of the seas, saying that you need +not always wait until after the event to interpret Nostradamus. His +own conduct, however, in this very instance does but enforce the rule. +He pretends not to know anything of the fulfilment in 1689-1690. In +furtherance of the same view he cites Century VIII., Quatrain 37: + + La forteresse auprès de la Thamise + Cherra pour lors le roi dedans serré, + Auprès du pont sera vu en chemise, + Un devant mort, puis dans le fort barré. + +The word _cherra_ presents the only difficulty here as to the mere +words. It is the future of the verb _choir_, tomber, to fall. Of the +prophecy I know of no interpretation. Garencières significantly quotes +Dan. iv. 10: “The dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation +thereof to thine enemies.” + + +WAR OF THE CAMISARDS (1702-1704). [I. 126.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 38._ + + L’entrée de Blaye par Rochelle et l’Anglois, + Passera outre le grand Æmathien: + Non loin d’Agen attendra le Gaulois, + Secours Narbonne deceu par entretien. + +_Translation._ + + The great Æmathion shall pass out of the Garonne at Blaye, + the seaport of Bordeaux, no longer impeded by Rochelle and + the English; the Camisards shall look for aid from their + co-religionists on the side of Agen and Narbonne, but will be + disappointed by an arrangement. + +Louis XIV. shall pass out by the _Pâté_ de Blaye, a fort of that name, +built by him in 1689 to command the entrance of the Gironde against the +English and the Protestants of Rochelle. The Camisards in revolt in the +Cévennes (_les Gaulois_) will wait at Agens and Narbonne for promised +help, but quite in vain, after the submission of Jean Cavalier (1704) to +Marshal Villars, at a Conference held at Nîmes. Louis XIV. was so beset +by the enemies of France that he sent the Marshal into Languedoc to +pacify the districts he despaired of subduing by force. + +In this quatrain, Garencières shows that there is some analogy between +_Æmathien_, which we are quite sure is Louis XIV. from the frequency of +the application to him, and the country of Macedon, so-called, where +Cæsar and Pompey fought their last battle in the field of Pharsalia; and +he quotes Lucan’s line— + + Bella per Æmathios plus quam civilia campos. + +It is very probable that line was in the mind of Nostradamus at the +moment. + + +WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (1701-1713). [I. 127.] + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 2._ + + Par mort la France prendra voyage à faire, + Classe[170] par mer, marcher monts Pyrenées, + Espaigne en trouble, marcher gent militaire; + Des plus grands Dames en France emmenées. + +_Translation._ + + By reason of a death, France shall undertake a foreign + expedition. The fleet will go by sea, the troops will cross + the Pyrenees. Spain in trouble will march her military forces, + because great ladies have migrated to France. + +Philip V., grandson of Louis le Grand, by will of Charles II., will +ascend the Spanish throne. But Austria, England, Holland, Prussia, +Portugal, and Savoy will coalesce to support the pretensions of the +Archduke Charles. The fleets of France will put to sea, her armies will +cross the Pyrenees. Spain, in two camps, will be trampled by troops in +every direction: all springing out of Bourbon marriages with the two +Infantas; one, daughter of Philip III. married to Louis XIII., the other, +a daughter of Philip IV., married to Louis XIV. This war lasted twelve +years, and was disastrous to France. Philip V. found himself chased from +Spain by the Austrians. By the Peace of Utrecht, 1713, the Spanish +monarchy was dismembered, and some of his earlier conquests were snatched +from Louis XIV. + + +OVERTHROW OF PHILIP V., _GRANDSON OF LOUIS XIV_. (1706). [I. 129.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 64._ + + L’Æmathion passer monts Pyrenées, + En Mars Narbon[171] ne fera resistance, + Par mer terre fera si[172] grand menée, + Cap[173] n’ayant terre seure pour demeurance. + +_Translation._ + + The Æmathion is to pass the Pyrenean Mount; + In Narbo Martius no resistance shows; + By sea and land are greatest efforts made; + The Capet holds no foot of land is safe. + +Louis XIV. will leap the Pyrenees, and will treat (as we have before +seen) with the Camisards of Narbonne. He will make desperate efforts by +sea and land. But the Capetian, his grandson, Philip V., will be driven +out of Spain by the Imperial forces, and not retain a foot of soil on +which to live. + +In all these passages of history, quite detached as they seem to be, +we find analogies springing up at all points: Æmathion the Macedonian, +and Louis le Grand; the Spanish succession which came up again in Louis +Philippe’s time, even to uniting the very two names of Louis XIV. and +his grandson Philip V. in his own baptismal one. Louis wished to expel +a Charles, and Louis Philippe actually expelled Charles X. Leibnitz +made an express journey to Paris to persuade Louis XIV. to undertake a +grand expedition against Egypt. Napoleon, the next Æmathion or Apollon +leading France to mischief, was thrust into an Egyptian expedition, and +entered into a desperate Spanish war to follow, that crippled France +again. History repeats itself, they say. It seems at every turn to +be perpetually engaged in a process of replaiting its old lines and +once-discarded threads. + + + + +LOUIS XV. + + +MINORITY OF LOUIS XV. (SEPTEMBER 1, 1715). [I. 131.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 15._ + + Coeur, vigueur, gloire, le regne changera. + De tous points contre ayant son adversaire: + Lors France enfance par mort subjuguera; + Un grand Regent sera lors plus contraire. + +_Translation._ + + Heart, vigour, glory, change with change of reign,— + At every point opposed by something cross: + An infant is set up in France by death; + And a great Regent helps the contrary. + +With the death of Louis XIV., the splendour of his reign will pass away, +and every point show contrary in his successor. By failure of direct +inheritors of the throne, Louis XV., a child of five will rule, under +Philippe d’Orléans (_un grand Regent_), whose vices will show him more +contrary to Louis XIV. than even to Louis XV. + + +DECADENCE OF MONARCHY (1715-1774). [I. 132.] + +_Century V.—Quatrain 38._ + + Ce grand monarque qu’au mort succedera,[174] + Donnera vie illicite lubrique, + Par nonchalance à tous concedera, + Qu’à la parfin faudra[175] la loy Salique. + +_Translation._ + + He who succeeds to the great monarch dead, will lead an evil + and illicit life. By his neglectful habit he will entrust + business to the management of others, so that at last (_à la + parfin, per finem_) the Salic law will fail. + +In other words, this is a plain announcement that the reign of Louis XV. +will serve as a simple prelude or introduction to the establishment of a +Republic; the annihilation of the Salic law; and of the French throne. + + + + +ENGLAND. + + +CHANGES OF GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND (1501-1791). [I. 135.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 57._ + + Sept fois changer verrez gent[176] Britannique. + Teints en sang en deux cens nonante an; + Franche[177] non point, par[178] appuy Germanique; + Aries[179] doubte son pole Bastarnan.[180] + +_Translation._ + + You will see the British nation change seven times, stained + with blood, in two hundred and ninety years; but not so France, + thanks to the strength of its Germanic Kings [of the Capetian + race]. The sign of the Ram will not know (_doubte_) the + northern district (_son pole Bastarnan_), so changed will it be. + +England will change its government seven times in a period of 290 +years, inundated with blood, says Le Pelletier,—making this long run of +years commence at what he calls the Renaissance (1501-1791). Not so in +France; thanks to the firmness of the Germanic kings, she will hold out +till 1792. I take this to be, in effect, a French endeavour to chalk +out a grand epoch in French annals. Poland (_la Bastarnie_) will be +dismembered. The first partition took place in 1772. There will arise +in the north of Europe,—Peter the Great ascending the Russian throne, +1682, and Lutheranism triumphing in Germany, 1517,—so that Aries cannot +identify the regions adjacent to its northern pole (_son pole Bastarnan_). + +M. le Pelletier gives an elaborate statement of what he conceives to +be the seven Revolutions in England (1501-1791). But starting from +the Renaissance, at the fancy date 1501, he vitiates the whole of the +interpretation as it relates to England; but for the last half of the +quatrain he is excellent. His interpretation of the fourth line is +masterly. Garencières gives a lengthy annotation, to me in the main +unintelligible, but he makes the period to run out about the year 1845; +in which year I can see nothing to chronicle but the Maynooth Grant of +£26,000 per annum. He says the two first lines refer to England, and he +leaves the English nation to interpret them. We shall shortly try to do +so. + +(1) The Revolution Le Pelletier dates 1532, when Henry VIII. is +proclaimed by Parliament the head of the Church; 1534 this should be. (2) +Re-establishment of Popery under Queen Mary. (3) Elizabeth comes back +to Protestantism. (4) Commonwealth follows upon death of Charles I. (5) +Restoration under Charles II. (6) William III. takes the throne of James +II. (7) The House of Hanover succeeds. + +This is exceedingly faulty. It omits as one Revolution the most important +of all, if consequences are to be regarded, that is, the lapse of the +Tudor race in Elizabeth and the succession of the Stuarts. Another very +weak point is the commencing of the 290 years prior to the first issue +of the quatrains. According to this, two of the Revolutions were already +elapsed. A man does not prophesy of what is past. Nostradamus was writing +in the reign of Queen Mary, so that the first Revolution would naturally +count from 1558, when Elizabeth re-introduced Protestantism. + +Now that we have contrived a firmer basis, let us see what this leads to. + +No. 1. Elizabeth comes to the throne, November 17, 1558. + +No. 2. James I. (Stuart succession), March 24, 1603. Queen Elizabeth dies +exactly one hundred years after her namesake, Queen of Henry VII. + +No. 3. Commonwealth on death of Charles I., January 30, 1649; +Protectorate, Cromwell, December 16, 1653. + +No. 4. Restoration, Charles II., May 29, 1660 (on his 30th birthday). + +No. 5. William III. and Mary, November 5, 1668; Revolution (Gunpowder +Day). + +No. 6. Hanoverian succession, George I., May 21, 1714. + +No. 7. Reform Bill, June 17, 1832. (Dulling the lustre of the Crown, as +we shall see the French King _mitré_.) + +Those who wish to prophesy pleasant things can do away with the +disagreeable date of the Reform Bill, in part, because the No. 3 +Revolution can fairly be interpreted as two Revolutions. Cromwell’s +usurpation belied the pretended principles of his whole life and conduct +prior to that assumption, and can be called a new order of things. This +arrangement will obviate the necessity of classifying the Reform Bill +as the 7th Revolution. But the 290 years must end where they do, though +you can regard the matter in what light you please. But I look upon +Cromwell’s treason, not to the King, but to himself as a man, as being +practically part and parcel of the Commonwealth, or a horn growing out +of the head of that rhinoceros or unicorn: nothing more. Given a popular +revolt, a self-seeking horn always grows out of the forehead of the +beast, till, with a ring in its nostril, it is driven whither its sublime +liberties shall dictate. + +Take it either way, it seems to me quite beyond the reach of the ordinary +human mind, simply left to its own resources, to strike out four lines +so pregnant as these, and await silently, for three hundred years, +an interpretation, so little forced or driven as this is. I may say +that to even pack into the space of four lines a mass of assertions so +pregnant with hints, is a feat in condensation that no poet has ever +equalled. Tacitus, the tersest of historians, has never approached it. No +précis writer of the most accomplished skill has ever reduced the facts +furnished to him in a well-drawn manuscript to such a compass. He could +not, and remain intelligible. To those who will merely look at it in this +light it may afford endless matter of reflection and curious study. As a +forecast, its appearance to me is purely miraculous. Let any one explain +it otherwise who thinks he can; we shall all be ready to learn. + + +STUART DYNASTY (1603-1649). [I. 138.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 40._ + + La jeunne[181] nay au regne Britannique, + Qu’aura le pere mourant recommandé + Iceluy mort, Lonole[182] donra[183] topique,[184] + Et à son fils le regne, demandé. + +_Translation._ + + The young Prince of the Kingdom of Britain, + Whose dying father will have recommended him; + This one being dead, Lonole will perorate, + And snatch the kingdom from his very son. + +James I. of England and VI. of Scotland was born June 19, 1566: the son +of Mary Stuart and Henry Lord Darnley; who, before his assassination +by Bothwell, had commended the young prince to the fidelity of the +Scotch lords. He ascended the throne of England in 1603, and under him +England and Scotland were first denominated Great Britain (_au regne +Britannique_).[185] When King James I. dies (_Iceluy mort_), _Lonole_ +will seduce England with artificial rhetoric, and demand the kingdom and +the life of his son Charles I. + +Lonole is the right reading, according to the _Texte-type_; others read +_Doudlé_, and Garencières reads _Londre_. He also fancies that the +prophecy concerns Charles II., because Charles I. commended him to the +people of England. It is rather curious that _Lonole_ should give the +anagram of Olleon, or Ὀλλύων, as Napoleon does that of Ναπολλύων and +Apollyon. Cromwell and he have many analogies and points of contact, +whether in history, character, or prophecy. But a further anagram, still +more wonderful, springs here into view, which, I believe, has hitherto +escaped all the commentators. _Ole Nol_, or _Old Noll_, has always been +the Protector’s nickname, and in the first form is letter for letter +_Lonole_. It may stand for Apollyon also, and as such for “Old Nick” too. + +I ought not to pass away from this mass and congeries of singular +hints and disclosures without pointing out the remarkable fact or link +connecting James I. with Nostradamus, and the particular quatrain we +are now dealing with. James I. was born June 19, 1566, and thirteen +days after, July 2, 1566, Nostradamus breathed his last. This quatrain, +once understood, is one of the clearest and most extraordinary of the +forecasts of Nostradamus. The commencing event, the birth of James I., +just touches his own death; and the last event, the death of Charles I., +1649, stretches to nearly a hundred years later. + +Anagram seems to have been once a passion with the people. We find the +white cloth of Lincoln in the thirteenth century alluded to as “Drap +blanc de _Nicole_,” that standing for _Lincoln_. [Le Roux de Lincy “Livre +des Prov. Franc.” i. 195.] + + +FALL OF CHARLES I. (MARCH 31, 1646). [I. 139.] + +_Century III.—Quatrain 80._ + + Du regne Anglais le digne dechassé,[186] + Le conseiller par[187] ire[188] mis à feu, + Ses adherans iront si bas tracer,[189] + Que le bastard sera demy receu. + +_Translation._ + + He who had the right to reign in England, shall be driven from + the throne, his counsellor abandoned (_mis a feu_) to the fury + of the populace (_par ire_). His adherents will follow so low a + track that the usurper (_le bastard_) will come to be Protector + (_demy receu_, or half King). + +Garencières fancies this to relate to Charles II., and, that it is very +clear. But evidently _le digne dechassé_ is Charles I. Strafford was +surrendered weakly to the unreasoning rage of the people (_par ire_). +The Scotch, his countrymen (_ses adherents_), will sell him for £400,000 +(Hume, vii. 76) to the Independents with unexampled baseness (_si bas +tracer_). After this Cromwell (_le bastard_) will become Protector, or +half king (_sera demy receu_). + +This could scarcely be made more remarkable than it is, had it been +written historically after the event, as history, than it is now before +it, as prophecy. Look, again, at the overwhelming insight and terseness: +the King defeated, Strafford sacrificed, the Covenanters’ money bargain, +and the Protectorate chalked out in decisive outline nearly a century +before the realization: and each event is contained in one metrical +phrase. + + +EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. (JANUARY 30, 1649). [I. 141.] + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 49._ + + Gand et Bruceles marcheront contre[190] Anvers, + Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy: + Le sel et vin luy seront à l’envers, + Pour eux avoir le regne en desarroy. + +_Translation._ + + Gand and Brussels will march past Antwerp, + The Senate at London will put their King to death; + Salt and wine will be applied contrariwise, + So that they will set the whole kingdom in disarray. + +Philip IV. in the Netherlands, being at war, will move Gand and Brussels +towards Antwerp against Holland in revolt. Holland had, in 1579, detached +itself from the Low Countries. Thus Antwerp became the border town of the +Spanish possessions. Philip claimed rights over her till the treaty of +Westphalia, or Munster, of which we have Terburg’s curious portraiture in +the National Gallery, concluded on October 14, 1648; three months only +before the death of Charles I., so that the conjunction of the two events +is extraordinarily definite and remarkable. + +The second line is as definite and marvellous as anything that occurs +in Nostradamus. By the treaty of Munster it fixes the date to within +three months. Garencières says: “It is the most remarkable of all those +[prophecies] that ever Nostradamus was author of.” He notifies also, what +I think nobody else has, that the number of this quatrain, 49, gives the +very year of the occurrence in the seventeenth century. For though we in +England then called it 1648-49, Nostradamus, by the Gregorian Calendar +used in France, would reckon it as 1649. We need lay no stress whatever +upon this, for the quatrain wants nothing to strengthen it. Yet, be it +the offspring of chance or intention, it is most singular. I have before +said how much value lies in mere curiosities, and it is part of my +business to point one out whenever I am able. + +We have already handled the phrase _vin sel_ at p. 151 and 153 [I. 119], +but from a French, and not English point of view; yet even there the line +is + + L’Isle Britanne par vin sel en souci. + +—showing the consistency with which the visions must have shaped +themselves in the mind of Nostradamus. The one we are treating of now +appears in the ninth century of the prophet’s quatrains, but the above +line occurs in a quatrain of the tenth century. Still, what is said in +the one is consistent with what is said in the other. If we call this +chance, we shall have to admit an axiom far from self-evident; namely, +that method is discernible in chance as well as in madness. Here, as at +disgraceful Old Pancras graveyard, there is clearly a slight derangement +of epitaphs. + +Bouys and nearly all the commentators treat the figure of _le vin et +sel_, as representing force and wisdom, which were wanting to the +King of England. I think we are not at all necessitated to adopt this +interpretation. Supposing _salt_ and _wine_ in a good sense to symbolize +wisdom and power, before we settle that to be their application here, we +shall have to understand what _à l’envers_ means. In the first place, it +is not the preposition _envers_, meaning _for_, or _in regard to_. It is +a noun substantive, masculine, and stands for the wrong side of a fabric, +as contrasted with, or opposed to, the right side, called _l’endroit_. +It means that wisdom and power will present their wrong aspect at +this juncture, and become intrigue and violence, and will so stand to +him (_lui seront à l’envers_), as that they will convert into their +opposites, intrigue and violence. It has the old sense of _inversus_, as +in the _Roman de la Rose_. A person is there told that on going to bed no +sleep will come, but tossing from one side to the other: + + Une heure _envers_ et l’autre adens + Come cil qui a mal aus dens. + +Here it reads one hour on the _back_, another on the teeth. Molière says +of a character (_l’Et._ ii. 14): + + Vous serez toujours.... + Un envers du bon sens, un jugement à gauche. + +Nothing can better describe the mockery in Westminster Hall of the trial +of the King than _un jugement à gauche_. The third line of the quatrain +is the precise equivalent. _Vin_ so nearly resembles vis that it is +sure to mean force, the two extremes of which are power and violence, +law and lawlessness. We see this very distinctly in the old French word +_vimaire_, force majeure (_vis major_) and the word further signified +storm, tempest, famine, and pestilence (_vide_ Roquefort, _s.v._). That +wine does not at all definitely stand for power well directed, is plain +enough from “the wine of fornication” (Rev. xvii. 2); and that salt is +not to be taken as wisdom personified with fixity may be gathered, if +from nothing else, from the sanctification of the sacramental elements in +the Church of Rome; where before salt is used, it is first exorcised, to +purify it from the stain of original sin, that passed upon all creation +at the fall (Auber’s “Symbolisme,” iii. 394). Whatever wisdom Godwin, +Carlyle, and other modern revolutionists may suppose themselves to have +discovered in the character of Cromwell, Nostradamus certainly had formed +no such notion of him, as we shall immediately feel assured by the next +quatrain. Nostradamus’s opinion of Cromwell may determine nothing at all +as to the final estimate of that man. I adduce it only to help to settle +what he meant by the words we are studying, _le sel et vin_. The next +line is plain enough. The Independents set the whole kingdom by the ears. + +I think we have reached a point at which every line of this quatrain has +become tolerably clear. A wiseacre, writing about it in the _Quarterly +Review_ (vol. xxvi. p. 189) says: “Œdipus himself could not give the +sense of the whole verse.” This is the way in which people treat a +difficult, abstruse, and intricate subject. It is so easy to say we have +made up our mind about a man; that he is unintelligible, a charlatan, +an impostor; that his forecasts are oracular nonsense, meaning nothing, +or that if at times they do light on something, chance has more to do +with it than seership or vision. You would certainly think that a sane +man, finding in a book,—that indubitably was in print,—in 1558 a line +prophesying the death of the King of England nearly a hundred years +after, “Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy,” would be struck with +astonishment at the clearness of that, rather than with the difficulty of +making sense of the other three lines. But this is what prejudice can do +with us all. + + +CROMWELL’S PROTECTORATE (1653-1658). [I. 142.] + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 76._ + + Plus Macelin[191] que Roy en Angleterre, + Lieu obscur nay[192] par force aura l’empire, + Lasche sans foy sans loy saignera terre: + Son temps approche si près que je souspire. + +_Translation._ + + A Butcher more than king rules England. A man of no birth will + seize the government by violence. Of loose morals, without + faith or law he will bleed the earth. The hour approaches me so + near that I breathe with difficulty. + +Here we have a most remarkable forecast. It puts in a clear light what +view Nostradamus had formed of Cromwell. There appears to have been +visually present to him the butcher-like face of Cromwell, with its +fleshly conch and hideous warts. This seems to have struck him with such +a sense of vividness and horror, that he is willing to imagine that the +time is very near at hand. A full century had, however, to elapse; but he +sighs as with a present shudder, and the blood creeps: + + Son temps s’approche si près que je souspire. + +One of the most remarkable features throughout the work of Nostradamus, +is the general absence of any sense of time, apart from the mere +enumeration of years as an algebraic or arithmetical formula; further +than this, he so regulates and controls his feelings as to appear almost +impassible; but this announcement is of such unparalleled and terrific +import that he departs from his usual practice and stands horror-stricken +as in the presence of a fearful vision. + +It was intended to treat here of the portraiture of Cromwell. To +complete, however, my observations, I had to go to Chequers Court, +the Print Room, and the National Portrait Gallery. These and other +necessary steps occupied so much time that the printers had to commence +paging; then, as the enlarged matter could not find room here, there +was no alternative but an Appendix, which will be found at p. 351. My +remarks, which make so little show now that they are done, cost me far +more trouble than ten times the mere amount of writing would. The final +settlement depends on the cast at Florence, if still in existence. I have +cleared the road for a decisive conclusion; which, though it is not much, +is yet something. + +Bouys specially comments (p. 109) upon the word _Lasche_ in this +quatrain, and takes it to mean cowardly, the same as _lâche_ does in +modern French. Both forms of the word are alike deduced from the Latin, +_laxare_, _laxatus_, and then it might well mean of _loose morals_, as +I have rendered it. That the Latin may mean this Bailey’s “Facciolati” +shows, _s.v._ _Laxitas_: “Liber membris cum mollibus fingitur, et +liquoris feminei dissolutissimus laxitate”; and Cromwell’s dissolute +life in early youth has been insisted on by many, though, of course, +contradicted by others. Frederic Harrison is the last of these, and +passes over the charge of vice with a very light hand, saying that “Such +testimony as theirs we cannot trust; but we cannot now refute it.” +Suffice it to say, I do not think cowardice was what Nostradamus meant to +impute to Cromwell. + +The obscure birth requires a moment’s consideration, as none of the +French commentators allude in any way to it. The household of Robert +Cromwell, Oliver’s father, in Huntingdon, was of the industrious, +jog-trot, somewhat over-professingly pious, middle-class order, common +enough then in the Eastern counties. What is most remarkable, perhaps, +is that the homestead, in which he was born, had been built upon the +ruins of a convent of Augustine Friars, and that the two estates which +came to him, one from his father and the other from his mother’s +brother, consisted of old church-lands. Oliver’s branch of the family +had rather fallen away from the county position which such inheritance +infers. But it was always the more prominent families that stole, or +possessed themselves of, the church-lands at the spoliation, and thus +the Cromwells were married in and in with gentry. This scion of the +robbers of the Church was soon to develop, on his own account, into +a robber of the State; a man of violence and passion quite after the +heart of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle’s notion of a hero, is a strong devil +in a tantrum, mollifying, now and again, to the drone of a Psalm tune. +Cromwell’s branch seems to have drifted from the more courtly side to +Calvinistic burghers and narrow-souled Independents; whilst Milton, who +was born a London citizen, far away from gentry, was floated by his +tastes and nature to the Court side of things, to the Bridgewaters, +Ludlow Castle (see his deathless Masque of Comus), until a lofty +idea of principle,—taken up by an unripe judgment, and dazzled by +that false illusion, Liberty,—dashed him headlong into polemics, and +irretrievably damaged the greatest poet ever born to England. They were +exact opposites—these two. Milton sacrificed himself to his principles, +Cromwell his principles to his person. Still, an old brewing concern +at Huntingdon may well be designated by Nostradamus _lieu obscur_, as +contrasted with Whitehall, and a burial, if you please, in Westminster +Abbey, so wastefully extravagant as that it might well break a nation’s +treasury to meet it. Such prodigious pageantry belies the professions of +the life, and can in no way be harmonized with “Take that bauble hence.” +Such empty, worthless show has less, for me, of the saint and hero in it, +than of the froth of beer, and of the littleness and vanity of man. If +this is to be great, prythee, tell us, what is it to be little? + + +BRITISH ASCENDANCY OF THE SEA (OVER THREE CENTURIES). [I. 143.] + +_Century X.—Quatrain 100._ + + Le grand empire sera par Angleterre. + Le pempotam[193] des ans plus de trois cens: + Grandes copies[194] passer par mer et terre. + Les Lusitains[195] n’en seront pas contens. + +_Translation._ + + England the Pempotam (πᾶν _potens_) will rule the great empire + (of the waters) for more than three hundred years. Great armies + will pass by sea and land; the Portuguese will not be satisfied. + +The French render this as meaning the destruction of England by large +forces coming to overwhelm her by sea and land, but the reader will +see that it does not at all necessarily show this. If we altered the +colon, and put it at the end of the third line, it would simply mean +that, whilst she was “all powerful” at sea, she moved large bodies of +troops by both elements. I do not think it is very clear what the last +line intends. But the three hundred years’ dominion of the sea is a very +palpable and most important object. That it is now drawing to a close +is a somewhat melancholy subject for the contemplation of Englishmen, +when we consider the searching revolution introduced by steam. If it +really forebodes evil to England, it would involve dissatisfaction to +the Lusitanians, as, if England fell, Portugal would be overwhelmed +simultaneously by Spain. + +The Invincible Armada of Philip II. was destroyed in 1588 by storms +first, and the residue by Drake in Cadiz Bay. From that epoch we +naturally date the maritime supremacy of our country, which, according +to Nostradamus, is to last for more than three centuries, but not four. +Nelson’s death at Trafalgar in 1805 was the culminating event of our +naval history. Its salt-sea tale still stirs young hearts in far-off +sea-board cottages on stormy nights in winter with a flush of heroism, +and that yet more sacred thing, a solemn sense of duty. But the old +sobriety and obedient spirit of reverence, that was common in English +homes last century is greatly decadent under the rotten knowledge +dropping widely from the Upas Board Schools,—with reverence banished +and obedience lost. The bare three hundred years ended in 1888. What +the _plus_ may count for, with Revolt thus bred at every hearth, a wise +Englishman might ask with some emotion now. + +It is said, in James’s “Naval History,” that from 1793 to 1815—I have +not referred to verify—two hundred ships of the line, and three to +four hundred frigates were taken or destroyed of the fleets opposed to +England; and of the sea as at the pouring out of the second vial, ἐγένετο +αἷμα ὡς νεκροῦ, it became as the blood of a dead man (Rev. xvi. 3). This +completely crushed out all chance of Napoleon’s descent upon England; +but, with the lying spirit that distinguished his administration at all +times, he managed to disguise the fact from Frenchmen at the time; so +that we find Bouys, at p. 92, promising him—out of two misinterpreted +quatrains—in 1806, when his fleet was annihilated, the empire of the sea +and a conquest of England as complete as that of William the Conqueror. +It only proves once more how far from truth is the wish that is father to +the thought. Let him stand aloof who would read the future by the light +of the lantern of his prejudices. + +We are now at the end of the guidance of Le Pelletier. Nevertheless, I +will adduce several other quatrains to bring the English sequence down to +the succession of the House of Hanover. They will perhaps not be devoid +of instruction, though they will not be so remarkable as those already +adduced. Several quatrains, more or less intelligibly wrought out, are +enumerated in a pamphlet of the year 1715 by D. D.[196] The first relates +to Queen Mary. + + +QUEEN MARY. + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 96._ + + La Sœur aisnee de L’Isle Britannique, + Quinze ans devant le frère aura naissance, + Par son promis, moyennant verrifique, + Succedera au Règne de Balance. + +_Translation._ + + The elder sister of the British Isle shall be born fifteen + years before her brother; true to her intervening promise, she + will succeed to the Kingdom of the Balance. + +This means that Mary, elder sister of Edward VI., shall ascend the throne +of England. She was not born fifteen years before him. Her birth took +place February 18, 1516, whilst Edward VI. was born October 12, 1537, +over twenty-one years later. The fulfilment of her truthful promise +lay in carrying out her vow to reinstate the Papists, causing even her +sister Elizabeth to be imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of conspiracy. +_Moyennant_ seems to refer to the temporary nature and duration of her +papal restorations; _en la moyenne_, in the midst or interim, between the +Protestantism of her young brother, and that of Elizabeth, who succeeded +her. Mary’s birth was an event actually contemporary with Nostradamus; +a very little inquiry, we may be sure, would have enabled him to have +rendered it conformable to the facts of history. As exemplifying his +method and procedure, it is very important to find that he took no +trouble whatever to do so. It is evident that our prophet acted quite +independently of external aids. He seems to have had methods and ways +of his own, in which he had the most entire and implicit faith. In +whatsoever manner the impressions reached him, he laid himself open to +their reception, a reception to all appearance of pure passivity: he took +the earliest moment of noting them down, more after the manner of an +amanuensis under dictation than as being personally at all responsible +for anything he committed to paper. The explanation of D. D. upon this +passage is very singular, and implies somewhat of the insight of an +adept into magical processes and fatidical language, of which we should +be glad to know more. We must, however, content ourselves with it as +it is; and even this little glimpse will be valued by those who love to +study the human mind in all its byeways, and who are qualified to do so +by thrusting aside from their own mind all private prejudice and vain +prepossession. He says with regard to the discrepancy: + + “But, if he has not known it, then has he either overheard it + _in raptu_, whilst his genius dictated unto him one year and + three _Heptades_, or forgot it _post raptum_, and did write one + year and two _Heptades_. The _Lingua Demonum_ uses _Septenarios + in numerando_, as we do _Denarios_.” + +Where he gets this intelligence from I have no idea. What he heard _in +raptu_, could not have been one year and three heptades, for that would +have represented twenty-two years, and we have to do with twenty-one +years. What he might have heard, supposing we are right as to the _lingua +demonum_, would be “one, plus two heptades,” meaning _three heptades_; +and he might have supposed it to mean one year plus two heptades, or +fifteen years. If not satisfactory, this at least, has something of +plausibility about it. + +The phrase _Règne de Balance_ has much of importance attaching to it. +Garencières translates the last line, “She shall succeed in the Kingdom +of Libra,” and he annotates that the princess, whom he does not recognize +at all, born so long before her brother, shall be married to a King of +France, which is signified by the “Kingdom of _Libra_.” He also says that +Louis XIII. was called _The Just_, because he was born under the sign +_Libra_. I give this for the sake of its being curious, though quite +beside the mark, so far as I am able to see. + +The phrase _Règne de Balance_ is one of those pithy pregnant sentences, +ever and anon dropping instinctively from the pen of Nostradamus, on +all topics treated by him or glanced at. The whole bent of England’s +policy, from Henry VII.’s day to the Treaty of Vienna, has been to +maintain a European equipoise, and to provide that no State should grow +so strong as to overwhelm the rest. The wise counsels of the statesmen +of Elizabeth were all directed in the hope of fortifying it; and it was +never seriously infringed until the first partition of Poland in 1772, +which was completed by the third in 1795. Napoleon’s false profession +to restore it in 1806 may count—like all he said, “as false as dicers’ +oaths”—for nothing. England’s permission of that crime,—that satanry of +royal crowns, struck her with judicial blindness;—and hired publicists, +the venal reptiles that preceded the journalists, soon sprang up in +abundance, to confuse and smoke-dry the moral sense of Europe. Poland had +established that most unworkable of all governmental schemes, an elective +monarchy; an arrangement that insures periodical anarchy at every +election, and generally a wrong choice at last. The satanry of Split +Eagles gave out, that the Poles could not govern themselves. But the +fourth article in Peter the Great’s will shows that they were not to be +allowed to govern themselves. They were to be kept in continual jealousy, +whilst the other powers were to be corrupted by gold, and a share of the +plunder; till Russia could retake all. The bribers, the bribed, and the +publicists succeeded so well that the very phrase “Balance of power” +became, and still is, a topic of ridicule in common conversation. By +this means its obvious rationality is excluded from any chance of a fair +hearing. The Navigation Laws, Corn Laws, and Protection, have all been +treated in the same way in our own time, and with the same revolutionary +consequences, and loss of English supremacy. The Marquis de Bouillé, in +his “Mémoires,” ed. 1821, p. 8,—one of the few modern men who is entitled +to be called a statesman,—says of England, that it is an empire whose +support all other nations stand in need of, and that its happiness is +intimately bound up with that of the world at large, but that if its +thirst of gold should destroy its patriotism; or that bold demagogues and +orators should get power to meddle with its fundamental laws, it would +soon become chaotic and fall, leaving nothing behind it but another great +ghost of empire perished, to glimmer as an historical beacon through the +night of time. Again he says, at p. 24, that for thirty years (speaking +about 1783) she has been the happy rival of France, and in some sort the +arbitress of Europe. A little later on, when we crushed Napoleon by sea +and land, and yet preserved France, we rose to our highest; but at Vienna +the _Règne de Balance_[197] passed, probably for ever, from the sceptre +of England; just twenty years after the final partition of Poland. Cursed +are those who, with arms in their hands, stand by and allow evil to +be done! We repeated the cowardice when France was under the heel of +Prussia. If no virtue remained, the common policy of equalization should +have weighed, to throw in aid to the weaker side. + + +QUEEN ELIZABETH (1533-1603). + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 74._ + + La dechassee au regne tournera, + Ses ennemies trouvez des conjurez; + Plusque jamais son temps triomphera, + Trois, et Septante, la mort, trop asseurez. + +_Translation._ + + The rejected one shall at last reach the throne, her enemies + found to have been traitors. More than ever shall her period be + triumphant. At seventy she shall go assuredly to death, in the + third year of the century. + +Elizabeth was long withheld from the throne. When she reached it, of +course all enemies were regarded as traitors, and no reign was ever more +triumphant. She proved a thorn in the side of popery; overthrew the +Armada; and crippled the power of Spain, despoiling it of a large tract +of land in America, which has been called after her Virginia; and under +Essex, in 1596, inflicted on it a loss of twenty million ducats or pieces +of eight, in the Bay of Cadiz. The next quatrain that we shall take seems +to refer to the expedition by Essex. + +The fourth line is a very singular one. It has no punctuation in the +edition of 1558; so I introduce a comma between _trois_ and _septante_. +_Septante_ is “seventy,” a good old word that has dropped out of French +usage, but which many French scholars think infinitely preferable to +the clumsy circumlocution _Soixante dix_. _Trois_ stands for 1603. +Nostradamus often drops the thousands and hundreds from a date. We shall +shortly come to a case in point, at the Fire of London, 1666. When +Nostradamus describes the doomed city, he writes: “Bruslé par fond, de +vingt-trois les six.” The nought in 1603 cannot be given, so that, +omitting the figures in the tens, hundreds, and thousands, the _trois_ +remaining gives the date; so that the line remains “In the third year [of +the seventeenth century] and seventy years old, assured death comes.” +Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533, and she died March 24 (April 3, +N.S.), 1603; fulfilling to a nicety the conditions of the line as thus +set forth. + + +ATTACK ON CADIZ BAY (1596). + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 94._ + + Devant le lac ou plus cher fut getté + De sept mois, et son ost desconfit + Seront Hispans par Albanois gastez, + Par delay perte en donnant le conflict. + +_Translation._ + + Before the lake, where much treasure (_plus cher_) was + stranded, after a seven months’ voyage, and the host + discomforted, Spaniards shall be worsted by the English, by + time lost before giving battle. + +Garencières here takes _Albanois_ for Albanians, which of course prevents +him from reaching any conceivable meaning. It stands for English, as +Albanies, or Albions. The quatrain may reasonably enough be interpreted +of the attack made by Essex, Howard, and Raleigh, June, 1596, on Cadiz +Bay. They destroyed there thirteen ships of war, and forty huge South +American galleons, part of the great “silver fleet,” or “plate fleet.” +They had got stranded in their own harbour. Had the Spaniards been +alert, they might have unloaded the treasure-ships, and so saved the +cargoes. If they had attacked the English at once, instead of awaiting +the onset, they might have beaten them off, or at least have kept them +out of the harbour. But they were so supine that the Duke de Medina +had at last to fire the ships to prevent their capture. The Spartans +and Spaniards have been noted as being of small despatch: _Mi venga la +muerta di Spagna_—“Let my death come from Spain, for then it will be +sure to be long in coming” (Bacon’s Essay on Despatch). Collins does +not give this in his Spanish proverbs. But not only did Spaniards and +Spartans procrastinate. “Business tomorrow,” said the Theban Polymarch, +in Plutarch, as he laid under his pillow some despatches relating to a +conspiracy, and was killed before he read them. Copyslip wisdom saith +“Delays are dangerous.” + +The bay and harbour of Cadiz may very well be called a lake, being twelve +miles one way, and at least six the other, whilst the entrance to it +from Rota to the Castle of St. Sebastian is a good six miles. When Essex +got possession of the Castle of Puntales, he commanded the whole town +and harbour. The idea of _lake_ is actually expressed in the very name +of Cadiz, which is derived from the Punic word _Gaddir_, an _enclosed +place_. The Greeks corrupted this into γάδειρα, or γῆς δειρή, “neck of +land.” The Romans contracted either this or the Punic word into Gades, +and the Spaniards into _Xerez_, by the help of their Arabic guttural. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 22._ + + Dedans la terre du grand temple celique, + Nepueu à Londre par paix feincte meurtry: + La barque alors deviendra scismatique, + Liberté feincte sera au corn’ et cry. + +_Translation._ + + In the country of the great heavenly temple the nephew is + murdered [by her who comes] to London under a feigned truce. + The ship [of Peter] will then become schismatic, and feigned + liberty become the hue and cry. + +I cannot, I confess, altogether make this out. D. D. interprets it of +the murder of Henry Stuart, 1567, and the final establishment of the +Reformation. If it mean this, it will be a proof of the uncertainty, and +almost caprice with which forecasts are concerned. It is strange that +Henry Stuart’s murder should find any representation, when, so far as I +yet know, nothing is recorded of the fate of Mary Stuart herself. The +heavenly temple is, according to D. D., the kingdom of the _Angeli_, +Angels, or Angles, meaning the English. We are by no means forced to +accept this interpretation, for _Celique_ may stand for _luminous_, +according to Le Pelletier’s Glossary, where he derives the word from the +Greek σίλας, though I see no such word. _Celigue_ is generally considered +to stand for _celeste_, _cælitus_, from _cælum_. We might read it as a +misprint for Celtique. Then _la terre du grand temple Celtique_ would be +the island in which is placed the great Druid temple of Stonehenge—the +island of Apollo, _Templum Solis_, as Bath is the fountain of the sun, +_Aqua Solis_. I record these hints, not as possessing much value in +themselves, but as being possible aids towards future elucidation. + +_La Barque_, in Nostradamus, is no doubt usually to be interpreted of +the Popedom, the ship of St. Peter; but if, as I think, the general +reference of the quatrain be to England and English affairs, then I +should interpret _La Barque_ as the Ship of State, becoming more and +more schismatical, and in which the Puritans, Independents, and other +Dissenters raise a great hue and cry about liberty, and liberty of +conscience (_au corn’ et cry_, or _à cor et à cri_, which is a variant of +the early edition). The Puritans were becoming most troublesome both in +England and Scotland all through the reigns of Elizabeth and Mary Stuart. +Here D. D. insists upon what it is the business of his book to establish; +that the accession of the House of Hanover to the throne of England is +one distinct topic of the prophecies of Nostradamus. James I. was the +great-grandfather of George I. His daughter Elizabeth married Frederic, +the Elector Palatine, and had issue the Princess Sophia, Electress of +Brunswick-Lunenberg, the mother of George I. + + +ENGLAND BECOMES GREAT BRITAIN (1603). + +_Century III.—Quatrain 70._ + + La grand Bretaigne comprinse d’Angleterre, + Viendra par eaux si[198] haut à inonder + La Ligue neuve d’Ausonne fera guerre, + Que contre eux ils se viendront bander. + +_Translation._ + + Great Britain comprising England, will come to be inundated + very forcibly by the waters. The new League in Italy will make + war against all such as band together against any one of the + cosignatories. + +England was politically called Great Britain when Scotland was united to +her at the accession of James I. in 1603. Still, in an indefinite way, +the term, or kindred terms, had often been employed. To go no further +than the “Faerie Queene” of Spenser (Book III. c. ii. § 7), we find: + + Far fro my native soyle, that is by name + The Greater Brytayne, here to seeke for praise and fame. + +In this passage, Church says, it means Wales, as distinguished from the +Lesser Brittany in France. The Greater Brytayne would hardly be Wales, +but England and Wales together before the Saxon Heptarchy. This, however, +in no way interferes with the propriety of the distinction drawn by +Nostradamus. His allusion is clearly to the time of James I., who assumed +the title of “King of Great Britain” on October 24, 1604. + +The floods spoken of commenced about the end of January, 1607. The +principal damage occurred in Somersetshire, where the sea broke down +the dykes, and overflowed the country for thirty miles in length and +six miles inland, to the destruction of all property and most of the +inhabitants. Bristol suffered. The east coast by Norfolk suffered in like +manner, though not quite to so great an extent. A long account of it, +giving curious details of the calamity, was hunted up by Garencières, and +found in an old, almost-forgotten Latin book, entitled “Rerum in Galliâ, +Belgiâ, Hispaniâ, Angliâ, etc., _gestarum anno_ 1607,” à Nicolao Gotardo +Artus Dantisco, VII., Book 2. + +_La Ligue neufve_, D. D. says, was a renewal of the _Liga Sancta_ first +entered into in 1526 between the King of France, the Pope, and the +Venetians. The renewal took place in 1606, and was simply defensive, +precisely as the quatrain puts it. Thus the quatrain stretches over +a space of three years, from October, 1604, establishing the title of +“Great Britain;” the ratification of the _Liga Sancta_ in 1606; and the +inundations in Somerset and Norfolk in 1607. The alliance of 1526 goes +by the name of the Treaty of Cognac (or _Holy League_). It was concluded +on March 22, 1526, between the Pope, Francis I., Venice, Henry VIII., +the Swiss, and Florence. The second or defensive alliance, according +to D. D., was between three only of the original signatories; France, +the Pope, and the Venetians. I do not find it mentioned, but presume +he is right. Garencières evidently writes in entire ignorance of both +these treaties; but he says that the League will be of Bordeaux, which +is called _Ausone_, from Ausonius, the famous Latin poet, who was born +there. Here it certainly means Italy; but I mention it, as it is quite +likely that Nostradamus might so employ the word, though he does not on +this occasion. _Ausone_ occurs once again, at least, in Quatrain 22 of +Century VII., which I do not know that anybody has yet interpreted. + + +CHARLES I. + +_Century V.—Quatrain 93._ + + Soubs le terroir du rond globe lunaire, + Lors que sera dominateur Mercure: + L’isle d’Escosse fera un luminaire. + Qui les Anglois mettra à deconfiture.[199] + +_Translation._ + + Under the jurisdiction of the round globe of the moon, when + Mercury shall be lord of the ascendant: the island of Scotland + will produce a luminary (prince) that shall throw the English + into a great discomfiture. + +Garencières entirely misses the purpose of this, but remarks that the +prophecy must of necessity relate to the past, for since the Union +nothing of the kind has happened. Charles I. was born at Dunfermline +on November 19, 1600; in astrological language, when Mercury, lord of +the horizon, was combust and following Saturn cosmically with the sun: +the sun leaning to a conjunction with Mars, and the moon, in her worst +location, in quadrature with Mars. He succeeded to the throne in 1625. + +D. D. translates the quatrain, oddly enough, as follows: + + In regione aëris sublunari, + Mercurius shall govern, + When a light shall be born in Scotland, + Which will put England into great disorder. + +We have here the stars in their courses fighting against King Charles, +and, as soon as we had disposed of the historical remarks appended to the +quatrain by D. D., our intention was to have thrown together some of the +fatalistic signs of the time and the ill omens that attended this unhappy +monarch almost throughout life, but unfortunately this intention must be +laid aside for the present. + +In 1609 James I. tried to induce the Scotch to conform to some sort of +uniformity in Church ceremony, but he stopped short of endeavouring to +thrust it down their throats. Archbishop Laud was less moderate. With the +zealous persistency of a shard-borne beetle flying against a stone wall, +he, in 1637 advised Charles to introduce the English Liturgy into the +churches of Scotland, _auctoritate regis_. It was flying in the face of +Fate. _Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat._ + +Next to the folly of establishing it, was the folly of its public +withdrawal in less than twelve months’ time. It was established by +royal mandate, July 23, 1637, and by royal proclamation, June 20, 1638, +withdrawn; a further undertaking being given that no English ceremonies +should be thrust upon the Church of Scotland. Any tyro in statesmanship +would have known that this course was doomed to fail utterly. Having +taken the first inconsiderate step, it should have received no other +impulse from England; private instructions should have been communicated +to the chief clergy that no proceedings would be taken to enforce the +law, and it would have died down of itself. As it was, the concession +came too late, and gave the Scotch time to enter into a covenant never to +permit the establishment of the English ritual; or, as they called it, +the English _Service Book_. The fault was committed that, over and over +again, the English commit as to Irish affairs; the yielding to outside +pressure. Contentious opposition should be crushed by force first, and +then conceded to as of grace. You will never get thanks from any party +for having yielded to their threats. This only cemented disaffection; +and, in 1643, England, puritanically urged, went further still, and +established the _Solemn League_ to like effect. This was a pure piece of +political claptrap intended to secure general disaffection. + +In 1641 the discontent had spread into Ireland, and, as usual in such +cases, English reasoning and Scotch logic developed into bloodshed on the +other side of St. George’s Channel. The English often content themselves +with ink and oratory, but an Irish Celt prefers to record his dissent +in a rubric of blood. During the first four months of antagonism, the +rebellion under Phelim O’Neil caused the massacre of 40,000 English +Protestants in Ulster: D. D. says 150,000, massacred by Papists, and they +could be reckoned up by name. But where he got his list I do not know. +His comment on this is: _Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum_. His +quotation is not correct; I hope the same may be said of his statistics. + +As we all know, Laud expiated his mistake with his head on Tower Hill, +and the King himself was to follow on five years later at Whitehall, +after being surrendered for money by the Scotch to the English. As +Nostradamus puts it [II. 53], _Du juste sang par pris damné sans crime_. + +King Charles was only twenty-five when he ascended the throne, labouring +in that respect under almost the same disadvantage as Louis XVI. Both +of these kings could derive but little wisdom from the Council-table. +Charles’s early acts consequently were rash, and those of the French King +speculative rather than practical. Clarendon, in his History (i. 23, ed. +1731), devotes a paragraph or two of great interest to the impeachment +of the Earl of Middlesex (Lionel Cranfield). Clarendon admits him to +have been “a man of great wit and understanding,” and to have held every +place with great ability. He had been raised by Buckingham from a city +trader to a statesman, and in his success seems to have quite forgotten +the patron to whom he owed it. The rash Buckingham, on his return from +the Spanish Quixotism, influenced the House of Commons to impeach him; +altogether overlooking the consequences of employing such a machinery +to revenge a private pique, and he must needs drag in the young Prince +Charles to help him. The King foresaw the evil. “The wise King,” says +Clarendon, “knew well enough the ill consequence,”[200] and he sent +for these two,—his son and Buckingham—to lecture them if possible into +wisdom. He pointed out that it wounded the Crown and shook his authority, +as Ministers would thus have to look to the House, and not to the King +alone, as heretofore. At last he burst out in choler: “By God, Steenie, +you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly, and will find that, +in this fit of popularity, you are making a rod with which you will be +scourged yourself!” He then turned to the prince, and told him: “You +will live to have your bellyfull of Parliament impeachments; and, when +I shall be dead, you will have too much cause to remember how much you +have contributed to the weakening of the Crown by the two precedents +you are now so fond of,” _i.e._ engaging the Parliament in the war, and +the prosecution of Cranfield. It was, indeed, to teach the many-headed +(which is equal to no head) beast to taste blood. Here, indeed, a King +turns prophet; foreseeing, from existing facts misdirected, what future +evils will arise. This, of course, is quite different from Nostradamus. +“Flambe exigue sortant de solitude” [I. 1], and all that can be got out +of visions of the night by secret estude or otherwise. + + +CHARLES II.—CAPITULATION OF EDINBURGH (DECEMBER 12, 1650). + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 40._ + + Le sang du Juste par[201] Taurer la daurade, + Pour se venger contre les Saturnins + Au nouveau lac plongeront la maynade, + Puis marcheront contre les Albanins. + +The above is the reading in the texte-type, 1558. D. D.’s version runs as +below: + + Le sang du juste, par Tore et les Torads, + Pour se venger contre les Saturnins: + Au nouveau lac plongeront la Menade, + Puis marcheront contre les Albanins. + +He translates thus— + + The blood of the righteous, for Torah and Torees’ sakes, cries + for vengeance against the Saturnine rebels, who will plunge + the priestess of Bacchus, _la menade_, into the sea of their + novelties, and march afterwards against the Scotch. + +D. D.’s idea of the interpretation of this is that, for the sake of the +law-abiding people (the Torah and Torees), the King’s blood cries for +vengeance against the Saturnian Roundheads. The intoxicated people shall +plunge into a new course of wickedness, and will then march against the +Highlanders. He considers that this was fulfilled in 1650, when, after +the capitulation, as he calls it, with the Scotch at Breda, Charles II. +landed in Scotland on June 23, and joined the royal army, consisting +mainly of Highlanders. About the same moment Cromwell reached London +from Ireland, and General Fairfax retired from the army. Cromwell, at +this critical moment, jumps into his post, and, on June 29, heads the +Parliamentary army against the Scots. + +Without at all insisting upon the accuracy of this interpretation, +I think it furnishes sufficient of curiosity to make it worthy of +insertion. What follows, touching the Tories, I give in his own words: + +“Some people stick to the Church of _England_ discipline, even to a +superstition, and to their last breath. These people had the nickname +of _Tories_, cast on them by the Cromwellites; which is as much as to +say some have the law of the Church put upon them, from the Hebrew +_Torah_, which signifies the _law_, or the _law of the Church of God_. +Perhaps did Cromwell himself, or some of his confident advocates and +ministers, designedly invent that cursed name; as it is likely from what +happened in the year 1651, when the Parliament ordered the law-books to +be translated out of _Latin_ into _English_, wherein the lawyers took a +great deal of freedom by using the _verbalia passiva_ very frequently, +and almost on all occasions, according to their own fancy and pleasure. +As, for instance, Apellans and Apellatus, they made an _Apealer_ and +an _Apealee_; the _Arrestans_ and _Arrestatus_, the _Challenger_ and +the _Challengee_, as likewise the _Warranter_ and the _Warrantee_; the +_Voucher_ and the _Vouchee_; the _Leaser_ and the _Leasee_; in which +manner they used likewise the terms of _Torer_ and _Toree_; a _Torer_, +in the first place—that is, a promoter of the Common Prayer and Church +of England service; and an imposer of human traditions, instead of God’s +law; and, in the second place, a _Toree_; that is, one that submits +and suffereth such laws to be imposed upon him. Which _nomina verbalia +passiva_, so much in vogue amongst the English lawyers, are not at +all English but mere French, and the _Participium Passivum_ itself; +and more proper to the neat _French_ than the corrupted _Provincial +Dialect_; which last our Nostradamus very often mixes with his style; +wherein they commonly used to say, _Les confirmads_, _les restads_, _les +escilads_, instead of _les confirmez_, _les restez_, _les exilez_, etc. +And according to this _Dialect_ one must say, LES TORADS, instead of LES +TOREZ, and thus does our Poet.” + +If what he says above has any value, the _Toree_ would be the prelates +and clergy; the _Torads_ the laity, who adhere to the Church of England +and its discipline and ritual. This in the context would have a greater +appropriateness than D. D. himself seems to be aware of, for the word +it is contrasted with in the context is _les Saturnins_. This word in +Nostradamus is constantly used for pagans, in contradistinction to +_Albanins_, Christians, robed in white _albus_. In this quatrain also +the men of Albany, if we take them for Scotch, are fighting on the side +of Church and State against the Roundheads. _Saturne_ is often put for +Antichrist by Nostradamus. + +The French of this quatrain, as it stands, does not appear to be correct. +The first two lines require a verb understood to connect them: “The +blood of the king [cries] for vengeance,” etc. The third line has an +embarrassed construction: “They will plunge the _Menade_ into a new +lake.” If _Saturnins_, again repeated, be understood, it is difficult to +see what plunging their mad priestess into the lake can effect. If it +could be read as _les Menades_, then the frantic Bacchantes would plunge +into a fresh sea of evil or troubles, and, in their wild intoxication, +march northwards. If we could put any interpretation upon _Taurer_ that +would be applicable to the rendering, the whole quatrain might then apply +to the French Revolution, and not the English. I think that the _sang du +Juste_ furnishes thus much of certainty as to the interpretation. It must +relate to one of two periods; the death of Charles I. or Louis XVI. Then +it would be that the Revolutionists, finding the Royalists to be seeking +revenge, declared against the Church, and plunged madly into a new order +of things. The _Menade_ would be more appropriate to that period than to +the earlier one. Bad as they were in England, there was more of lust, +infidelity, and blood, corruption, vice, and madness, in France. + +Menade. The μαινάδες were Bacchantes, the priestesses who celebrated the +festivals of Bacchus. Stephanus says that it is to be explained not only +as Bacchic, but as frantic; and this is unquestionably the meaning here. +The Greek word appears to be connected with the Sanscrit _man_, to think; +and thence the word _manyu_, anger, is said to be derived. They used to +run dishevelled, half-naked, and, brandishing the thyrsus; in their fury +they would kill and behead men whom they encountered by the way, and +carry off their heads, leaping with rage and joy. According to Nonnus, +they were virgins so careful of their chastity that they slept with a +cincture of serpents. Juvenal attributes no great severity of virtue to +them, but their pretensions to such superlative purism renders them all +the fitter emblem of the canting Puritans who won Cromwell’s battles for +him. In Le Pelletier’s Glossary _maynade_ is given as a Romance word for +“a child of four or five years;” but this throws no additional light on +our difficulty. + + +THE BATTLE OF DUNBAR (SEPTEMBER 3, 1650). + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 56._ + + La bande foible la terre[202] occupera, + Ceux du haut lieu feront horribles cris: + Le gros trouppeau d’estre coin troublera, + Tombe pres Dinebro descouvers les escrits. + +_Translation._ + + The weak band shall occupy the knoll (or, if preferred, it + can be, occupy the ground or field [after the battle]). The + Highlanders (_Ceux du haut lieu_) shall raise horrible shouts + (before they engage, and also after their defeat). The large + force shall be hampered or cornered (_d’estre en coin_), and + fall close to Edinburgh, their papers even falling into the + victor’s hands. + +This is a very important forecast indeed. The little band on the +knoll—for I prefer that reading—is clearly enough Cromwell’s small force, +very much in the condition he describes it to be in, in his letter to +Haslerig at Newcastle, September 2, 1650 (Carlyle’s “Cromwell Letters,” +ii. 201): + + “We are upon an engagement very difficult. The enemy hath + blocked up our way at the Pass at Copperspath, through which we + cannot get without almost a miracle.” + +Before sunrise Lesley sends down on Monday his horse to cross the small +Brocksburn. Whoso wishes to attack must first cross this little brook, in +its deep _ditch_, as they then called it (the picturesque tourist would +now say _glen_), forty feet deep. Lesley’s army comes out and places +itself in “rather narrow ground,” says Carlyle (p. 202) in 1846; _d’estre +en coin_, says Nostradamus in 1558; or 1546, if you like to have it so, +for it was probably on paper a clean three hundred years before Carlyle +commented; you may even translate him, “takes the trouble to put itself +into a corner.” “Hampered in narrow, sloping ground,” says Carlyle again +(p. 206). + +The reader who wishes for it can here leave off to peruse Carlyle’s very +celebrated prose lyric, as they call it, about this “Dunbar Battle,” with +its “moon” that “gleams out, hard and _blue_, riding among hail-clouds;” +whatever “a blue moon” may mean, or not mean. Carlyle makes Nol there, as +the level sun shoots up over St. Abb’s Head and across the sea, quote the +sixty-eighth Psalm, in Rous’s doggerel: + + “Let God arise, and scattered + Let all His enemies be; + And let all those that do Him hate + Before His presence flee!” + +Observe here that it is the _Saturnins_, in a frenzy of antichrist, +who do this, according to Nostradamus. But you can take which side you +please. “The Lord General made a halt,” says Hodgson, “and sang the +hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm” at the foot of Doon Hill; to the tune of +Bangor or other, says Carlyle, “strong and great against the sky,” this +grand strain arises, in which the metre, like the Lord General himself, +makes a halt too: + + “O give ye praise unto the Lord, + All _nations_ that be; + Likewise ye people all, accord + His name to magnify”— + +which, to eke out the measure, has to be read, _nay-shy-ons_, and, for +the rhyme’s sake, _magnifee_. This energy is really not dramatic, but it +_is_ stagey; on the border-land of sublimity, it curls the lip of humour +to a smile. + +The poor Highlanders taken prisoners were sold, “not,” says Cotton, “to +perpetual servitude, but for six, or seven, or eight years, as we do our +own” (blessed are they who are of the household of faith); “which is +really a mild arrangement,” in the estimation of “the Sage of Chelsea” +(p. 358). + +But now back to our exegesis let us go. Cromwell captured, on this +occasion, the whole of the papers of the Scotch War Office, as well +as the Great Seal of Scotland, which he sent forward as a trophy to +London. Cromwell’s letter to Speaker Lenthall excuses his making “no more +frequent address to Parliament,” but “it hath now pleased God to bestow a +mercy upon you worthy of your knowledge;” and so he goes on, for a space +occupying eight closely printed pages 8vo. He says he wishes to treat the +Scotch very kindly, for that “God hath a people here fearing his name, +though deceived;” and he concludes, in the dirty language of the godly of +his century, that he has “offered much love unto such, in the bowels of +Christ.” His bowels, to the Highlanders made prisoner, awarded slavery, +not _perpetual_, but for eight years only. Here are tender mercies and +bowels commiserate for contemplation! sufficient, as we have seen, to +make Nostradamus shudder at their approach. + + Son temps s’approche si près que je souspire (viii. 76, p. 177). + +All that was done here, however, could not prevent Charles from being +crowned on January 1, 1654, at Scone, in Scotland. In the next summer he +penetrated into England, and was pursued by Cromwell and his Ironsides. + +D. D. follows up the Quatrain 56, which we have just treated, with +Century VIII., Quatrain 57, which stands next to it: + + De Soldat simple parviendra en Empire. [II. 171.] + +D. D. interpreting it of Cromwell, as was most natural at that +time. Garencières does the same, saying, “I never knew nor heard of +anybody to whom this stanza might be better applied than to the late +usurper Cromwell;” but unless it be a type of two handles, of the old +ecclesiastical sort, I think it will apply still better to Napoleon; +and I shall so apply it further on, giving the reasons why it is more +appropriate to him than to the Protector. Further than this, as a general +rule in regard to the succession of the quatrains in Nostradamus, they +have no more affinity to each other than that they lie together, as one +bean touches another in a bushel measure. Still, the next we shall treat +is in sequence with the two preceding. + + +CHARLES II. AFTER THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER. (SEPTEMBER 3, 1651). + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 58._ + + Regne en querelle aux frères divisé, + Prendre les armes et le nom Britannique: + Titre Anglican sera tard avisé, + Surprins de nuict mener à l’air Gallique. + +_Translation._ + + When a kingdom in quarrel divided between two brothers takes + up arms, and the name of Great Britain: The King (_Titre + Anglican_) too late advised, surprised at night (is forced) to + seek the air of France. + +It is rather harsh, but to make sense of this we shall be forced to +understand the two brothers to be England and Scotland, or simply civil +war. When Charles at last made up his mind to visit Scotland and fight +for his crown, it was already too late. The Parliamentary side had +developed a strength that he was never equal to cope with. The loss of +the battle of Dunbar was a disaster that settled the question. He might +as well have quitted the field to Cromwell at once. Instead of that, on +the 3rd of September—ominous day! being the anniversary of the Dunbar +fight—he engages him again at Worcester. Charles was completely routed +and his cause hopelessly broken. He managed, under the cover of night, +to escape from the city of Worcester, and, flying from place to place +for weeks, as most romantically chronicled in the Boscobel Tracts, he at +last, on the 20th of October, got well shipped for Dieppe, and finally +rejoined his mother safely at St. Germain. + + +DEATH OF CROMWELL (SEPTEMBER 3, 1658). KING CHARLES II.’S FLIGHT AND +RESTORATION (SEPTEMBER 3, 1651-1660). + +_Century X.—Quatrain 4._ + + Sur la minuict conducteur de l’armée + Se sauvera, subit esvanouy, + Sept ans après la fame non blasmée; + A son retour ne dira onc ouy.[203] + +_Translation._ + + Upon the stroke of midnight, the leader of the army (King + Charles II.) shall save himself (by flight), and suddenly + evanish. For seven years longer that is, to a day, till the + death of Cromwell, his reputation will survive unchallenged; at + his Restoration no one will say anything but yes. + +In other words, Nostradamus tells King Charles II. to continue to hope +on, for that though he will have to fly by night from Worcester, his +memory will be preserved without diminution till the death of his victor, +seven years later to a day. Further, that when the day of his Restoration +does come round, he will be received back with universal acclaim. Had it +been given as _neuf ans_, it would have been more complete as regards +Charles II. personally. But, as it is, the date to a day coinciding with +the death of Cromwell, makes one suppose it to have been given to point +to that interesting coincidence. It would have been no more wonderful +than are many others amongst the quatrains, had this been intended; but +whether it shall be so allowed or not rests with the reader,—now that he +knows exactly how it stands,—to accept or to reject. + +The French used always to engage in a battle willingly on St. Louis’s +Day, April 11, and the English upon St. George’s Day, April 23. But +September 3, St. Mansuetus’s Day, was ruinous to the Royalists and +prosperous to Cromwell. The Battle of Worcester, so decisive in its +consequences, was commenced at three o’clock in the afternoon on +September 3, 1651; and at three o’clock in the afternoon of September +3, 1658, Cromwell died on what has been called his _Fortunate Day_: +“Nature herself,” says his last chronicler in the ninth edition of +the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ “seeming to prophesy, in the voice of +the great tempest that swept over England, that a great power had +passed away.”[204] It was a tremendous tempest no doubt, and men at +the time said the Devil had run away with Old Noll. Some say he died +broken-hearted, when the last Parliament convened by him in January, +1658, refused to acknowledge his House of Peers. So great a burden “drank +up his spirits,” said Maidston. + + +CROMWELL DECLARED PROTECTOR (DECEMBER 16, 1653). + +_Century X.—Quatrain 22._ + + Pour ne vouloir consentir au divorce, + Qui puis après sera cogneu indigne, + Le Roy des isles sera chassé par force: + Mis à son lieu qui de Roy n’aura signe. + +_Translation._ + + The King will agree to the divorce of his crown, which would + afterwards have been regarded as an unworthy action, and hence + will by force be expelled from the island. One who will have no + sign of kingship will be put in his place. + +Garencières was alive to the true sense of this and its fulfilment. The +Republicans murdered the king, gave the government, if not the crown, to +Cromwell, and drove Charles II. into France. + + +CROMWELL THE FOX. + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 41._ + + Esleu sera Renard, ne sonnant mot, + Faisant le saint public, vivant pain d’orge,[205] + Tyrannizer après tant[206] à un cop,[207] + Mettant à pied des plus grands sur la gorge.[208] + +_Translation._ + + A Fox shall be elected, uttering not a word, playing saint in + public and helping himself to other people’s property, in order + to tyrannize after a while by a _coup d’état_, placing his foot + on the throat of the greatest. + +Garencières thinks this to apply to some Pope, but D. D. refers it +much more aptly to Cromwell. If my proposed readings are allowed, the +quatrain can fit no one so well, especially as it follows Quatrain 40, +which we already have interpreted of the Commonwealth. D. D. reminds +us that the Protector was a great Chiliast and Fifth Monarchy man, and +certainly _Faisant le saint public_; even so as to gull, in this our +late day, Thomas Carlyle, who allowed the heroism of violence, in this +case, to dazzle him into the belief that the hypocrisy of Saintship was +Godfearing. As to Cromwell, D. D. says truly, that he was moderate in +diet. This he says to strengthen the barley bread, though I feel very +strongly that it is differently intended. It might even mean that he got +his bread by barley, or John Barleycorn, from the Huntingdon brewery. He +was more given to ambition than to pleasure, says D. D., as is the case +with men of his saturnine complexion. This may, by such as choose to use +it so, connect him with Quatrain 40 and _les saturnins_. “His fortunate +star, Mars,” writes D. D., “had brought him the glory of a valiant hero +and general.” + +Here D. D. entertains us, somewhat at large, upon his notion of a +“_wig_, or _trimmer_, that is, a wavering man or hypocrite, from the +original words to _wag_ and to _trim_ about.” We, however, know that this +etymology is not worth very much. + +Our next is a sequence of three quatrains, all of which seem to refer to +English affairs. + + +THE FIRE OF LONDON—DUTCH WAR—PLAGUE (1665-1667). + +_Century II.—Quatrains 51, 52, 53._ + + Le sang du juste à Londres fera faute, + Brulez par foudres[209] de vingt trois les six; + La dame[210] antique cherra[211] de place haute, + De mesme secte[212] plusieurs seront occis. + + Dans plusieurs nuits la terre tremblera: + Sur le printemps deux effors suite: + Corinthe, Ephèse aux deux mers nagera, + Guerre s’esmeut par deux vaillans de luite.[213] + + La grand peste de cité maritime + Ne cessera, que mort ne soit vengée + Du juste sang par pris damné sans crime, + De la grand dame[210] par feincte n’outragée. + +_Translation._ + + The blood of the just shall be required of London, burnt by + fireballs in thrice twenty and six; the old Cathedral shall + fall from its high place, and many (edifices) of the same sort + shall be destroyed. + + Through many nights the earth shall tremble; in the spring two + shocks follow each other; Corinth and Ephesus shall swim in the + two seas, war arising between two combatants strong in battle. + + The great Plague of the maritime city shall not diminish + till death is sated for the just blood, basely sold (for + £2,000,000), and condemned for no fault. The great Cathedral + outraged by feigning (saints). + +The first quatrain deals most remarkably with the great fire of London; +noting the precise year, the burning of St. Paul’s, and other injury to +the Protestant interest. + +The second shows that a bloody sea-war shall rage, the earth quaking +under the cannonade from the ships, shaking the cliffs. There was such +a war in 1665, 1666, and 1667, between England and the seven united +provinces of the Netherlands. Cruising within the narrow seas, he +likens to the Ægean waters between Corinth for England, and Ephesus for +Antwerp. He describes them as they really occurred, commencing afresh +with every ensuing spring,—_sur le printemps_. D. D. remarks that they +were so obstinately contested, all these fights, that they would last +for days on a stretch, or, as Nostradamus says, _nights_: _plusieurs +nuits la terre tremblera_, according to the English custom of reckoning +by a _fortnight_, and not fourteen days. Now the French reckon the +fortnight as a _quinzaine_, that is, up to the fifteenth day, which +of course contains only fourteen nights; and you might say _la terre +tremblera_, for the cannon reverberating between the cliffs would move +them perceptibly. D. D. thinks that _la grande dame_ in the last quatrain +is the great city of London, the metropolis, or mother-city; an Eastern +way of speaking. In his learned way, he adds: “The great fire has only +metamorphosed the city—_ex Ligneâ in Lateritiam_,” converting it from +wood to brick. + +The distance at which sounds may be heard seems variable. Captain Parry, +in his “Third Voyage,” p. 58, relates, it is said, that at Port Bowen +a conversation could be carried on distinctly at 6696 feet, which is +over a mile. Dr. Clark, in his Travels (iii. 331), whilst sailing from +the Gulf of Glaucus to Alexandria, heard the firing of the English +upon the fortress of Rachmanie, upon the Nile. All on board heard it, +at a distance of 130 miles. The earthquake at Sumbawn, in 1815, was +heard 970 miles away (Elliot’s “Horæ Apoc.,” iv. 218). In Dereham’s +“Physico-Theology” (i. p. 185, ed. 1786), a Dr. Hearn is quoted as +certifying that guns fired at Stockholm in 1685 were heard at a distance +of 180 English miles; and in the above Dutch war, 1672, the guns were +heard above two hundred miles (_vide Philosophical Transactions_, No. +113.) I remember reading, though I have not noted where, that the +guns employed at Waterloo were heard, at Hythe in Kent, on the Sunday +morning, so that it was known Wellington and Napoleon had engaged in +battle somewhere; the fact was confirmed by intelligence shortly after. +The buzz of London traffic in 1820 could be heard by putting the ear to +the ground on the top of Putney Hill, as Sir Richard Phillips relates +in his “Morning’s Walk to Kew” (p. 152). But the whole south of Thames +was then tricked out rurally in Nature’s emerald vest, and, herself at +ease, the earth could transmit vibrations from the troubled town; but +now she shudders with a like palsy of her own, and Putney is as rural +as Clerkenwell Green. Much of the conveyance of sound depends upon the +wind, no doubt. J. P. Malcolm (“Londinium Redivivum,” iii. p. 117) has +some interesting remarks upon St. Paul’s bell. He lived in Somer’s Town, +and with a strong north-east wind he could hear every hour tolled as +clear as if only a quarter of a mile distant, but with the wind east, +south-west, or north, not a sound could be heard. Now Somer’s Town is +north-north-west from St. Paul’s, which, in a straight line, is two miles +and a half away; so that a north-east wind should convey the vibrations +to Lambeth. He found that this wind carried away all the smoke, and +so left the air free for the sound to travel through it. A south wind +overwhelmed him with noise. He could distinctly hear the guard at St. +James’s Park beat the tattoo at eight, nine, ten, and eleven, to each +distinct roll of the drum. One would judge from this that the wind was +blowing nearly due east at Waterloo on that famous Sunday, the 18th of +June. It was an east wind at Baalzephon that ruined Pharaoh. I have dwelt +thus episodically upon sound to show, if possible, that this _tremblement +de terre_ was an effect of sound arising on the waters but vibrating upon +land, and not the convulsion of an earthquake. + +Quatrain 80 of Century III. we have already treated of by the help of +Le Pelletier, and interpreted it of Charles I., and we there made the +bastard to stand for Cromwell. D. D. takes the alternative reading of +_l’indigne_, and understands James II. The bastard then is naturally the +Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II.; but he was never _demy +receu_; and had it been intended to portray him, he would not have been +mentioned after, but before, the abdication. Hence we to prefer to leave +it as we placed it at first. + + +WILLIAM III. AND THE REVOLUTION (1688). + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 89._ + + Trente de Londres secret conjureront, + Contre leur Roy, sur le pont l’entreprise: + Leuy, satalites là mort de gousteront,[214] + Un Roy esleut[215] blonde, natif de Frize. + +_Translation._ + + Thirty of London shall conspire secretly against their King; + upon the bridge the plot shall be devised. These Satellites + shall taste of death. A fair-haired King shall be elected, + native of Friesland. + +D. D. reads for _trente_, _trained_. Had the true reading been _trained_ +it would have been very wonderful, because the trained bands of London +had not been thought of in Nostradamus’s time. Garencières interprets +the quatrain to refer to Charles I., and says it is well known that +the plotters used to assemble at the _Bear at the Bridge foot_. This +was a celebrated inn on the south side of London Bridge. It was pulled +down 1761, when the houses were removed from London Bridge (_Public +Advertiser_, December 26, 1761), “Hist. Sign.,” p. 154. + +The _Quarterly Review_ (xxvi. 189), in some very disparaging remarks +on Nostradamus, says of this particular quatrain that it predicts “the +Revolution of 1688 with tolerable clearness,” resting upon the last line, +which it prints in _italics_. As, however, William III. was born at the +Hague, he was not born in what is called Friesland, but South Holland. +I do not know whether it formed a part of Friesland in Nostradamus’s +time. D. D. is puzzled with the word _blonde_, and suggests that perhaps +William had fair hair in his youth, “or it might be an allusion to his +name, Guillaume, because (_sic?_) of _cil_, signifying _eyebrows_.” This +vermicular wriggle must be permitted to our highly excellent cleric, +who is manifestly unable to get the quatrain to say what he wants it +to say. We have had numerous quatrains that, when properly understood, +have appeared to be clear enough, and which are disparaged as “perplexed +verses” by the _Quarterly_. But this which they find expressed with +“tolerable clearness,” I do not find clear at all. I find no plot of +_thirty_, no meeting of conspirators at the Bear at the Bridge foot, or +at any other bridge, nor satellites who are executed, nor of a _blond_ +king, nor of a native of Friesland. + + +MARLBOROUGH AND THE CARDINAL DE BOUILLON. + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 53._ + + Le grand Prélat Celtique à Roy suspect, + De nuict par cours sertira hors de regne: + Par Duc fertile à son grand Roy Bretaine, + Bisance à Cypres et Tunes insuspect. + +_Translation._ + + The great Celtic Prelate suspected by the King, + Shall post with haste by night out of the realm, + Through Bisance, Ypres, and Bethune, undiscovered, + By aid of the duke fertile (in conquest) to the great King of Britain. + +This refers to the Cardinal de Bouillon, Great Almoner of France, +who was misrepresented to the French King to such an extent that he +could not appear at Court. After some years he threw up his charge and +determined to quit France. He was related to Prince Eugène, who was with +Marlborough, near Arras. The Cardinal came over to them under cover of +night, precisely as described by Nostradamus, under the protection of +a strong convoy, sent by Marlborough to protect him from the scouts of +Ypres and the other places named. When he reached Antwerp, he simply +sent in his ribbon of the Order to the French Court, accompanied with +his resignation. He is called “Prelat Celtique” as the Duchy of Bouillon +is in Gallia Celtica. D. D. holds that _grand Roy_ is an abbreviation of +_Royaume_. But the sense is better if taken literally as it stands. + +I transcribe for the curious reader from D. D. the following passage; it +is too singular to be neglected: + + “But the allusion on the Duke of Marlborough is still prettier. + Had his [Nostradamus’s] genius dictated unto him _Marnebourg_, + he might have understood and written down without hesitation, + for the English _Marl_ and the French _Marne_ are one and the + same. The Dæmons speak all sorts of languages, but Nostradamus + did not understand the English, whence it came that at the + hearing of the name Marlborough, he startled, and thought, + ‘_Qu’est-ce que Marl?_’ Thereupon it was inspired to him, + ‘_C’est une terre fertile et graisse_,’ whereby he is ascribing + to him both _Nomen_ and _Omen_ at once: the Duke, by whose + indefatigable zeal and incomparable valour the Kingdom of Great + Britain should be fertile in conquests.” + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 68._ + +This has already been treated by Le Pelletier (i. 125) under Louis XIV., +as fulfilled in the endeavour to re-establish James II. in Ireland. +But D. D. refers it to March 23, 1708, when the Pretender cast anchor +before Edinburgh, and nobody came out to him. He sailed away, narrowly +escaping the English fleet. On this account an Act of Parliament was +passed, declaring him a rebel, and setting a reward upon his head. D. +D. says that from this time forth Nostradamus always designates him by +the title of Rebel. As this quatrain, which we are upon, does not refer +to the Pretender, the above remark would only show that Nostradamus +always speaks of the Pretender as a rebel. Bouys interprets this, as we +have said before, of Napoleon’s victories at sea; as also that Bouys +was blindly prophesying after the battle of Trafalgar, and in ignorance +that such a decisive engagement had been fought. Garencières interprets +it as fulfilled in Charles II.’s times: so that with four interpreters +we have four interpretations. Sceptics can employ this fact how they +like; I am pleased to furnish them with the opportunity. The total of +the interpretations seems to me so astounding that we can well afford to +submit to deductions such as this. Besides which, I am not endeavouring +to establish any point; I wish the facts to establish themselves. What +they finally show to be tenable, let us adopt. + + +GEORGE I.’S SUCCESSION (OCTOBER 20, 1714). + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 64._ + + On ne tiendra pache aucune arresté, + Tous recevans iront per tromperie: + De paix et trefue, et terre et mer protesté. + Par Barcelone classe prins d’industrie. + +_Translation._ + + They will keep no treaty fixedly (arrested). All who have + gained by cheating will go (free). Peace and truce are + proclaimed by land and sea. Barcelona captured by the + perseverance of the fleet. + +This quatrain is exceedingly obscure, and very difficult even to +translate adequately. D. D., who is writing only a year after the actual +events,—the publishing date of his book being 1715,—makes sense of it +thus: George I. is proclaimed King, October 20, 1714, and Nostradamus +notifies that there shall be a general liberation of all prisoners for +debt. But it is hard to extract that sense out of the first two lines, +especially as not a word occurs about England, a king, or a throne. The +other two lines approach the period well enough. The Peace of Utrecht +was concluded in 1713, and the peace between Germany and France at +Radstadt followed in March, 1714. The war between France and Spain also +was concluded before King George ascended the throne; even Barcelona was +taken, before he was crowned (October 20), by the French fleet for the +King of Spain, September 12, 1714. At the intercession of Great Britain, +honourable terms were conceded to the Catalonians in Barcelona, so that +the mention of that city by Nostradamus comes with much felicity and +appropriateness, if we decide that he refers to George I. at all here. +D. D.’s book must have been written before October 20, 1714, as he says +it is hoped that on the _Coronation Day_ the King will empty most of the +prisons. + + +GEORGE I. (1714.) + +_Century II.—Quatrain 87._ + + Après viendra des extrèmes contrées, + Prince Germain, dessus le throsne doré; + La servitude et eaux rencontrées, + La dame serve, son temps plus n’adoré. + +_Translation._ + + Afterwards shall come, from a distant land, a German prince + upon the gilded throne. The slavery and waters shall meet. The + lady shall serve, her time no more adored. + +D. D. considers this to relate to King George, and he remarks that the +King exercised a stronger control than it was possible for Queen Anne to +do. The German prince ascending the throne of gold certainly seems to +point to George I. But Brunswick is not a very far country. It might be +said that modern constitutional government was established first by the +Georges, so serfdom and _les eaux_, or the people and their so-called +rights, met together, but then you would have to interpret figuratively +the last line: authority (_la dame_) serves, or is to become subordinate +to, the phantom of Freedom, the time of reverence and good feeling having +gone by. This, I say, might be so interpreted, but it does not carry much +more conviction with it than does the meaning found by Garencières. He +will have it to be a prophecy relating to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, +called German because of German ancestry. His gilded throne was the +gilded ship he sailed in. He made slavery and waters meet, because +on landing he began to conquer Germania,—that lady who was no more +worshipped afterwards as she had been before. + + +GEORGE I. AND PEACE (1714-1727). + +_Century X.—Quatrain 42._ + + Le regne humain d’Anglique geniture, + Fera son regne paix union tenir: + Captive guerre demy de sa closture, + Longtemps la paix leur fera maintenir. + +_Translation._ + + The human throne of English geniture will make its rule to + maintain peace and union. War will be captive, or at least + confined to half its usual area. (George will contend only with + Spain. Peace abroad and an endeavour to maintain union at home, + against the Pretender’s efforts.) Thus peace will be secured to + the country for a long stretch of years. + +We have already given our interpretation to D. D.’s next quatrain (III. +57, p. 166). He discovers from it that George shall never want for an +heir to the throne up to the Day of Judgment. Myself I see nothing of the +kind to be warranted out of Nostradamus. He seems here to be contrasting +the numerous changes in Britain with the happy stability of France. I +should have made no reference to this, but for the opportunity it affords +of introducing some of D. D.’s curious remarks upon the astrological +portion of the verses. + +At the Creation the Gemini stood in the house or sign Aries, near the +equinoctial colure, which has but its own one pole; but they are now in +the fourth house called Cancer, near the solstial colure, which has a +double pole, viz. _Mundi et eclipticæ_. _Basharion_ is an Arabic word, +and denotes _Humanus_. _Bashar_, a substantive _Caro, hominis cutis, +homo_. In the three signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, which have successively +formed the Caput Zodiaci, none but Gemini is of human figure; that sign +must be intended by the word _Basharion_ (especially as the word is not +_Basharion_ at all, but _Bastarnan_); so that, till the age of the world +is six or seven thousand years old, _i.e._, till the Day of Judgment, +this will last; and when the great day comes there will be found a direct +descendant of that great king sitting on the English throne. + +He has taken no notice of the _Pempotam_ and its duration of three +hundred years, as a sort of measure of the seven changes, and Nostradamus +nowhere says that the seventh change shall endure to the end of time. +Like almost all interpreters, D. D. reads his own imagination into the +prophecy. + +The reader who cares about such explanations as these will find a +great deal more of the same sort in Garencières’ annotations upon this +quatrain. He remarks that the sign of Aries doth govern France, and +that by doubling his pole is meant his returning a second time to the +same place, so that the stars do promise France a long continuance +in exaltation. He adds that if he were a great astrologer himself he +should work out exactly the whole calculation, and he thinks Aries +should come to that pole in the year 1845. But Garencières seems to have +had no inkling whatever of the French Revolution of 1789, as forecast +by Nostradamus; nor yet of the second Revolution of 1848, though he +translated all the quatrains into English. + + + + +FRENCH REVOLUTION. + + +THE VULGAR ADVENT. [I. 160.] + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 74._ + + La dechassée[216] au regne tournera, + Ses ennemies trouvés des conjurés: + Plus que jamais son temps triomphera, + Trois et septante à mort trop asseurés. + +_Translation._ + + She who was proscribed will return to the kingdom, + Her enemies will be treated as conspirators; + More than ever her time (or empire) will triumph; + Seventy-three years its deathly domination is assured. + +The Revolution (_la dechassée_), repressed in 1816, shall again obtain +the government. Its enemies will be treated as conspirators, and it will +be stronger than ever. Seventy-three years are assured to its death-like +rule. I give this as M. le Pelletier does, but I see no reason whatever +to think that it is correct. Garencières makes it apply to Charles II. +of England, and the seventy-three put to death are those who abetted +the murder of his father. This is very vague. Garencières reads _Le +dechassé_. Here we may remark that Napoleon himself [p. 289] dates his +nobility from the battle of Montenotte, 1797. Seventy-three years added +to this yields us the remarkable date of the fall of his dynasty at +Sedan, 1870. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 3. (September 22, 1792.)_ [I. 162.] + + Quand la lictiere du tourbillion versée,[217] + Et seront faces de leurs manteaux[218] couvers, + La republique par gens nouveaux vexée,[219] + Lors blancs et rouges jugeront à l’envers. + +_Translation._ + + When the litter is turned topsy-turvey by the typhoon, + Men will mask their faces with the cloak of hypocrisy. + The republic will be troubled by new-risen men; + The white and red will judge by contraries. + +This means that the royalists (_les blancs_) and the republicans (_les +rouges_) will judge of everything from utterly opposed points of view. +What was top will become bottom, when the blast blows the litter over; +and, new men rising to power, the rest will cover their faces with +hypocrisy, as men do with their cloaks in a storm. Compare the phrase _à +l’envers_ with p. 175. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 30._ [I. 163.] + + Un qui les dieux d’Annibal infernaux + Fera renaistre, effrayeur des humains. + Oncq’[220] plus d’horreur ne[221] plus pire journaux + Qu’avint viendra par Babel aux Romains.[222] + +_Translation._ + + There will be one who will revive the infernal gods + Of Hannibal, a terror to mankind. + Never arrived by Babel more horror + Nor worse day’s work than will fall upon Roman Catholics. + +The meaning is, Napoleon shall arise, who will reawaken the solemn +curse on Rome uttered by Hannibal, when he called the infernal gods +to witness his hatred to her, to the terror of all mortals. Not Babel +at the dispersion brought on the world more horror, nor days of more +evil-ploughing for the present or seed-sowing for the future than shall +fall upon the Roman world by him. This is much better than to limit it to +an ecclesiastical area merely. We shall see that Charles V. is a sort of +prototype of Napoleon, and Garencières adduces Charles V. as fulfilling +this prophecy. Hannibal is also a prototype of Napoleon in attacking +Italy by crossing the Alps. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 14. (1789-1793.)_ [I. 164.] + + De gent esclave chansons, chants et requestes + Captifs par[223] Princes et Seigneur aux prisons, + A l’advenir par idiots sans testes + Seront receus par[224] divines oraisons. + +_Translation._ + + Songs, chants, and refrains of the slavish mob, + Whilst the Princes and King are captive in prison, + Shall be received in the future as oracles divine + By headless idiots deprived of judgment. + +Songs—such as the Marseillaise while the King and Princes are imprisoned +in the Temple,—songs of the mob (_gent esclave_) are received by +brainless fools for divine utterances, even prayers (_divines oraisons_). +_Vox populi, vox Dei_, is always the fools’ blasphemous formula, when +swine chose Barabbas for Pontifex or Generalissimo. A cruelly entreated +people; whose burdens are aggravated by wickedness in high places +needlessly, above and beyond the grief, which every man is born to +by the act of birth into a world of sickness, sorrow, and injustice; +sighs heavily at this unduly heaped-up burden, and that sigh, that _vox +populi_, runs upward like a lightning conductor to elicit fire from +the clouds, coming back charged with electricity and thunder,—a _vox +Dei_ of terrible divinity. But when scum rises to the direction, as +with the Revolutionists, and is followed by some brutalized _sabreur_ +aggrandizing himself as king of chaos and disorder, with shouts of +subservient applause from the smutty mob, saying, “Herod, thou art +a god,” the _vox populi_ that split the welkin once, is _now_ the +_vox infernorum demonum_, the whole upspring and outcome of which is +bestiality and lawlessness enthroned in defiance of the decalogue and +heaven. Thenceforth the appeal of all good men and sane is, “Ye who +worship God, good and alone from eternity, down with them.” The men must +work and serve. This fiat is in the air, is in the sea, is on the earth. +It is the _vox naturæ_, in comparison with which the people’s voice, _vox +populi_, is nothing, beyond a momentary troubling of the silences. + +The following quatrain I give for what it may be thought worth. M. le +Pelletier thinks it to relate to the creation of assignats, December 19, +1789. It would be a pity to lose sight of his identification, if even +some should presume it to be incorrect. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 53. (December 19, 1789.)_ [I. 165.] + + Las! qu’on verra grand peuple tourmenté, + Et la loi saincte en totale ruine; + Par autres loix toute la Chrestienté; + Quand d’or d’argent trouvé nouvelle mine. + +_Translation._ + + Alas! how great a people shall tormented be, + And holy law in utter ruin laid: + By newer laws all Christendom is vexed, + With a new mine of gold and silver found. + +We shall see, alas! the French people (_grand peuple_) agitated, the +Catholic religion (_la loy saincte_) totally ruined, all Christendom put +under new laws, when the National Assembly decrees that four hundred +million assignats shall be issued (_nouvelle mine d’or_, etc.), secured +on the property of the clergy, in the interests of the Revolution. + +Older commentators applied this to the paper-money schemes of Law +1716; and Garencières finds the fulfilment in the discovery of the +Spanish-American gold and silver mines. + +A properly regulated paper-money issue, based on the taxation of a +State, having absolutely no intrinsic value whatever in itself, could +undoubtedly be converted into a circulating medium that would work more +smoothly than any metallic one can, because the market value of the ore, +employed as now in coinage, is perpetually introducing a fluctuation of +values that conflicts with the nominal standard of the coin, so that the +standard is never uniform. The currency required would never amount to a +tenth part of the taxation leviable. Paper could therefore be destroyed +at the Bank of England, or issued exactly according to the needs of trade +and commerce. Fluctuation in the market value of metals would no longer +affect the circulating medium in the least. Thus might one cause of +recurrent panics be removed for ever. But can bank directors or ministers +be trusted with such a responsibility? This hinges on honesty, and there +is none to spare. + + +_Century VII.—Quatrain 14. (1789-1793.)_ [I. 166.] + + Faux exposer viendra topographie, + Seront les cruches[225] des monumens ouvertes. + Pulluler secte, sancte philosophie, + Pour blanches noires, et pour antiques vertes. + +_Translation._ + + Topography will soon be falsified, + The urns and sepulchres stand violate, + Sects swarm, and babbling sentiment + Black put for white, and green fruit for the ripe. + +The curse be on them for changing old landmarks. The provinces turned +into departments (by decree of the Assembly, December 22, 1789). The +sepulture of Kings violated at St. Denis. Unholy sects will swarm, and a +sentimental philosophy, of Rousseau and other maddened sophists, usurping +the office of religion, black will stand for white, and green, crude +fruit be substituted for the ripe. + + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 24._ + + Ouy soubs Terre Sainte Dame[226] voix feinte, + Humaine flamme pour Divine voit luire: + Fera des sœurs de leur sang terre tainte, + Et les saints temples par les impures destruire. + +_Translation._ + + Hear from the ground a voice of Halidom, + A human flame pretending light divine. + The blood of sisters stains the earth to red, + And holy temples the impure destroy. + +This, I think, refers to the sentimental advocacy of the Rights of man, +as substitutionary of religion and faith in the literary movement of +the eighteenth century. It would comprise Rousseau’s gospel of dirt +and sentimentality, Voltaire’s substitution of wit for wisdom, and the +science of the encyclopædists floating disoriented upon the waters of +uncertainty, in lieu of the deep thought of the solitary thinkers that +preceded them. These last were men who, heretofore walking humbly and +without association in conspiracy, interrogated the universe, divinely +sown with riddles in great abundance by a hand invisible, until they fell +asleep into that hand, and awoke to the illuminated answers. + +The blood of sisters was the wholesale slaughter of women that +distinguished the Revolution, whilst church altars were desecrated +by naked women, set there to personate the goddess of impure reason, +feigning _la sante dame_. + +The quatrain 25 that follows this in the text of Nostradamus I now give; +but this verse 24, so far as I have seen, has never been commented upon +nor has the connection been pointed out. Yet this stanza furnishes the +reasons why the stars became overclouded to a people that were benighted, +_par ces raisons_, as the reader will perceive by the second line that +succeeds this. + + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 25._ [I. 167.] + + Corps sublimes[227] sans fin à l’œil visibles, + Obnubiler[228] viendront par ces raisons. + Corps front comprins,[229] sens[230] chief[231] et invisibles. + Diminuant les sacrées oraisons. + +_Translation._ + + The infinite stars are links that light to doubt, + And drop the pall of night upon the soul: + The eye and front of man,—and soul,—grown cerebral, + God and His host withdraw; and with them prayer! + +M. le Pelletier considers that Nostradamus attributes these effects to +the reasonings hostile to the faith that improved optical instruments +will introduce, as they suggest a plurality of worlds. I quite admit that +in many minds this has been the tendency. Almost any discovery, giving +a new hint as to infinitude, launches a number of inferior but vigorous +brains into new lines of reasoning. We then get great multiplication of +secondary volumes, which supply minced Aristotle or chaff to represent +any amount of sausage-meat required by the reading public. Of course the +further you can see by the telescope the further you put heaven away +from the earth-dweller, and he loves it the less; for it is the near +things we love, and not the remote. The heart is not universal, and +cannot be stretched to it. I look upon the telescope, to an ordinary +man, as a drain-pipe, through which he can run off and lose the moisture +of his soul and live the worse for it afterwards; to the multitude of +men, useless; to the scientific man, a means of inflation and puffing +up; and to the really serious and isolated thinker, as the threshold +of infinitude that may, though it has hardly yet done so, answer a few +out of the ten million astral riddles sown in space. The last-named +individual alone may benefit a little by it. But I question if anything +at all of this was present to Nostradamus. + +He seems to me, in these two closely interlinked quatrains, to enlarge +much upon the theme of St. Paul (Rom. i. 28) that, as at the French +Revolution, “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave +them over to a reprobate mind;” or one void of judgment, “to do things +which are not convenient.” So that the earth gave out deceptive voices to +them, and false lights for Divine light, to slay women and desecrate the +temples; and then that the very stars visible to the eye, which should +teach faith to all, will for these reasons veil themselves and leave +nothing to mankind but the darkness of night. Pure materialism follows, +God and His host withdraw, and prayer is no more heard upon the earth. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 60._ [I. 168.] + + Un empereur naistra près d’Italie, + Qui à l’Empire sera vendu bien cher: + Diront avec quels gens il se ralie, + Qu’on trouvera moins prince que boucher. + +_Translation._ + + An emperor shall be born near Italy, + Bought by the Empire at a bankrupt rate: + You’d say the herd, he gathers to himself. + Denote him butcher rather than a prince. + + An emperor shall be born in Corsica—Napoléon Bonaparte. + His advent to the throne of France will prove prodigiously + costly to her. It is enough to make one say, from the tribe + he surrounds himself with, that he is more like a butcher + far, with the steel dangling at his side, and slaughterman + apprentices, than a prince. + +It is natural that Bouys, who has hunted Nostradamus for quatrains +that will serve for adulation of Napoleon, has passed this over, _sub +silentio_, entirely. Garencières, speaking of this, says it is a prophecy +for the future, for that until now (1672) no such emperor has been heard +of, born near Italy, that cost so much and proved a butcher. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 23._ [I. 169.] + + D’esprit de regne munismes[232] descriés, + Et seront peuples esmeus contre leur Roy: + Paix, sainct nouveau, sainctes loix empirées, + Rapis[233] onc[234] fut en si trèsdur arroy.[235] + +_Translation._ + + The rampart of tradition battered down, + The people rise against their King anoint’: + Peace, a new Saint, and sacred laws made worse, + Paris was never in such disarray. + +The traditions of the French monarchy are thrown to the ground and +the people rise against the King, Louis XVI. Peace will succeed the +anarchy when Napoleon comes to power. Pius VII., to flatter the Emperor, +will interpolate the ritual on the 15th of August with a new saint, +the fête of St. Napoleon,[236] who was martyred under Diocletian. The +Emperor’s interference will hurt the Church greatly, and foreign armies +(1814-1815) will reduce Paris to extremities she has never before +undergone. + +As to the fête of St. Napoleon, the story runs that when it was first +instituted its impropriety, if not blasphemy, was much discussed in +Catholic circles. An Irish priest from Rome was one day communicating +the strange fact at a dinner-table in Dublin, when an Irish gentleman +exclaimed with vehemence, “What d—d impudence!” “No, no!” said the +priest, “what you mean to call it is the Blessed Assumption,” for that +day falls on the 15th of August. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 31._ [I. 170.] + + Tant[237] d’ans en Gaule les guerres dureront, + Outre[238] la course du Castulon[239] monarque: + Victoire incerte[240] trois grands couronneront, + Aigle, Coq-lune, Lyon-soleil en marque. + +_Translation._ + + War draws her length in Gaul for many a day, + Beyond the course of Castula the Queen; + Uncertain victory will crown three thrones, + The Eagle, Cock-moon, Lion-sun, on coin. + +Civil war and foreign will last in France long after the ephemeral +Republic has perished. Victory, always uncertain, will crown three +houses in succession. They will coin money with the Imperial eagle of +Napoleon; the revolutionary Gallic cock appearing with the house of +Orleans, instituted by revolution, and adding the crescent of Mahomet for +successes in Algeria; whilst the Lion represents Louis XVIII. and Charles +X. of the Capetian Monarchy, with the sun representing Catholicism. Le +Pelletier says the _Sun_ symbolises Christianity, and the moon Mahomet +or Antichrist. Myself I think it would be best to consider the _sun_ as +the symbol of Christ; the _moon_ as the symbol of atheistic democracy or +Antichrist. + +This Garencières thought to be interpretable in his time. He reads the +second line, + + “Outre la course du Castulon monarque,” + +as, after the death of the King of Spain a Castilian monarch. The eagle +as Charles V. [a further analogy with Napoleon], Henry II., contemporary +with Nostradamus, and Soliman, which three crowns met under Leo with +uncertain odds in war. + +The quatrain that follows this is: + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 32._ + + Le grand Empire sera tost translaté, + En lieu petit qui bientost viendra croistre, + Lieu bien infime d’exigue comté, + Où au milieu viendra poser son sceptre. + +_Translation._ + + The great Empire will soon be translated into a little place + that quickly will expand. An unworthy spot, a mere county, from + the midst of which he will come to lay aside his sceptre. + +Garencières interprets this of Charles V., who, three years before his +death, resigned Spain and the Low Countries to Philip II., his son, +and the empire to his brother Ferdinand. He then shut himself up in the +Escurial, in Castile, a monastery; which the son afterwards enlarged +into a grand palace, accounted by Spaniards as the eighth wonder of the +world. But I am not aware that any one has yet pointed out that it fits +Napoleon as patly just as it can Charles. His empire was cramped into +Elba—Æthalia, the soot island (_lieu bien infime_); a mere countship was +his monarchy there. It soon grew again into an empire, but he only came +out of its midst to resign his sceptre a second time and for ever. + +After these prelusory flourishes relating to the Vulgar Advent and French +Revolution, we are now to enter upon a more special theme; the murder of +the King, and the ragged beggars’ festival and brawl, called the First +Republic of the Sans Culottes. + + + + +LOUIS XVI. + + +We enter now upon the lamentable period comprised in the reign of Louis +XVI.—a period whose only parallel in history is the false and illegal +trial of Charles I. of England; the perfectibility of man being evinced +only by the increased savagery and augmented moral turpitude exhibited at +the later period. The first quatrain that has been adduced as pertaining +to this period in the Centuries of Nostradamus is that of: + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 57._ [I. 173.] + + Par[241] grand discord la terre[242] tremblera, + Accord rompu dressant la teste au ciel, + Bouche sanglante dans le sang nagera, + Au sol la face ointe de laict et miel. + +_Translation._ + + By reason of great discord the earth shall quake. + Revolt destroys the old order and lifts its head to heaven. + The [King’s] mouth will swim in its own blood, + And his front, anointed with milk and honey, roll upon the sod. + +Tremblement de terre is earthquake, and from the time of Virgil, and much +earlier than that, has been always taken to forebode convulsions of the +State; disturbance of all things rooted and firm, and typifying upheavals +of the populace. That it is the King’s mouth shall swim in blood is +shown unmistakably by the fourth line that follows, where the face is +said to be anointed with the milk and honey of the holy ampulla. The +Kings of France were crowned at Reims with the oil that was kept there +in _la sainte ampoule_ for this purpose. The milk and honey is merely a +figurative expression; oil and wine, milk and honey, equally represent +the fatness of the land. + +Upon this quatrain, about the meaning of which he manifestly could know +nothing, Garencières naïvely says: “The words and sense are plain, and +I cannot believe there is any great mystery hidden under these words.” +Words put a slight upon men’s minds to think they understand what they +see written; from this it is clear that you may understand the words, and +yet comprehend nothing from understanding them. Orators please take note. + + +_Century III.—Quatrain 59._ [Bouys, 55.] + + Barbare empire par le tiers usurpé. + La plus grand part de son sang mettra à mort. + Par mort sénile par lui le quart frappé; + De peur que sang par le sang ne soit mort. + +_Translation._ + + The rude empire is usurped by the third estate (tiers état). + It will put to death the greatest part of his [the Royal] family. + A quarter [of the kingdom] is struck with senile death; + For fear of retribution of death, from children of those murdered. + +This must relate to 1789, as in no country but in France had the third +estate usurped exclusive power to itself. Since that period the House of +Commons in England has pursued the same lines, in a more covert, gradual, +and, as some would say, lawful manner. In the Lyons edition, 1558, the +second line reads _mettra à mort_, which makes better sense, though +it spoils the rhythm, unless the _a_ in _mettra_ may suffer elision +in old French prosody—a question I lack knowledge to determine. The +quarter being destroyed, as old age withers a man, is to be understood +analogically of the lives of citizens removed by terror, or emigration, +or spoilation of property, or revolutionary taxation, or by imprisonment. + +Bouys tells us that _sang_ is to be understood in Nostradamus of +children, family, relatives, so that _que sang par le sang_ here would +mean, lest the families of the injured should rise against the assassins +of their flesh and blood. Such a reaction actually took place in the +South, in spite of all the truculent precautions taken. The quatrains +exhibit no kind of method or chronological order in their arrangement. So +that, out of the thousand and more that exist of them, the commentator +must hunt at large until he comes upon something salient that enables +him to attach the passage to some event, when often he will be led to +the most extraordinary results. The usurpation by the _tiers état_ +here, with all but the very phrase supplied, and with the results that +would follow from the usurpation so unmistakably set forth, fixes the +pertinency of the quatrain almost as perfectly as if it had been headed +_French Revolution_. Yet a reader of less observance and care than is +requisite to stay the attention which leads to discovery, might readily +pass it over as jargon and mere nonsense. But, once you have deciphered +the quaint phrases and their connection, you cannot doubt the meaning, +nor the author’s vivid gift of expression in conveying ideas, with +a terseness more than Tacitean, if less artistic. You discover that +Nostradamus can hint in a phrase of three words what would require a +long paragraph to make it explicit in an ordinary way. This is truly the +language of prophecy. It becomes legible in the light of the event it +prefigures, as characters written in milk upon paper become visible at +the fire, or when placed in the hot light of the sun. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 36._ [_Bouys, 56._] + + Tard le monarque se viendra repentir, + De n’avoir mis à mort son adversaire; + Mais viendra bien à plus haut consentir, + (à ce) Que tout son sang par mort fera défaire. + +_Translation._ + + The monarch shall too late repent + That he hath not put to death his adversary; + But he will have to permit later on, + That all his family shall suffer for it by death. + +Taking this to be the meaning, it is clear that the adversary is the Duke +of Orleans,—that centre of all plotting and intrigue against Louis,—who +had so forgotten himself as, at a public bed of justice, in 1788, to +shake his fist in the King’s face with a most threatening expression +of countenance. For this he was only sent into exile when he ought to +have suffered death. In the last line _sang_ again stands for family +and relatives. This could scarcely be plainer if the names were given; +but, had Nostradamus here deviated from the secret idiom of prophetic +language, he would have prevented the accomplishment of what he was +asserting. Things like this may be happened on by chance, if you choose +to say so, but the theory reels under the constant repetition of such +chances. Men whose names are prominently before the world can hardly be +introduced into prophecy. But we shall see shortly that Nostradamus is +able to assign names with precision where the individuals are of a lesser +rank, and that their names may so pass unobserved until history has +recorded them with her iron pen. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 20. (June 20, 1791.)_ [I. 174.] + + De nuict viendra par le forest de Reines, + Deux pars, vaultorte, Herne la pierre blanche, + Le moyne noir en gris dedans Varennes: + Esleu Cap. cause tempeste, feu, sang, tranche. + +_Translation._ [II. P., I. 174.] + + By night shall come through the forest of Reines + Two parts, face about, the Queen a white stone, + The black monk in gray within Varennes. + Chosen Cap. causes tempest, fire, blood, slice. + +In the translation of this, Garencières leaves the two words _vaultorte +Herne_ as in the original French, and does not attempt the translation. +He also mistakes Reines for Rennes, the chief town in Little Brittany. +He evidently has no conception whatever of the meaning of the quatrain. +Bouys and Le Pelletier differ on minor points in rendering these words. +_Forest_, Le Pelletier reads, in Latin, as _fores_, gate, that is, by +the Queen’s gate, and he quotes Thiers to show (“Hist. Révol. Fran.” i. +309) that the Queen made sure of a secret gate out of the Tuileries, by +which they escaped. But Bouys takes it for the forest of Reines, which is +on the road to Varennes. _Deux pars_ is husband and wife; _voltorte_, or +_vaultorte_, is a cross-road, or a divergent road; _vaulx_, a valley, and +_torte_, tortuous, says Le Pelletier. One does not quite see how to educe +cross road from this. Roquefort gives _volt_ for face, and _torte_ would +be turned, which seems to me more likely. However, it stands for the road +through St. Menehould, on the way to Montmédi. This, it seems, they were +forced into by posting arrangements. Prudhomme (“Revol. de Paris,” No. +102, p. 542) sets the divergence down to vacillation or change of orders. +If that be the correct statement, then my etymology of _face about_ for +_vaultorte_ fits it best. _Herne_ is _Reine_, by metaplasm of _h_ for +_i_. It was permissible in anagrammatic writing to change one letter +in a word, but not more than one. The reader can refer for this to the +“Dictionnaire de Trévoux,” under _Anagramme_. The white stone stands +for this royal or precious stone, the Queen, who was dressed in white. +The King was dressed in grey. Prudhomme, in the work mentioned above +(p. 554), says he wore a round hat, which hid his face, and had on an +iron-grey coat (_gris de fer_), so he appeared like a Carmelite. + +There are nearly fourteen octavo pages of small print (p. 411) of De +Bouillé, which it might be well to print, called “Détails du voyage du +roi et de la reine à Montmédy et leur arrestation à Varennes dans le +Clairmontais, le 22 juin, 1791,” full of interesting particulars. + + +VAULTORTE. + + “Mais on verra que les circonstances changèrent entièrement + jusqu’au moment de l’exécution de son projet; et ce qui était + possible au mois de janvier 1791, ne l’était plus au mois de + juin.”—“Mémoires du Marquis de Bouillé,” p. 195, ed. 1821. + + “Il [le roi] m’informait qu’il partirait, avec sa famille, dans + une seule voiture qu’il ferait faire exprès. Dans la réponse + que je fis au roi, je pris la liberté de lui représenter + encore une fois que la route par Varennes offrait de grands + inconvéniens, à cause des relais qu’il fallait y placer pour + suppléer à la poste.... J’engageai donc Sa Majesté à prendre la + route par Reims, ou celle de Flandre, en passant par Chimay, et + en traversant ensuite les Ardennes pour se rendre à Montmédy. + Je lui représentait les inconveniens de voyager avec la reine + et ses enfants, dans une seule voiture _faite exprès_, et qui + serait remarquée de tout le monde,” etc.—“Mémoires du Marquis + de Bouillé,” p. 217. + +This flight occurred on June 20, 1791. On the following day the National +Assembly suspended Louis XVI. from his functions. On the 1st of September +they passed another decree, that should the King surrender to the will of +the people and become a Constitutional King he might do so. This he duly +signed and attested on the 14th of the same month; so _Capet fut esleu_. +The title of King of the French, instead of the King of France, had been +established since October 16, 1789 (“Cyclopædia of Universal History”), +which virtually was the same thing. But yet strictly it was not until +after the flight that he became _Esleu Cap_. Madame Campan, in the +“Mémoires de Marie-Antoinette,” ii. 150, relates that the Queen’s hair +had become white in a single night and she had had a lock of her white +hair mounted in a ring for the Princesse de Lamballe, inscribed _Blanchis +par le malheur_. She had become _la pierre plus blanche encore_. Her +dress was white, and her complexion too. The _tranche_ stands for the +slice, or _couperet_, of the guillotine. Bouys was amongst the first to +explain this quatrain in print, and he says he owed the explanation to M. +de Vaudreuil, of Nevers, who has written upon Nostradamus. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 34._ [I. 177.] + + Le part[243] solus,[244] mary[245] sera mitré + Retour: conflict passera sur le thuille, + Par cinq cents: un trahyr[246] sera[247] tittré[248] + Narbon: et Saulce par coutaux avons d’huille. + +_Translation._ + + The husband alone afflicted will be mitred on his return. A + conflict will take place at the Tuileries by five hundred men. + One traitor will be titled—Narbon; and (the other) Saulce, + grandfather oilman, will [hand him] over to the soldiery. + +The harness broke at Montmirail, and detained them two hours (p. +247). The King showed himself at Chalons, and was recognized by the +postmaster, who held his tongue. Everything went wrong owing to the +change of date and loss of time on the road. At St. Menehould he was +recognized again, and Drouet the postmaster’s son, rode on to Varennes to +betray him. + +On the 15th of June the Marquis de Bouillé received a letter from the +King, saying his departure would be delayed till the 20th, at midnight; +that he could not take the Marquis d’Agoult, recommended to him by +Bouillé (as an “homme d’esprit, ferme et courageux, qui peut se montrer +si les circonstances l’exigaient,” p. 217), because Madame de Tourzel, +the governess of the children, insisted on her right of place never to +quit them; and this consideration carried the decision. As if the King +could not have let them follow in another vehicle! Anything rather than +be forced to show himself on the road as he did (p. 256). + +How it all miscarried will be best understood by reading the whole of +De Bouillé’s account. His arrangements seem to have been masterly, like +the noble soldier and statesman that he was; the King’s arrangements +vacillating, foolish, and even perverse. In this account Monsieur Saulce +is not seen at all. + +This is to be filled in as follows. Louis XVI. alone, without his wife, +will suffer the disgrace of being crowned with the red cap of Liberty, +called the Phrygian bonnet or mitre, from its being the head-dress of +the priests of Mithras. The five hundred Marseillais led the attack upon +the Tuileries, a palace begun by Catherine de Medici (1564) on the site +of the tile-kilns (_le thuille_), and not in existence when Nostradamus +wrote this (1555). The Count de Narbonne, Minister of War, was of the +noblesse, and Saulce, father, son, and grandson, were chandlers and +grocers, or oilmen, of Varennes. The father was _Procureur-syndic_ of his +commune. These oilmen betrayed him to the populace, and he was arrested +_per custodes_. These sneaks stand as typical or representative traitors +of the two classes of _noblesse_ and _bourgoisie_ paying cowardly court +to the _prolétaire_ class. + +The Madame Campan before alluded to (ii. 158) relates that their +Majesties alighted at the grocery shop of the Mayor of Varennes, Saulce; +and he could have saved the King. The Queen was seated in the shop +between two high-piled stacks of candles, and was talking to Madame +Saulce. + +The _Gazette Nationale_, June 25, 1791, reporting what took place in the +Assembly the night before, announces that M. Martinet, in addressing the +House, described Saulce’s conduct as wise and _heroic_, replying as he +did to the promises and caresses of the King and Queen, “J’aime mon roi; +mais je resterai fidèle à ma patrie.” The result of his heroism was that +two months later on the Assembly voted him twenty thousand livres as the +reward of his exalted _vertue citoyenne_. Whether, in the scramble that +so soon followed, he ever received the wasteful and ridiculous Judas-gift +there is nothing to show; but the bulletin recording the vote of these +new-fledged statesmen, liberal of money not their own, still exists. We +have here “_un Brute Français_,” apeing the Roman, who loved Cæsar well, +but blood better. + +Thiers’ account of the attack upon the Tuileries, June 20, 1792 (“Révol. +Fran.,” ii. 152), furnishes a pathetic picture of the afflicted King +(_marri mitré_) of the red nightcap, in which he was day-dreaming. The +palace was evacuated at about seven in the evening by the populace, +which had effected its entry by main force; but, when the crowd had now +withdrawn peaceably and in good order, the King, Queen, his sister, and +the children, all met together, shedding a torrent of tears. The King +seemed stunned by what had taken place; the red cap was still upon his +head; he now, for the first time for several hours, noticed it, and flung +it aside with indignation. + +As to the five hundred men named by our oracle, the historian of the +French Revolution again comes to our aid (ii. p. 209), saying that +Barbaroux had promised the Jacobins the co-operation of his Marseillais, +who were on the way to Paris. The project was to assemble at the +Tuileries and depose the king (ii. p. 235). They arrived on June 30, +1792, and were five hundred men. Ils étaient _cinq cents_. + +Those who care to see how Narbonne acted against the King, can refer +to the “Histoire de la Révolution,” by Bertrand de Molleville, for +satisfaction. + +This stands out certainly as one of the most startling of all the +thousand quatrains of our strange seer. It will henceforth and to the +end of time speak for itself without comment, if we merely enumerate the +historic facts as here anticipated in four lines. The horror of the king +at finding himself _mitré_. The god Mithras is depicted on coins in this +very cap, and his priests made it their head-dress; further, it furnishes +the lively etymology of the word _mitre_ itself. It was for ages, before +the French took it up, the received emblem of that frantic crime that has +been called _Liberty_. I will not say the result of this is, as poetry, +artistically beautiful; but, as a phrase of intense expression, it is so +terse that at a stroke, beyond that of hydraulic power, it seems able +to compress a truss of hay so as it may lie in a husk of beech-mast. I +do say, nevertheless, that, thus regarded, Dante and Shakespeare can +hardly furnish between them three sentences of such compressed force; +the matter in it seems to be condensed to adamant. _Mari sera mitré_, +as it has been just explained, will be found, the more profoundly it is +thought upon, to be an original miracle in phraseology. It is an actual +and an awful prophecy in itself, but to devise a phrase to so convey the +idea by human speech to the human mind of another is miraculous. It may +sleep for centuries, as this has done, for lack of interpretation; but, +when duly interpreted it cannot be resisted; it storms the understanding; +and, as a phrase, seems to be a miracle begotten expressly to become +the vehicle in which to convey another miracle. This horror of the King +mitred is one distinct forecast. The second point is his return to Paris. +There is, thirdly, the conflict of the five hundred. Fourthly, the +spot, the Tuileries,—at Nostradamus’ time, a thing of thin air, where +the tiles were still baking, fire-hot to roof houses with, whilst the +pen was writing this. Here again, if it is not poetry, it performs the +poet’s function, which gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a +name. Fifthly, comes a titled name—Narbonne. Sixthly, that of Saulce; and +finally, the handing over to the custodians. Here are seven distinct +prophecies of events historical: two of them, names of men yet to be born +at a period two hundred years removed. And, behold, these seven facts are +put before you in four lines! + +There is a point of particular interest to be noted in that first line. +Bouys (p. 62) remarks that, first line though it be, it should be the +last, as the mitre was the closing act of the entire drama; and he +supposes that Nostradamus wanted to make the treachery most prominent to +the mind of the reader. That is to talk like a chronologer. The first +cause and the final are, in spiritual matters, one. The life and death +of man are reduced to two points, and epitaphs give enough about most of +the lives of mortal men when they chronicle the birth and death dates. +“Alone he returned and was mitred.” How, step by step, it all came about, +_follows_ necessarily; and that is how Nostradamus puts it to us. If +he had weighted himself with what science calls method, he would have +destroyed his own instinct; as science does, just as Saturn ate up the +offspring of his proper loins. The soul that does this must grope to its +results, but can never jump to them by prophecy. + +Before we go to the next quatrain it may be instructive to note +Garencières’ treatment of the pregnant forecast we have just traversed. +He translates thus: + + “The separated husband shall wear a mitre, + Returning, battle, he shall go over the tyle, + By five hundred one dignified shall be betrayed, + Narbon and Salces shall have oil by the quintal.” + +“The verse signifieth, that some certain man who was married shall be +parted from his wife, and shall attain to some great ecclesiastical +dignity. The second verse is that, coming back from some place or +enterprise, he shall be met and fought with, and compelled to escape over +the tiles of a house. The third verse is that a man of great account +shall be betrayed by five hundred of his men. And the last that, when +these things shall come to pass, Narbon and Salces, which are two cities +of Languedoc, shall reap and make a great deal of oil.” + +This shows some skill, but what an unintelligible total we reach. I +merely set it down to prove to the sceptical, and those who incline to +class Nostradamus authoritatively amongst impostors whose jargon is not +worth the pains of interpreting, that they may look at this and learn +from it two facts: First, that before the event forecast has happened, +all the keys of interpretation are wanting, the prophecy looks like +jargon, and is so for all practical purposes; but that, secondly, once +it has happened, or as we may say kissed sunlight, the keys appear with +it, the light and the understanding awaken together. There is light in +potence or _in posse_ now; but even then they will not unlock secrets, +if the keys remain in the hands of ignorant or scientific persons [or +self-sufficient, which is nearly the same thing as scientific], or in +the hands of romance-readers and lazy dullards. You will not unravel +“the words of the wise and their dark sayings” by reading a quatrain +once through. The interpreter must approach the work in a simple, +unprejudiced manner; he must get light from history how he can,—from +memoirs, letters, books,—and learn by the success and failure of past +commentators. He must be content to work very hard all the while, and +with little encouragement from others; and then at last he may so do +something, that even his neighbours may allow his work to be,—according +to the bent or water-pent of the particular mind of each,—some a +discovery, some a revelation. He himself may probably feel that a supreme +patience has had more to do with bringing the thing to pass than any +other faculty that could easily be named. Things of the spirit must, of +course, be spiritually discerned, and all talk about faculties when the +individual soul is treated of must sound a little paradoxical. To divide +the unique and indivisible unity of the soul into parts and pieces, +betrays in the proposer himself perhaps some “want of parts.” But from +the earliest time until now, this has been the scientific way of treating +the human understanding; so let us consider that it is right enough. The +soul has almost always been cut into three, and then left to wriggle and +wriggle, and at last to join itself together again, as best it can, like +a worm in a garden. If this be according to Aristotle, let all Sorbonne +profess it for right. What does it matter how we treat _one_ thing, if +only our method be perfectly scientific and in accordance with all the +rest of the universal phenomena, and with a right interpretation of +nature? What can it matter about the invisible, if only our eyes know how +to take account of the things that are seen; that is, of the only things +truly subject to the cognizance of man? + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 92._ [Bouys, 64.] + + Le roi voudra en cité neufue entrer. + Par ennemis expugner l’on viendra. + Captif libère faux dire et perpétrer, + Roi dehors estre, loin d’ennemis tiendra. + +_Translation._ + + The King would enter into the city. + (By enemies expelled, France will obtain it [or] they will arrive + there;) + It will be false to say and reiterate that the captive is free, + [And] that the King who is out [of Paris] will keep aloof from + enemies. + +M. le Pelletier does not touch this quatrain. M. Bouys gives his +interpretation, which is not very convincing, and I thought of passing +it by altogether. But the _captif libère_ so links it with the journey +to Varennes of the Royal family, that it seemed preferable to include +it, and leave it to the reader to reject or accept it, as he might think +fit. Another determining influence was from my noticing that the _cité +neuve_, or Montmédi, which the King desired to reach, was not French +when the quatrain was penned. The VIII., IX., and X. Centuries were not +published with the first seven, but were issued at Lyons from the same +press, namely that of Pierre Rigaud. Moreri states that Nostradamus felt +encouraged by the reception accorded to the seven Centuries to publish +three more (_i.e._ VIII, IX., and X.), in 1558. There is a copy now +in the Bibliothèque Royale, to which the authorities give the date of +1558. Pierre Rigaud’s name appears on the title, but no date, which is +remarkable, as the first volume of 1555 has this imprint: “_Ce present +livre a été achevé d’imprimer le IIIIᵉ jour de may MDLV_,” giving a +date as if for a nativity. M. le Pelletier demurs to the accuracy of +the pretended date, and thinks it must belong to the edition of 1566, +by Pierre Rigaud. If so, these three Centuries scarcely appeared in +the lifetime of Nostradamus, though they are dedicated to his patron, +Henry II.,—who died in 1559,—in an elaborate and interesting epistle +dedicatory. In opening this, Nostradamus says he has long been in doubt +as to whom he should devote (_consacrer_) these three Centuries, but at +last took courage to lay it at the feet of royalty. Now, the edition of +1566 particularly states that the prophecies _n’ont encore jamais esté +imprimées_. One cannot read the Dedicatory Epistle without feeling sure +it was written for the eye of the King, and therefore at least as early +as 1558, but probably earlier by a year or two. I therefore assume that +he presented them to the King in a fair manuscript, and that having done +that he remained content, and that the family at his death, finding the +original manuscript, put it in Rigaud’s hands to be printed. + +My reason for thus inquiring into the dates is this: that the +investigation makes it extremely likely the above quatrain was written +before 1557, the year in which Montmédi was taken by France, and, if so, +it explains the line that I have thrown into a parenthesis in a manner in +which it has never been interpreted before. _Expugner_ is not French now; +_expugnable_ is all that now remains of it in the language. So that + + Par ennemis expugner l’on viendra + +may, I think, be regarded as a parenthetic explanation referring to the +_cité neuve_, which was not yet French territory, though on the point +of becoming so,—_l’on viendra par ennemies expugner_, by expulsion of +the enemy, in 1557. If this rendering be thought valid, it furnishes +one reason the more for explaining this quatrain as one of the series +belonging to the Revolutionary epoch, and one more redeemed from the maze +of Nostradamus. + +It would appear from Bouys, though he does not produce his historical +authorities, that immediately the King escaped, France was flooded +with announcements that the captive was free, and had their consent to +hold himself aloof—_loin d’ennemis tiendra_. If this be established, +it becomes certain that we can in the main determine this quatrain +accurately. (“Histoire de la Révolution, par deux amis de la Liberté,” in +7 vols., vol. vii. p. 126.) + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 87._ [I. 179.] + + Mort conspirée viendra en plein effect, + Charge donnée et voyage de mort: + Esleu, créé, receu par siens, deffait. + Sang d’innocent devant soy par[249] remort. + +_Translation._ + + Death hatched by treason will take its full effect, + A charge imposed, voyage made to death. + Elected, created, received by his own, and undone by them. + The blood of Innocency (rises) before them in remorse (eternal). + +Bouys thinks by the last line Nostradamus intended to convey, that the +King felt poignant grief at the innocent victims his overthrow would +leave without protection to the tender mercies of the States-General. +The other is better, connecting it, as it does, with that case +analogous, where the mob cursed themselves out of their own mouth, and +said “His blood be upon us, and on our children” (Matt. xxvii. 25). + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 43._ [I. 180.] + + Le trop bon temps,[250] trop de bonté royale, + Fais et deffais, prompt, subit, negligence, + Legier[251] croira faux d’espouse loyalle, + Luy mis à mort par[252] sa benevolence. + +_Translation._ + + Too much of good fortune, a too lax Royalty, + That makes and unmakes [appointments] sudden, hasty, negligent; + Lightly believes his loyal Consort false, + And bids good nature lead the way to death. + +This is a picture to the life of the fat-making King Louis Seize. The +brush of a Velasquez, as it cannot paint the moral, could hardly so well +place him before the eye, as in life. He is no picture well-framed, +hanging for inspection in a gallery of pictures, but flesh and blood +like one’s self alive, and moving with us in the gallery a spectator and +observer like ourselves. We have here Louis XVI. before us in the flesh. + +“_He makes and unmakes appointments_; yes, indeed.” In a little more than +eighteen years, sixty-seven ministers take office and relinquish it. Here +they are alphabetically, as Bouys enumerates them. Amelot, Barentin, +Bertrand de Molleville, Boyne, Breteuil, Brieune, Brogli, Beaulieu, +Cahier de Gerville, Calonne, Castries, Champion de Cicé, Clavières, +Chambonas, Clugny, Dabancourt, Danton, de Grave, Delessart, de Crosne, +de Joly, d’Ormesson, Dabouchage, Dumourier, Duportail, Duport-Dutertre, +Duranton, Foulon, Fourgueux, Fleurierès, Joly de Flemy, Lacoste, la +Galaisières, Lailliac, la Jarre, la Luzerne, Lamoignon, Lambert, +Laporte, Latour-Dupin, Lenoir, Liancourt, Leroux, Malesherbes, Maurepas, +Miromeuil, Montmorin, Montbarrey, Mourgues, Narbonne, Necker, Pastoret, +Puységur, Roland, Sartines, Ségur, Servan, Saint-Germain, Saint-Priest, +Sainte-Croix, Taboureau, Tarbé, Terrier-Monceil, Thevenard, Turgot, +Vergennes, Villedeuil. Several of these served twice, and Necker was in +three times; so that the number of ministries in the time mentioned is +seventy-two—a thing not to be paralleled in history as a course of doing +and undoing, of _fais and deffais_. + +His temper was ungovernable and sudden, extending even to rough bathos, +but was soon over. Maurepas always said, you must let the King have his +first fling of humour out, and then he will soon recover. Secondly, his +negligence let everything drift, finance included, till ruin brought +collapse. You might think his economists had drawn their singular axiom +for statesmanship, _Laissez faire_, from the example of their royal +master. He fell at once into the intrigue of the diamond necklace +belonging to Marie Antoinette, which was conveyed by the Countess of La +Motte to the Cardinal de Rohan. Report runs that he even placed his wife +under arrest in her own chamber for several days. “Lui mis à mort par sa +bénévolence” displays a most wonderful forecast, and it is open to read +it now LOUIS _mis à mort_. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 92._ [I. 182.] + + Prince de beauté tant[253] venuste,[254] + Au chef menée, le second faict,[255] trahy. + La cité au glaive de poudre face[256] aduste,[257] + Par trop grand meurtre la chef[258] du Roi hay. + +_Translation._ + + The prince of very comely beauty (shall be) + Led to the head, and then betrayed to a second (place). + The city of the sword, with powder-torch, burns + The head of the King, hated on account of his illegal murder. + +The edition 1558 gives the reading as above, but the line does not scan; +it wants two syllables. Bouys, without comment, reads _Prince sera_; +Le Pelletier understands _menée_ as a synonym for _intrigues_. But I +should read it rather as a misprint for _mené_. The city of the sword +is a graphic name for Paris, where the guillotine was first erected on +September 25, 1792, having been perfected by Guillotin, the doctor, whose +name was given to it. Roquefort gives the word _adusté_ as _brûlé_; but +Nostradamus uses it as a verb, _aduster_, in the third person of the +present indicative. Paris burnt the king’s head with a powder-torch, or +burning powder, that is to say with quicklime; and, as having done him +wrong, the people hate him, and wish to obliterate the traces of the +murder perpetrated. + +The body and head of the King were placed in a basket of wicker-work, and +carried, according to De Montgaillard (“Histoire de France,” iii. p. 415. +Janvier, 1793[259]) to the cemetery of the Madeleine, and thrown into a +trench twelve feet deep, which had been spread with quicklime; more was +thrown in upon the top of the body, so that decomposition would follow +instantly. When the grave was reopened some twenty-four years after, to +bestow a more decent burial on the relics, nothing remained but a few +fragments of calcined bone. + +Garencières reads _Princesse de beauté tant venuste_, which will not +scan any better than the line of the edition of 1558; but he translates +_au chef menée_, I find, as “shall be brought to the general,” and the +feminine termination is then right. This helps to confirm my rendering +above. His annotation says that the only difficulty about the quatrain is +as to what city is meant. As, however, he suggests no historical allusion +whatever, he leaves every difficulty unsolved. + +I think that most readers will be inclined to allow that this is a very +extraordinary forecast, and that _La cité au glaive_ as a name for Paris, +and what has been perpetrated there, is both poetic and terrific in a +very high degree—a sobriquet that, once heard, is likely to cling in +the memory for ever. To devise epithets of this simplicity and force +constitutes an author at once master of utterance; no matter what may be +the shortcomings of the adjacent text. But, when you find these startling +felicities perpetually recurring to illustrate facts historical,—facts +that will not come into mortal ken for centuries after the death of the +writer,—stiff, indeed, must be the reader’s neck if he cannot bow it a +little, as to a man of God passing by; or, if he would rather have it +so, to the occasional divinity shining through man’s nature, that will +not, cannot wholly die when death has done its worst. From Hecla to the +tropics all rational creatures should rejoice at such a fact. What is the +new world of Columbus to this? Why, nothing but a new hemisphere of dirt. +A spirit, that can read time future, must be a spirit whose habitation +is Eternity. It is this hope kindles as we decipher, in the stillness of +night, rune upon strange rune of the oracular sage of Salon. + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 17._ [I. 184.] + + La Royne Ergaste[260] voyant sa fille blesme + Par un regret dans l’estomach enclos: + Cris lamentables seront lors d’Angolesme, + Et au germain mariage forclos. + +_Translation._ + + The stranger Queen, seeing her daughter fading + By reason of the deep regret she endured inwardly: + The cries of Angoulême will be lamentable, + And the marriage with her cousin-germain foreclosed. + +The Princess did marry the Duc d’Angoulême in 1799, but there was no +issue,—_mariage forclos_. The Queen wished to marry her daughter to a +German Prince: hence all the grief. The Abbé Torné-Chavigny (“L’Histoire +prédite et jugée par Nostradamus,” ii. 28) had the merit, M. le Pelletier +says, of this learned interpretation. I cannot quite see this, as M. +Bouys gave the same interpretation as far back as 1806, though with a +particularity a little less minute. The prophecy thus unravelled is the +more wonderful, as the event seems so little worth recording. There is +the same exactitude and precision shown as where a kingdom is at stake. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 77._ [I. 185.] + + Le regne prins[261] le Roy convicra, + La dame prinse à mort jurés à sort, + La vie a Royne fils on desniera, + Et la pellix[262] au fort de la consort. + +Pierre Rigaud’s edition reads _conjurera_ for _convicra_, and that, +at least, makes the line scan, which _convicra_ does not. Bouys says +that some ancient editions read _conviera, commitari per viam_, and +then it would mean to arrange the funeral cortège of the King. I think +_conjurera_ the best reading, for that might be taken to mean that they +condemned the King by jurors, or jury, as the Queen was in the next line. + +_Translation._ + + The assembly will condemn the King taken, + [And] the Queen taken to death by jurors sworn by lot; + They will deny life to the Dauphin (_à Royne fils_), + And the prostitute at the fort will partake of the same fate. + +Upon the word _jurés_, in the second line, M. le Pelletier remarks +that the Convention, erecting itself into a supreme court of justice, +proceeded to condemn the King to death. But the judgment upon +Marie-Antoinette was passed by the _Tribunal révolutionnaire_, newly set +up, which proceeded by jurors chosen by lot, _jurés à sort_. He further +says that this _jury_ is an institution borrowed from England, and he +erroneously fancies that it had been first introduced into England at the +Revolution, and had no existence there, even by name, during the lifetime +of Nostradamus. This shows how little a Frenchman, when even well read, +cares about English institutions. Pettingal almost proves that the Roman +_judices_, and Greek δικασταί, were jurors. There has been great and +profitless dispute, as to whether the Anglo-Saxons had juries, or whether +they came in at the Conquest. If they did it would be strange, for they +died out in Normandy. If the practice be Roman, it would have prevailed +in England as in Normandy, both having been under Roman law forms. Coke, +Blackstone, and many others, confidently maintain its existence here +prior to the Conquest. If Anglo-Saxon it would still be Roman. Were +it Scandinavian in origin, or were it Teutonic, it would equally have +prevailed here before the Conquest. So that the whole discussion has +an interest merely archæological; and leaves the _trial by jury_, no +matter what its origin, a thing of immemorial usage in these islands. You +might as well try, by chemical analysis, to ascertain when oxygen first +entered as a component part into the air men breathe. If you could settle +the question it would be no use; whilst the time lost in discussing it +might otherwise be well employed. But the forensic usage was not so in +France itself, as modern Frenchmen think, for in old Glossaries, like +Roquefort’s, you find _jurie_, not _jurée_: “Assise où l’on prononce sur +le rapport des jurés.” + +They delivered the poor Dauphin to the _cordonnier_ Simon, with orders to +let him die slowly. The inhuman villains seem to have felt they could not +condemn a child to public execution; so they give orders to a murderer to +make away with him by ill usage and starvation, a process that would have +rendered the guillotine welcome and a boon. + +The last line admits of three interpretations. M. le Pelletier takes the +_pellix_ to stand for the National Convention itself, saying that it had +prostituted justice in condemning an innocent prince over whom it had no +jurisdiction. But clearly it had no jurisdiction over the King or Queen. +He then takes the fort to be the _Conciergerie_, to which it consigned +its own members, _consorts_, as an introduction to the scaffold. This is +very striking, but the quatrain does not appear to me to threaten members +of the Assembly at all. The unity of conception is best maintained +by limiting its meaning to the fate of Royalty; and Bouys places an +excellent and forcible interpretation upon it without breaking the unity +of purpose. He says that it relates to the Dubarri, the King’s courtesan, +and that the fort is her palace of Luciennes, which had anciently been a +strong place or fort. This is good, if the Château de Luciennes bears it +out; but the _fort_ may so easily be _sort_ with the old _s_ type, which +is scarcely distinguishable from an _f_, that I think we might very well +substitute it. We should then construe the last line + + “And [consign] the prostitute to the fate of the Queen consort.” + +This interpretation requires less force to be employed upon the line, and +less explanation than any of the others. The forms of the _s_ and _f_ are +nearly identical. The reading that brings simplicity with it, and removes +stumblingblocks out of the way, usually proves the safest and the best. +Here we remove the complication introduced by the word _fort_, which +otherwise requires explanation, and it runs: _The courtesan shares a like +fate with the Queen_. It is now for the reader to select the best. + + +_Sixaine 55._ [I. 186.] + + Un peu devant ou après très-grand’ dame, + Son ame au ciel, et son corps soubs la lame, + De plusieurs gens regrettée sera, + Tous ses parens seront en grand’ tristesse, + Pleurs et souspirs d’une dame en jeunesse, + Et à deux Grands la deuil delaissera. + +_Translation._ + + A little before or after a very great lady, + The soul [of Madame Elizabeth shall rise] to heaven, her body under + the blade, + She will be grieved for by many persons; + All her family connections will be cast into deep sorrow, + One lady very young [Duchesse d’Angoulême will shed] tears and sighs, + And two great ones will be depressed with mourning. + +This can be mistaken for no one but Madame Elizabeth, the sister of Louis +XVI., her niece, the Duchess d’Angoulême, and the two brothers of Madame +Elizabeth, the Count of Provence and the Count of Artois. This is not +one of the very striking stanzas, but the forecast is still notable, and +occupies its position very well as one in a considerable series. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 58._ [I. 187.] + + Tranché le ventre naistra avec deux testes + Et quatre bras: quelques ans entiers vivra, + Jour qui[263] Alquiloye[264] celebrera ses festes, + Fossen, Turin, chef Ferrare suivra. + +_Translation._ + + The belly cut shall spring again with two heads + And four arms: _Aquiloye_ shall live several years, + In great force (_entiers_) what (_jour qui_) time he holds. + Fossen, Turin, Ferrara shall fall under his domination (_suivra + chef_). + +This is a very crabbed, but very wonderful quatrain. + +The elder branch of the Bourbons was cut short in the person of +Marie-Antoinette (_le ventre tranchée_); shall spring up again in two +heads, Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The two heads being crowned, the +four lesser princes are called arms and uncrowned. They are counted +thus: The Duc de Normandy, who died in the Temple, June 8, 1795; the +Duc de Berri, assassinated January 13, 1820; the Duc d’Angoulême; and +the Duc de Bordeaux, exiled August 16, 1830, who, though he had so many +close chances, died without the crown,—an arm only, not a head, a hand +tenaciously to the last holding to its white handkerchief as a flag. +Zurich and Fossano stand, by synecdoche, for Piedmont, and Ferrara for +the Papal States. + +This brings us to the end of the Louis Seize series. Let us, before +passing on to a fresh series, just give a glance at the ground we have +traversed; and endeavour to estimate the value of the historical facts +prefigured for us by Nostradamus in his book more than two hundred years +before the earliest of them began to take effect upon the stage of +actuality. + +First, we beheld a section of the nation, the third estate, usurping +the sole authority of government, and bringing down upon the whole the +desolation that was witnessed in Europe in 1789. Then the intriguing +Duc d’Orléans was portrayed, and the poor King was seen repenting that +he had not, when insulted by him, publicly punished him by death. The +next picture was that of the remarkable flight to Varennes, in which +the very travelling habits of the King and Queen, to their respective +colours even, were minutely given, and the precise name hinted of the +fallen Capet on the road,—fallen, though elected by the people, _esleu +cap_. At the very last moment we are told their destination was changed +by the King, where changing meant his destiny. He was then depicted as +betrayed. He had run into the jaws of death, and the very names of the +traitors, Narbonne and Saulce, were given; with the further detail, that +he was taken back to Paris and mitred with the Phrygian cap, in the +desecrated Tuileries, at the dictation of five hundred Marseillais. In +another quatrain that journey is called a voyage of death, and in one +line is laid before us all that happened to Louis the Unfortunate. He is +elected, created king, received by his own people, and undone. To this +succeeds that extraordinary picture of the King himself: his best friend +could scarcely have portrayed the man so truly to us. Too prosperous at +the outset, too good-natured a royalty, sudden in temper, yet dilatory in +act, making and unmaking ministries quarterly, and finally done to death +by his own benevolence. We then have a stanza devoted to him. We see him +as a beautiful youth made chief, then deposed, and his head rolling from +the scaffold in the City of the Glave, even to his burial in quicklime +at the Madelaine, a procedure so unheard of in the case of kings. Then +that curious reference to _La Royne Ergaste_ and the little incident +touching her daughter’s marriage to D’Angoulême. Then follows the Queen’s +death, brought about by a jury, a novelty imported from England by the +innovators of that period; crowned by cruelty to the Dauphin. There +follows a more or less curious sixaine, conveying the fate of Madame +Elizabeth, the King’s sister; till we close with a brilliant quatrain +that exhibits, in a symbolical fashion, the Napoleonic interregnum, when +the severed Bourbon race puts out again its last two crowns, above the +Eagle-law or _Alquiloye_,—probably the last appearance it will ever make +upon the stage of history. I think we may agree, that it would not be +easy to parallel such a series of verified forecasts relating to the most +striking historical incidents, that bear upon a single reign, from any +one book existing in the world. + + + + +THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. + + +We now reach a fresh division, and shall treat of the National +Convention,—a period of about three years. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 17._ [I. 189.] + + Les bien aisés subit[265] seront desmis; + Par les trois freres le monde mis en trouble. + Cité marine saisiront ennemies; + Faim, feu, sang, peste, et de tous maux le double. + +_Translation._ + + The well-to-do [members] shall be suddenly dismissed, + On account of three brothers the world shall suffer trouble. + Enemies shall take possession of the marine city; + Hunger, fire, slaughter, plague, of evils all the double. + +Privilege is to be abolished suddenly. The three brothers who trouble the +world are the Royal trio, Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles X. Toulon +is the maritime city. We shall come upon it again, further on, in Century +VII. 13, where it is treated of more fully. M. le Pelletier interprets +_feu_ as being war, and _peste_ as standing for irreligion. As goods were +all doubled to Job, so here all evils are to be doubled. On the night +of August 4, 1789, feudal privilege was abolished suddenly (_subit_). +The clergy and nobility were dispossessed of property and title. Toulon, +taken by the English, is the _Cité marine_. It was retaken, in the +name of Louis XVII., on August 23, 1793, by the French; on the 19th +of December, Marie-Antoinette and Égalité, Duc d’Orléans, being both +executed during the British tenure. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 17._ [I. 191.] + + Le tiers[266] premier pis que ne fit Neron, + Vuidez[267] vaillant que[268] sang humain respandre! + Rédifier fera le forneron,[269] + Siecle d’or mort, nouveau Roy, grand esclandre! + +_Translation._ + + The third become first does worse than Nero, + See how much valiant human blood it squanders! + It will rebuild the old tile kilns, + The age of gold is dead, a new dynasty, and great scandal. + +This interprets itself. M. le Pelletier explains the rebuilding of the +kilns as setting up the scaffolds to consume the clergy and nobility. I +do not myself see the force or necessity of this. The age of gold yields +to that of iron or the sword; the new dynasty (the Napoleonic) is a vast +scandal, and reintroduces pomp and ceremonial at the Tuileries. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 19._ [I. 192.] + + A[270] soustenir la grand’ cappe[271] troublée, + Pour l’esclaircir les rouges marcheront: + De mort famille sera presque accablée, + Les rouges rouges la rouge assommeront. + +_Translation._ + + They will _not_ sustain the great but troubled Capets, + The reds will take steps to purge their number, + They will almost exterminate the family with death, + The red of reds will overwhelm the red. + +This very forcibly announces the Reign of Terror to have set in. The +reds will do what in them lies to crush the Capets, till they have +almost annihilated the family in death; and, then the reddest reds +will guillotine the reds,—the Montagnards the Girondists. Bouys does +not allude to this, though one would have thought it must strike every +reader as far as what is said relating to the conduct of the double-dyed +reds against the moderate reds. Garencières’ mistakes serve to show +how impossible it was to guess at the meaning of a quatrain in the +seventeenth century. He fancies this to refer to some conspiracy of red +Cardinals against a Pope, to be designated the Red one. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 69._ [I. 193.] + + La pitié grand’ sera sans loing tarder, + Ceux qui dônoyent seront contraints de prendre: + Nuds, affamés, de froid, soif, soy bander, + Les monts passer commettant grand esclandre. + +_Translation._ + + A sight of pity will not long delay, + The almoners will soon be forced to beg: + Hungered, athirst, naked, proscribed, and cold. + In bands they cross the Alps, a scandal to be seen. + +This conveys a forcible picture of the calamitous emigration the +clergy of France would undergo between 1792 and 1801. Once the clue is +supplied, it leads so naturally, that one almost finds insight from it +into the manner in which these representations presented themselves to +Nostradamus. One feels, that he must have seen the events passing before +the field of sight as visions, sometimes accompanied with uttered words; +otherwise how could he get intimation of names? But, if it was thus +that intuition came to him, the quatrains, that he now scattered up and +down throughout the Centuries in utter disorder and disconnection, must +have come to him in a sequence, rendering them comprehensible; more or +less, indeed, in the very order probably into which the chronology of +historical record enables the careful student to replace them now, as +soon as they are understood by him. If this be so, a rather curious fact +presents itself, in a form approaching to something like a certainty, +which is this: disorder must have been the method of the book. We know +that generally his practice was to write down the matter in prose, and +at leisure convert this into separate quatrains rhymed; these he must +afterwards have shaken up in a bag or hat, and when inextricably mixed +have counted them out into hundreds. I think it quite possible that he +found his forecasts became too intelligible when put together in their +natural order, and in the sequence of events. No doubt, with regard to +those events of his own time and to be soon fulfilled, he first began to +perceive the necessity for inverting or displacing the order. Consecutive +and interlinking stanzas would form a kind of commentary, and throw +mutual light one upon the other; so that the adoption of disorder would +follow as a measure of personal security. He thought that his sayings +should be dark, as becometh the words of the wise; and that it would be +quite time enough, should they grow clear when fulfilled to a reader, +who would take sufficient trouble to elucidate them and bring out their +meaning. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 44._ [I. 194.] + + En bref[272] seront de retour sacrifices, + Contrevenans seront mis à martyre; + Plus ne seront moines, abbés, ne[273] novices, + Le miel sera beaucoup plus cher que cire. + +This quatrain exhibits the suppression of the Catholic worship in France, +which took place November 10, 1793. What they called the worship of the +goddess of Reason was set up; and a return to Paganism is what the first +line means. + +_Translation._ + + For a short time there will be a return to [Ethnic] sacrifices, + And those who oppose will suffer martyrdom: + There will be no more monks, clergy, nor novices; + Honey will fetch more than wax. + +The last line means that wax will be cheapened, as none will be consumed +in the churches. The rest explains itself. Garencières can see the +meaning of the last two lines; but the first two he considers to have +been fulfilled in the time of Henry V. of France and Henry VIII. of +England. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 8._ [I. 195.] + + Temples sacrés[274] prime[275] façon Romaine, + Rejetterons les gofres[276] fondements, + Prennant leurs loix premieres et humaines, + Chassant non tous des saincts les cultements.[277] + +_Translation._ + + The temples consecrated in the fashion of early Rome, + They will reject the deep foundations [of Christianity], + Returning to their first and human laws, + They will not entirely abolish all saint-worship. + +This M. le Pelletier explains to be a forecast of the _Fête de l’Être +Suprème_, which was appointed by decree of the Convention May 7, 1794, +and celebrated on the 8th of June of the same year with great pomp. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 33._ [I. 196.] + + Des principaux de cité rebellée. + Qui tiendront[278] fort pour liberté r’avoir, + Detranchés[279] masles, infelice[280] meslée, + Cris, hurlements, à Nantes piteux voir! + +_Translation._ + + The chief citizens of the revolted city, + Who will struggle hard to recover liberty. + The men beheaded, an unhappy mixture, + Cries, howlings, at Nantes piteous to see. + +This was realized at Nantes, in Brittany, under the Proconsulate of De +Carrier. The town had, in 1793, become the focus of the Vendean reaction +against the National Convention. The men were beheaded generally, but +many men and women were stripped naked. They were then tied together, a +man to a woman, in couples, or pairs, which their fiendish tormentors +styled “republican marriages.” In this diabolic connection (_infelice +meslée_) they were precipitated helplessly into the Loire, amidst +heartrending cries and howlings. No viler crime was ever committed on +this earth, nor can ever be; the infamy of man and the revengeful filth +of lust can no further go. From that extraordinary coinage and coupling +of words, _infelice meslée_, you know, or seem to know, that Nostradamus +beheld the horrid spectacle in vision— + + Estant assis de nuict secret estude (Century I. 1). + +Those who believe this to be a recital at haphazard are of a +brain-formation singularly constituted. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 88._ + + Dans la Sardeigne un noble Roy viendra, + Qui ne tiendra que trois ans le royaume. + Plusieurs couleurs avec soy conjoindra,[281] + Luy mesme après soin sommeil marrit[282] scome.[283] + +_Translation._ + + In Sardinia a noble King shall come, + Who will only hold the kingdom during three years. + The tricolour will annex him [the King] to itself; + He after much pains will sleep afflicted and ridiculed. + +This is Charles Emmanuel IV. The Republic of the tricolour, “le drapeau +tricolor,” will despoil him of his continental estate; and he will +withdraw to his island, ruling for three years, 1798-1802. He then +abdicates to his brother, Victor Emmanuel I., and, _après soin_ much +care, will sleep [as regards governing], and, residing at Rome, sad and +humiliated, will assume the Jesuit robe, and die in 1819. + + + + +PIUS VI. + + +The next four quatrains refer to Rome and Pope Pius VI. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 57._ [I. 199.] + + Istra[284] de mont Gaulfier[285] et Aventin, + Qui[286] par le trou advertira l’armée. + Entre deux rocs sera prins[287] le butin. + De SEXT[288] mansol[289] faillir la renommée. + +_Translation._ + + When a [French] army shall go from Mont Gaulfier to the Aventine, + There will be a man advising them from under the hole. + The booty shall be seized between the two rocks, + And the glory of the sixth celibate shall wither. + +This is a very curious stanza. The name of Montgolfier, the æronaut, +is visible enough in the two separate words, _mont Gaulfier_. M. le +Pelletier calls it the grammatical figure of metaplasm; but it is not +strictly so. Metaplasm is the forming of cases from a non-existent +nominative. This is making two words for things non-existent to +represent a proper name. But there is a still greater singularity in the +employment of it here. For Nostradamus, as I understand him, makes this +fictitious mountain contrast with the real Mount Aventine. He makes it +stand, as I think, for one of the two rocks between which the booty is +secured. The brothers Montgolfier were paper-makers at Annonay Ardèche, +and they gave their own name to their discovery, which dates June 5, +1783. Their balloons opened at the bottom to be filled, so that a man +placed in them was under the hole, _par le trou_. I do not know at what +point the Montgolfier was floated to furnish military information to +the French, but I suppose on the Italian side of the Alps, so that from +that rock or mountain to the Aventine rock would be the points between +which the booty was seized. But the former of these Nostradamus seems +to me to designate by the man’s name, which lends itself to a play upon +the word, rather than by a peak of the Alps. M. le Pelletier says that +the two rocks refer to Peter, _pierre_ being _rock_. One is Avignon, in +France, and the other Rome, in Italy, and the booty was obtained by the +treaty of Tolentino, under date of February 19, 1797. By this the Pope +lost Avignon and Venaissin in France, Bolognia, Ferrara, and the Romagnia +in Italy, and this he calls the two rocks. The balloon was first used +to reconnoitre the position of the Austrians at the battle of Fleurus, +June 16, 1794. Almost immediately after the treaty, the Pontiff was +dragged from Italy to die at Valence: thus was fulfilled the prophecy of +_faillir la renommée_. Interpret how you may, the mention of the name of +Montgolfier so appropriately in this connection, must always stand as +proof of the most solid kind that Nostradamus’s foresight was miraculous. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 30._ [I. 201.] + + Tout à l’entour de la grande cité + Seront soldats logés par champs et villes: + Donner l’assaut Paris Rome incité,[290] + Sur le pont[291] lors sera faicte grand pille. + +_Translation._ + + Compassing all round the great city + There shall be soldiers camping in the fields and towns: + A Frenchman [Paris will take] Rome excited; + There will then be perpetrated on the Pope a great pillage. + +The Executive Directory, in defiance of the Constitution which formally +forbade it, encamped troops around Paris, _la grande cité_, on September +4, 1797. This was to quell, or keep in awe, the counter revolution. A +Frenchman [_Paris_], General Berthier, took Rome by assault, February +10, 1798, the pretext being that General Duphot had lost his life in an +_émeute_ [_dans Rome incité_]. Pope Pius VI. was dispossessed of his +states, arrested in his palace, and subjected to general pillage. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 46._ [I. 202.] + + Pol[292] mensole[293] mourra trois lieües du Rosne; + Fuis[294] les deux prochains[295] tarasc[296] destrois:[297] + Car Mars[298] fera le plus horrible trosne + De Coq, et d’Aigle, de France Freres trois. + +_Translation._ + + The grand Celibate shall die three leagues from the Rhone; + The two dejected brothers shall fly tumult: + For war shall make a most horrible throne + For the three brothers of France by the Cock and Eagle. + +The Pope, that is, shall die at Valence, a few leagues from the Rhone. +The two brothers [afterwards Louis XVIII. and Charles X.], alarmed at +the movement of the populace, take flight. War inflicts sad havoc on the +throne of the three brothers [Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., Charles X.] by +the Orleans Cock, and Napoleonic Eagle. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 99._ [I. 203.] + + Terroir Romain qu’interpretoit Augure[299] + Par gent[300] Gauloise par trop sera vexée: + Mais nation Celtique craindra l’heure, + Boreas[301] classe[302] trop loing l’avoir poussée.[303] + +_Translation._ + + The Roman territory that the Pope governed + The French will cruelly vex: + But that Celtic nation should fear the hour + When it has advanced its army too far to the north. + +I render this in the main in accordance with M. le Pelletier; but perhaps +some may think that the Pope cannot be called an augur without great +violence. _Interprétoit_ can hardly stand for spiritual government. It +is also difficult to make _classis_ into army. _Classis_ represented the +orders of the people of Rome; that divided them into bands and companies +for governmental and electoral purposes, not for war. The only _classis_ +of war was the _fleet_, and Garencières renders it by _navy_, although +he is entirely abroad in every other respect in his interpretation of +the quatrain. Though he forces a fulfilment upon it in the time of Henry +II. of France, still, evidently Rome is meant, whatever the Augur may +interpret. The Roman territory was twice trampled on by the French: first +by General Berthier against Pius VI, and again by General Miollis, who +in 1809 removed Pope Pius VII. The closing couplet is clearly a forecast +of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia. That will not be affected by the manner +in which we interpret _classe_; but I cannot imagine for a moment that +Nostradamus would employ the Latin _classis_ so erroneously for an +_army_, which no Roman would ever use it for. _Certamen classicum_ is +a sea-fight, but never employed for engagements on land. The result of +this minute verbal inquiry will, I think, end by establishing the more +remarkably the prescience and forecast of this consummate seer. He uses +the word _classe_ in one of its late eighteenth, or early nineteenth +century acceptions, for that body of young men, which is called out +every year in France by lot to serve in the army; or all those called +to the colours, who are drawn for service in the same year. It is an +administrative word, that sprang into use out of the conscription, and +which will die out again when that fraud, passed upon the nations of +Europe, has been detected and abolished; that institution which fosters +war and makes its otherwise intermittent evils permanent and perpetual +upon humanity. To enlarge the area of this view is to doom conscription +to death and sure oblivion. Conscription is an invention of Beelzebub, +when seeking his bath of blood, under the euphonic guise of a patriotic +defence of the mother soil. _Mourir pour la patrie_ is the glozing lie +of Roget de l’Isle, that supplements, or drowns, the true cry of “Blood +for Moloch.” So we will read, for the first time now, the passage thus: +But let the Celtic nation beware the hour when her _conscript columns_ +are pushed too far to the Boreal north-east. In brief, beware of Moscow. +If this sixteenth century anticipation of a nineteenth century idiom be +nothing, then let the Alps be called a molehill, and the hollow sea a +cup. Here we close the prefiguration of the Papal torment appropriately +enough; it closes with a terrible hint to its tormentor. + + + + +NAPOLEONIC RULE. + + +_Century III.—Quatrain 35._ [I. 205.] + + Du plus profond de l’Occident d’Europe, + De pauvres gens un jeune enfant naistra, + Qui par sa langue seduira grande troupe, + Son bruit au regne d’Orient plus croitra. + +_Translation._ + + In the Southern extremity of Western Europe + A child shall be born of poor parents, + Who by his tongue shall seduce the French army; + His bruit shall extend to the kingdom of the East. + +In the island of Corsica was born, of an ancient but impoverished family, +a child, Napoleon Bonaparte, whose proclamations electrified the French +troops. His expedition, by order of the Directory, to Egypt, which was +meant to ruin his career, conferred upon him a world-wide renown. This +man was not eloquent as orators are eloquent; verbosity is their gift. +Even the endowment of Cicero lay much in words; and in their multitude, +which wanteth not folly: Solomon says sin. A plethora of words becomes +the apoplexy of reason. But this man’s phrases are all portable, made for +the knapsack: they fly to the lip as lightning does to metal; poetry, +passion, and energy are in them, but fused to an aerolite, till they fall +like a luminous bolt, only to burn in man’s memory for ever after. They +are not winged, but lightning-shod. Fulminants are matter etherealized +to an interlinking with spirit. But this man’s words are spirit itself, +and burn their niche in Time, to last as long as that will. Take two of +them: “Soldiers, forty centuries look down upon you!” and again, “Behold +the sun of Austerlitz!” When you speak, speak thus to men; such words +are deeds; and come not as from one who beateth the air to the pitchpipe +of the tibicen Ciceronical, but as the bullet to its butt; speak +sword-points, that press between the joints and marrow. But I will stop +here, to escape oratory. That may still fetch its price, and seduce the +zebra troup in the courts of legal falsity, or in the Babel-room down by +the river-Minster. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 76._ [I. 206.] + + D’un nom farouche tel proferé sera, + Que les trois seurs[304] auront fato[305] le nom; + Puis grand peuple par langue et faict dira,[306] + Plus que nul autre aura bruit et renom. + +_Translation._ + + Of a savage name there shall be such publishing + That the three sisters shall have by Fate the same name: + Then he will lead a great nation by tongue and deed, + And have more glory and fame than any other. + +Here M. le Pelletier takes _le proferé_ for a thing placed before, and +understands it as being the prenomen of Bonaparte, viz. Napoleon. But +I cannot see how that is shown to be the meaning of _proferé_. That +word, if from the Latin _proferre_, never was used for _cognomen_ or +_prænomen_. One of the meanings of _proferre_ is _palam facere_, to make +public or publish, and I think it would be safer to render it as I have +done. It will still equally draw attention to the name Napoleon, in +contradistinction to the name of Bonaparte; because, when he mounted the +throne as Emperor, he adopted the new name and abandoned the previous +one. This selection of a new name seems to be a natural instinct of +humanity on entering upon a new phase of life. The popes take a new +name on assuming the pontifical rank; monks and nuns do so on entering +the religious life; commoners leave their name behind when created +peers; women do so when they marry; and here Napoleon does it. But I +do not think it desirable to consider this to be indicated by the word +_proferé_. Nostradamus says that it is such a fatal name that the Parcæ +themselves will adopt it. He then repeats that he will lead,—I think it +should be seduce (_séduira_),—the _grande nation_ by speech and deeds, +and raise a name unrivalled in the universe. This was certainly true, and +the prefiguration of it is, beyond the denial of prejudice, marvellous. + +We have now to deal with the word itself, which will furnish to +investigation a few interesting hints. Of course some may think them +intricate and far-fetched. There is no great importance to be attached +to them perhaps, but they must interest the curious; and curiosity that +is innocent has a value of its own. Who could see in Sloane’s strange +Chelsea gallery the shape, dimension, and value of the museum of +Bloomsbury and its affiliations? + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 33._ [I. 208.] + + Hercules Roy de Rome et D’annemarc,[307] + De Gaule trois Guion[308] surnommé, + Trembler l’Italie et l’unde[309] de Sainct Marc, + Premier sur tous monarque renommé. + +_Translation._ + + Hercules, King of Rome and Denmark, + Surnamed the triple Giant of France, + Shall make Italy tremble and the wave of St. Mark, + First in renown of all monarchs. + +There was a Celtic Hercules fabled to draw men by their ears: _Par +langue et faict il conduira_, as we have just seen, so that this +Hercules means the Napoleonic dynasty. As to King of Rome, Napoleon +actually assumed that title, and later on he conferred it upon his son +by Marie Louise. In the “Mémorial de Sainte-Helène,” 1840 [i. 79], by +Las Cases, it is said that during his consulate somebody published a +genealogy connecting his family with the ancient kings of the north. This +Napoleon ridiculed in the public journals, stating that his nobility +dated only from Montenotte or the 18th Brumaire. Things were not yet +ripe for royal pretensions. The Bonaparte family in Italy can trace to +the thirteenth century. One branch was settled at Treviso, the other at +Florence, and both held an honourable position; a third was at Sarzana, +in Genoa. A Charles Bonaparte settled in Corsica in 1612, and lived in +obscurity, says Le Pelletier, till this family of kings was born. Taine +has discovered that the family was of _condottiere_ stock, and De Staël +and Stendal had, before that, both of them found Napoleon’s character +more analogous to that, than to any other type known to them. Taine +finds him to be a Sforza or a Malatesta born belated by three centuries. +He is as unscrupulous, searching, and ambitious as Macchiavelli; and, +curiously enough, the only book[310] he is known to have ever annotated +profusely is Macchiavelli’s “Prince,” which was found in his baggage at +Waterloo, and has since been published; and an intensely interesting +book it is; enormously wicked and shrewd, but diabolically wise in the +Devil’s gay antics. It is a scientific treatise on government without +God in the world. Its moral axiom would seem to be that even murder +should be directed by good sense in the hands of a craft-master. In +this respect I think it is even superior to the clemency of Cæsar. The +“Prince” evidently fascinated him deeply. He treats his author quite +imperially, as Bentley or any other great critic might do, and points +out condescendingly where the priest is but a theorist and errs for want +of knowledge, such as can only be gained from the practical handling +of affairs by a man of the Napoleon calibre. I don’t know that you can +read so deep into the very spirit (for I will not mention heart in the +same breath with Napoleon) of the man of blood and brain, as you may by +the pencil interlineations by him jotted down in this his Italian _vade +mecum_; from time to time as he recurs to the book, enlarging in view +from general to first consul, and from first consul to emperor. You seem +to sit with him, as in a magical cave, with terrible writings that come +and go upon the wall before you, writings which are the words of this +book, and are lit up with a lurid phosphoresence, the light of which +emanates from his own putrescent brain. + +It is not historically true to say, as M. le Pelletier does, that +the family lived in obscurity in Corsica. The house at Ajaccio was +the largest in the place, a palace even as compared with the other +residences. The title of King of Rome was precious to Napoleon, as it +enabled him to claim succession to the Empire of Charlemagne. Although +Garencières, in his interpretation, fails of attaching any individual +fulfilment to the words, he is able, from this title, to say that whoever +it belongs to will attain to the Roman Empire. + +_Guion_ is equivalent to Terræfilius or Earthborn, and means giant; +in fact, it almost seems a variant of _géants_; but why _three +giants of France_? I do not know that this has ever been explained. +Hercules mythologically was distinguished by three symbols (Martinii, +“Etymologicon,” _s.v._ _Hercules_),—a lion’s skin, key, and three apples. +The three apples were, not to get angry, not to love money, not to +love pleasure. This need only be mentioned for the sake of the double +triplication and as marking so far the propriety of the term Hercules. +Master of Rome, _i.e._ Italy; of Venice, _i.e._ Austria; of Paris, _i.e._ +France; as ruled over by Napoleon as General, Consul, Emperor. That he +was “the first of monarchs over all renowned” needs no elucidation. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 61._ [I. 209.] + + Jamais par le descouvrement du jour + Ne parviendra au signe[311] sceptrifere[312] + Que tout ses sieges[313] ne soyent en sejour,[314] + Portant au coq[315] don du TAG[316] armifere. + +_Translation._ + + Never shall he in broad daylight + Reach to the symbol of sceptre-bearing rule. + Of all his positions none will be of a settled permanency, + Conferring on the Gallic cock a gift of the armed Legion. + +In other words, the Emperor will never enjoy a settled seat of firmly +established government, and he will confer upon France, either the +ruinous legacy or bequest or gift of the legionary conscription, which +converts Europe into an armed camp,—an evil gift, indeed; or those who +prefer it, may render it as the gift to France of a huge burial-place in +Spain and Portugal, where so many thousands of men, her best blood, fell. +But conscription is of the wider issue, and the more permanent evil, as +it affects Europe to this hour. It makes peace an interlude to war, and +very little less costly than war. + +Our next quatrain is a great rarity, for it seems to be in pure +Provençal, and extremely pleasing it is, a great deal more honied, to +the ear in sound than the present French language; which is excellent +for conversation and the _salon_, where society grimaces, but where true +souls are struck dumb and poetry has ceased to be possible; or only +possible to rebellion, such as that of Victor Hugo. + + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 26._ [I. 211] + + Lou grand eyssame se lèvera d’abelhos, + Que non sauran don te siegen venguddos. + De nuech l’embousq. Lou gach dessous les treilhos, + Ciutad trahido per cing langos non nudos. + +_Translation._ + + The great swarm of bees shall rise, + That none can tell from whence they came. + Night’s ambush. The jay[317] beneath the tiles, + City betrayed by five tongues not naked. + +The bees stand for the Bonapartist army and the Empire. The second line +is understood, by M. le Pelletier, to refer to the origin of the family, +and it may be so; but I think it refers to the surprising suddenness with +which the rouges, _sans-culottes_, and republicans,—in pretended love +with equality and freedom,—were found to welcome tyranny and Rule of +One, that used to be spoken of as Monarchy. Guillotined in that form, +Frenchmen hailed it as a sword-saviour in the new dictator. It seems to +me to be the sudden conversion of such opposed principles to Bonapartism +on the night of the 18th Brumaire [November 9, 1799],—_De neuch +l’embousq_, an ambuscade of night,—that startles Nostradamus. Certainly +there was no doubt whatever whence the Napoleon family sprang; a family +with a history more or less traceable for five hundred years can scarcely +be described with propriety as one “whose origin is _lost_ in the night +of time.” Yet this is the meaning M. le Pelletier would have us put upon +it. + +Next, like the jay in the fable, tricked out in peacock feathers and +spoils of the Capetian kings, Napoleon makes their palace of the +Tuileries [_Treilhos_] his head-quarters. The city is given over to him +by _cinq langos_, five prodigious talkers of the long robe. Far from +naked as to words or clothing were they, but as to principles very nude +and bare, quite unable to cope face to face with the audacity of this +unscrupulous cut-throat, this gunner of Ajaccio. + +The men of no principles and no practice were simply ciphers before this +man of practice, _par langue et faict_; this ethnic Hercules of tongue +and sword; this servant, as Daniel has it, of “the God of Forces;” this +fly-pest Beelzebub, man of _Vespres et mouches_, grown to a dynamic King. +Where men have lost their virtue, the poor sceptics are given over to +believe a lie of their own making; tongues have they to lie withal, but +never a hand amongst them to furnish help at need. + + +_Century VII.—Quatrain 13._ [I. 213.] + + De la cité marine et tributaire + La teste rase[318] prendra la satrapie: + Chasser sordide[319] qui puis[320] sera contraire; + Par[321] quatorze ans tiendra la tyrannie. + +_Translation._ + + The short-haired man shall assume authority + In maritime Toulon tributary to the enemy: + He will afterwards dismiss as sordid all who oppose him; + And for fourteen years direct a tyranny. + +The English had seized Toulon in the name of Louis XVII., and held it +a few months till Bonaparte retook it. He overturned the Directory +(_sordide_), and suppressed its partisans with the Republic, and enjoyed +the tyranny for fourteen years, from 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799, to +April 13, 1814. We have already seen (p. 272) that the _cité marine_ is +Toulon. Garencières fancies this to have been fulfilled when Richelieu +made himself governor of _Havre de Grace_, where he kept his treasure and +tyrannized for about fourteen years. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 57._ [I. 214.] + + De soldat simple parviendra en empire, + De robbe courte parviendra à la longue: + Vaillant aux armes, en Eglise, où plus pire, + Vexer[322] les prestres comme l’eau fait l’esponge. + +_Translation._ + + From a simple soldier he will rise to the empire, + From the short robe he will attain the long: + Able in arms, in Church government he shows less skill; + He raises or depresses the priests as water a sponge. + +This is a very remarkable quatrain, that Bouys and Le Pelletier, and +I suppose all French commentators, pronounce to belong to Napoleon; +and it certainly fits him very well. But, with almost as little injury +to historical fact, it may be applied to Cromwell, and accordingly +Garencières does so apply it. He writes: + + “I never knew nor heard of anybody to whom this stanza might be + applied, than to the late usurper Cromwell; for from a simple + soldier he became to be Lord Protector, and from a student in + the University he became a graduate in Oxford, he was valiant + in arms, and the worst Churchman that could be found; as for + vexing the priests, I mean the prelatical clergy, I believe + none went beyond him.” + +The circumstances of the French Revolution and the English Commonwealth +times are so much alike in many respects that it is not surprising that +such a description as this of a soldier who seized power and afflicted +the clergy should fit both the usurpers, Napoleon and Cromwell, almost +equally well. + +Napoleon was a plain lieutenant in 1785, Consul for life in 1799, and +Emperor from 1804 to 1814. He changed the short robe for the long, +is understood by M. le Pelletier as being the consular robe for the +imperial. There is no need to interpret thus. The military dress or that +of the civilian is the short robe. Nostradamus takes but little heed, so +far as we have yet seen, of the consular dignity. In the last quatrain +he designates the duration of the tyranny, not as one of ten years, +which would represent the Empire, but of fourteen, which regards the +consulship and empire as one period. If we take Cromwell’s protectorate, +however, from the death of Charles I. to the death of Cromwell, the term +will correspond with Napoleon’s imperial career. But the interregnum in +England was a period of twelve years, and that in France under Napoleon +was of fourteen (_quatorze ans_); hence this quatrain must not be applied +to Cromwell, though it in other respects is as true of him as of Napoleon. + +Valiant in arms, but in ecclesiastical matters less successful, still +he thoroughly vexes them, penetrating into every place and corner, as +water does into a sponge. We cannot accept M. le Pelletier’s rendering of +_vexare_ as meaning to raise and cast down. It was used in the sense of +to trouble, _cruciare_; to anger, _commovere_; or to harass with care, +_curarum æstu fluctuare_; but never to alternately swell and depress, as +in filling or squeezing out a sponge. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 69._ [I. 215.] + + Le Roy Gaulois par la Celtique dextre,[323] + Voyant discorde[324] de la grand Monarchie, + Sur les trois parts fera florir son sceptre, + Contre la Cappe[325] de la grand Hierarchie. + +_Translation._ + + The Gallic King by means of the Celtic sword-hand, + Seeing the discord of the great monarchy, + Shall make his sceptre flourish by restoring the three parts, + As against the Capets, and the Popedom. + +Garencières understands as “the Cap of the great Hierarchy,” Spain in the +Netherlands, which was the great upholder of the Popedom. His application +of this to history is of no value. But if we understand Cap as Capet, +and the ancient connection of the French crown with the Papal Hierarchy, +I think we elicit a better sense than that of M. le Pelletier, which +makes the Capet and the Hierarchy one. The three parts restored, M. le +Pelletier makes to consist of clergy, nobility, and tiers état. I feel +that the three parts under Napoleon were Emperor, Senate, and Chamber +of Deputies, which would be head (or Caput instead of Capet), Senate +representing the higher classes, and the Chambers the people. That would +constitute _les trois parts_ of the quatrain. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 88._ [I. 216.] + + Le divin mal surprendra le grand Prince, + Un peu devant aura femme espousée:[326] + Son appuy et credit à un coup[327] viendra mince,[328] + Conseil mourra pour la teste rasée. + +_Translation._ + + He shall have married a woman just before + The divine wrath falleth on the great Prince; + And his support shall dwindle in a sudden atrophy; + Counsel shall perish from this shaven head. + +This divine evil that surprises the Prince a little after his marriage +with Marie-Louise of Austria and his mean-spirited repudiation of +Josephine, is most excellently rendered by Garencières as “_the falling +sickness_, called by the Greeks _Epilepsia_, and by the Latins _Morbus +sacer_.” Garencières was a Fellow of the London College of Physicians, +and a man versed in the medical nomenclature of his day; so that _le +mal divin_ should here be rendered epilepsy. It has never yet been so +rendered, except by Garencières, and he has no application to make of +it whatever, though, as a mere matter of translation, he says, “the +construction of the whole is easie.” It strikes me that this forecast, +thus interpreted, will throw light from Nostradamus on what history has +heretofore overlooked, and will necessitate the re-writing of Napoleon’s +life from the date of his wicked prostitution of the marriage rite. +Napoleon, Cromwell, Mahomet, Cæsar, were all epileptic, and probably +Alexander. But this particular scoundrel first committed, from the purely +sordid motive of self-aggrandisement, a moral crime, and that brought on +the convulsion of the brain, that practically discharged for ever the +mighty Leyden jar or electric battery, with which this potent brain-fiend +had dealt out merciless torpedo-shocks to Europe, and death as from the +hot wind Samyel. Inflated vanity, the epileptic stroke, the reaction of +external forces on the weakened centre, made the cerebral pap, still of +gigantic power, entertain new phantasms huger than ever, with a terribly +diminished power of reason, to bring them to birth by the practical +handling of circumjacent facts and time-tendencies. Now, said the fool +of this western parable, now am I master of events, and may swim against +the sea,—not with it, as I and common mortals heretofore have done, but +against it, and to win. Well, he did carry the big dream into Russia, +and as far as the nightmare of Borodino. He also still found a mighty +utterance of lurid glory, with which to pin that evil minute in letters +of fire and phosphorus upon the curtain of eternity, “Behold the sun of +Austerlitz!” The looming _mot d’ordre_, the old work, the old guards, +and the old drillings, guided once again to a Pyrrhic victory; two such +will damn a kingdom. Reader, read Ségur [Comte de Ségur, “Napoléon et +la Grande Armée,” liv. vii. ch. viii. p. 179], and there perceive the +giant unbrained and drivelling about his bastard boy called “King of +Rome,” and what else belongs to _mon étoile effacée_. “All the supports +dwindle,” says Nostradamus, “and counsel will perish from the shaven +head.” Garencières is right, and the diagnosis true. It is the falling +sickness. It is not Jove fulminant that strikes the reeling Pagod from +without, as with Cæsar ’twas, but an epileptic withdrawal of electricity +from within, backwards. Emperor and empire will soon roll together in the +dust; man’s posthumous analysis, and that of all the evil works wrought +by him, though the good live after. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 4._ [I. 127.] + + Par[329] l’univers sera faict un monarque + Qu’en[330] paix et vie ne sera longuement: + Lors se perdra la piscature barque, + Sera regie en plus grand detriment. + +_Translation._ + + Throughout the universe a monarch shall arise, + Who will not be long in peace nor life; + The bark of St. Peter will then lose itself, + Being directed to its greatest detriment. + +The Emperor Napoleon, reviving pretensions to the old Roman empire or +universe, will neither enjoy peace nor life for very long. In his time +the Holy Seat, _la piscature barque_, shall so guide itself to greatest +detriment as to be cast away and lost (under Pius VII.). + +Pope Pius was made a prisoner by General Miollis, July 6, 1809, and +carried to Savone, then to Fontainebleau, and kept under strict guard by +Napoleon till March 10, 1814, when he was set at liberty. Garencières +interprets this as being fulfilled in the time of Henri II. of France, +who was slain by Montgomery in the tilt yard. Through all his reign he +was at war with the Emperor Charles V. This Emperor sacked Rome, and Pope +Clement VII. was made a prisoner (_vide_ Garencières, “Tiber,” p. 77). + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 60._ [I. 218.] + + Par teste rase viendra bien mal eslire, + Plus que sa charge ne porte[331] passera; + Si grande[332] fureur et rage fera dire + Qu’à feu et sang tout sexe tranchera.[333] + +_Translation._ + + In the shorn head France will have made so bad a choice; + It will be heavier than its force will enable it to endure. + So great fury and rage will make men say + That he will exterminate the male sex by fire and sword. + +The period of the fulfilment of this event M. le Pelletier gives as +extending from 1813 to 1815. It asks no further interpretation than that +afforded by the translation. + + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 82._ [I. 219.] + + Amas s’approche venant d’Esclavonie,[334] + L’Olestant[335] vieux cité ruynera, + Fort desolée verra sa Romanie, + Puis grande flamme esteindre ne scaura. + +_Translation._ + + A troop approaches, coming through Sclavonia; + The destroyer will ruin an old city; + He will see all Romania desolated, + Nor will he know how to extinguish such a blaze. + +A mass of troops is wending from Sclavonia. The destroyer, Napoleon, +will ruin old Moscow altogether, and see Roumania desolated; such a +conflagration he will not know how to extinguish. It was Rostopchin, in +1812, fired Moscow to prevent the French from wintering there, and it +settled the fate of the campaign. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 44._ [I. 220.] + + L’aigle poussée[336] entour[337] de pavillions, + Par autres oyseaux d’entour[338] sera chassée, + Quand bruit des cymbres[339] tube,[340] et sonnaillons[341] + Rendront le sens de la dame insensée. + +_Translation._ + + The eagle, drifting in her cloud of flags, + By other circling birds is beaten home. + Till war’s hoarse trumpet and the clarion shrill, + Recall her senses to th’ insensate dame. + +This is one of the few quatrains that lend themselves freely to a poetic +rendering. The Napoleonic eagle driven back to France with all its +retreating flags about it, or chased by a surrounding of other eagles, +Austrian, Russian, Prussian. The din of cymbals, trumpets, and clarions +restore France to reason, the insensate dame. + +Garencières’s annotation here is extremely funny, and should not be +unrecorded. He says: “It is an eagle driven from the tents by other +birds, when a mad lady shall recover her senses by the noise of cymbals, +trumpets, and bells.” + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 86._ [I. 221.] + + Comme un gryphon viendra le Roy d’Europe, + Accompagné de ceux d’Aquilon,[342] + De rouges et blancs conduira grand[343] troupe, + Et iront contre[344] le Roy de Babylon. + +_Translation._ + + Like a griffin the King of Europe will come, + Accompanied with those of the north. + Of red and white there will be a great number, + And they will go against the King of Babylon. + +The King of Europe is Louis XVIII.; shall come like a griffin (Griffon, +γρύψ, γρύπος, a fabulous animal, with hooked beak: _v._ Liddell and +Scott; _v._ _Griffe_, Noël; _Griffeau_, Roquefort, Littré, Gwillim, +Brunet, etc.), accompanied with those of the north. He will conduct +grand battalions of red and white uniforms, _i.e._ English and Austrian, +and they will march as one against the King of Babylon, which is Paris. +Louis, as the descendant of Hugh Capet, may be styled the first of +European Kings. The King of Paris is Napoleon, who ruled the Revolution +there, and brought order to confusion or Babel. But we can bring it home +to Paris even more intimately than this, for the old name of Paris was +Lutetia, or mud-place, where the toads, _crapauds_, or Frankish frogs +dwelt, and out of whose mud, or _bourbe_, came the Bourbon family. So +that Paris, their chief city, _en calembour_, yields _Bourbe ville_, +_Babyl_, _Babel_. + +Garencières thinks to see Gustavus Adolphus here as the most eminent King +of Europe in his day, and he came from Aquilon, the north, and warred +upon the Emperor, who was King of Babylon, from propping the popedom, +or from the Babel of confusion. He had regiments red, white, blue, and +yellow and green, in the hope of creating emulation amongst them. If he +had only had regiments red and white we might have hesitated, and gone +further to examine where the clue would lead to. But what begins by +proving too much is like other overshooting, and misses the mark entirely. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 89._ [I. 222.] + + Entre deux cymbes[345] pieds et mains attachés + De miel face oingt et de laict substanté, + Guespes et mouches, fitine,[346] amour, fachés, + Poccilateur[347] faucer[348] Cyphe[349] tenté. + +We have now rather laboriously cleared the way for a + +_Translation._ + + Between two prisons, bound hand and foot, + With his face anointed with honey, and fed with milk, + Exposed to wasps and flies, and tormented with the love of his child, + His cupbearer will false the cup that aims at suicide. + +M. le Pelletier renders this: Napoleon, after being consecrated by Pius +VII., and anointed from the sacred ampulla with honey and milk, underwent +a double imprisonment in Elba and St. Helena. The imperial bees—for so +he translates the wasps and flies—are desolated as to their love for the +child, and his surgeon, Yvan (_pocillator_), has falsified the death by +poison, on the night of April 12 to 13, 1814. Now, as it was not his +own soldiers that tormented him, I think we ought to read it _faché_: +he was desolated by wasps, flies, his child, and love. His soldiers are +called _abeilles_ before, never _guêpes_; these are the enemy tormenting, +who will not let him abdicate in favour of his son (φυτόν). We shall +do better here to follow Garencières’s example, drawn from the life of +Artaxerxes, King of Persia. The Persians used to punish poisoners by +laying them between two troughs, here called boats, with their face +uncovered, bedaubed with honey to attract the wasps and flies, and fed +them with milk to prolong the torment, which if they refused, they ran +needles into their eyes most persuasively, and then left them till vermin +ate them up. So that it means: he was tormented between two prisons +bodily and mentally, with the ruin of his family, insomuch that he would +have been glad to have escaped it all by poison. Whenever Napoleon was +thoroughly frustrated in his plans, he evidently tried to fall back upon, +what he had never deserved, human sympathy; which in prosperity he had +never thought of nor desired. He first showed this softening, rather of +the brain than heart, at Borodino, as we have said before. + +We will now take the substance of what happened at the abdication, as +given by M. le Pelletier from the _Manuscrit de 1814_, by the Baron Faim. +He abdicated [here may we say, “Woe unto him that buildeth a town with +blood” (Habakkuk, ii. 12)] at Fontainebleau April 4, 1814, reserving the +Regency for the Empress Marie Louise, and his son. He was thrown into +despair when he found the allies to be masters of Paris, and to reject +any such conditions. Baron Faim was his private secretary, and describes +what occurred on the night of the 12th and 13th of April, before the day +of his unconditional abdication. Fontainebleau really became a prison +under the surveillance of strangers. There were no terms left to him to +save even his life. Still he let the day close without yielding. + +For some days previously he had seemed altogether preoccupied in +revolving some design. His conversation turned always upon the voluntary +death that the great men of antiquity courted when in situations such as +his. The Empress had reached Orleans on her way to rejoin him, but he had +given orders not to allow her to do so. He dreaded such an interview as +likely to unman him for the resolution he meditated. + +It was a terrible night of suspense; the long corridors of the palace +resounded with the footsteps of servants going and coming, the candles +were burning in the private apartments. Doctor Yvan is suddenly called +upon to attend, the Duc de Vincence is sent for, and they hurry to fetch +the Duc de Bassano from the Chancellory; they are all taken to the +bedroom as they drop in one after another. Sobs and sighs escape, but +not a word is yet dropped to satisfy curiosity. On a sudden the doctor +leaves the apartment, descends to the courtyard, finds a horse ready +saddled, and quits the place at a hand-gallop. + +All that transpires on the occasion is that, at the retreat from Moscow, +Napoleon had provided himself with a means of escape, should he fall +alive into the hands of the enemy. Yvan, his surgeon, had given him a +packet of opium, which he had ever since carried round his neck. The +valet heard him rise in the night, and saw through the half-opened door +that he mixed something in a glass of water, drank it off, and returned +to bed. He quickly felt that his end was approaching, and had his most +trusted followers called to his bedside, Yvan amongst the rest; but, when +he heard Napoleon complain that the action of the poison was too slow, he +precipitately quitted Fontainebleau, as we have seen. + +A very heavy slumber supervened, accompanied with profuse perspiration, +and when he awoke the symptoms had disappeared, the dose having proved +of insufficient quantity, or time had deprived it of its efficacy. +Napoleon, astonished at the failure, simply exclaimed, “_Dieu ne le veut +pas!_” and professing, perhaps for the first time in his life, to yield +to Providence, resigned himself quietly to his new destiny. On board +the _Northumberland_ he strongly reprobated suicide. It would have been +instructive to have heard the arguments employed by this intellectual +giant, merely as a mental acrobat exhibiting, and as showing how far the +intellect may be effective in illustrating the path of duty. But on +nothing could Napoleon’s opinion be worth so little as on a question of +morals, where the soul’s instinct is chief guide. The rats ate his heart, +it is said, in an interim of the medical dissection. I doubt it; he had +eaten it himself long before he left Brienne. + +On the morning of the 13th, Napoleon rose and dressed as usual. His +objections had vanished, and his next act was to ratify the treaty—a +solemn act, which he took the earliest opportunity that offered to betray +and break. + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 24._ [I. 227.] + + Le captif prince aux Itales[350] vaincu + Passera Gennes par mer[351] jusqu’a Marseille, + Par grand effort des forains[352] survaincu, + Sauf[353] coup de feu,[354] barril liqueur d’abeille. + +_Translation._ + + The captive prince, conquered, is sent to Elba; + He will sail across the Gulf of Genoa to Marseilles. + By a great effort of the foreign forces he is overcome, + Though he escapes the fire, his bees yield blood by the barrel. + +He ran the blockade, March 1, 1815, and landed at Cannes, close to +Marseilles, crossing the Gulf of Genoa, till defeated at Waterloo on the +18th of June, “seeking death,” says Le Pelletier, “without being able +to find it,” (_où il sera sauf de coups de feu_). When the smoke rises +from the bottomless pit, “shall men seek death and not find it; and shall +desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Rev. ix. 6). Napoleon +comes out of the island Æthalia, or metallic smoke, and escapes the +murderous artillery that kills his men, though it were far fitter he +should die. His beehive is not burned with fire, but other liquor than +honey flows freely,—the life-blood of his bees. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 70._ + + Le dard du ciel[355] fera[356] son estandue,[357] + Morts en parlant, grande execution. + La pierre en l’arbre, la fiere gent[358] rendue, + Bruit humain monstre[359] purge expiation. + +The third and fourth lines will neither of them scan. _La fiere gent_ +should be written _la fier’ gent_, _fier_ being read as one syllable. + +_Bruit_, in the fourth line, is to be read as one syllable. Garencières +has _Brait_, which, though it have no meaning, shows perhaps that it was +one syllable. + +_Translation._ + + The thunderbolt shall strike his standard; + He shall die speaking proud words, great is the execution. + The stone is in the tree, the proud nation yields, + The monster purges his human fame by expiation. + +The thunderbolt from heaven shall strike down his standard, and he fails +or dies[360] uttering haughty words. There is terrible execution done. +The stone[361] is in the tree. The proud nation yields. The hero purges +by expiation his human renown. + +In spite of all these doubts interposed, this yields us a quatrain of a +sufficiently clear sense, in conveying two leading ideas; a providential +and mighty overthrow of a giant leader and braggart of swelling words; +and of a proud nation split in battle, as a tree is by thunder-stroke. +The forcible picture is not unworthy of Waterloo or the Battle of Mont +Saint-Jean, as the French call it; even though it may not be impossible +to find some other battle since the death of Nostradamus that it might +represent almost as well, if not quite so fully, as the tremendous day +of Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Englishmen seem half afraid now to mention +the day with pride, for fear of hurting French susceptibilities. To +mention it insultingly, or in a hostile spirit, is unpardonable; but to +speak of it modestly and thankfully, and of Wellington as a great soldier +and benefactor to us, is only manly and proper. The man who has not the +courage to do this firmly and inoffensively in the company of Frenchmen +is only one of the many cowards amongst us, who lead the French to think +that, however great things our fathers may have done in the past, the +spirit has fled from us that would repeat them in the future. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 86._ [I. 230.] + + Du Bourg la reyne parviêdront droit à Chartres, + Et feront près du pont Anthoni pause: + Sept pour la paix cauteleux comme martres, + Feront entrée[362] d’armée a Paris clause.[363] + +_Translation._ + + From Bourg la Reine they shall march on Chartres, + They shall camp close to Pont Anthony: + Seven chiefs for peace, cautious as martens, + Shall enter Paris cut off from its army. + +The generals of the seven nations coalesced shall, under pretext of +peace, but really out of jealousy of France, says M. le Pelletier, and in +virtue of the capitulation of the 3rd of July, enter Paris; now cut off +from her army (_clos d’armée_), which retreats upon Chartres, passing by +Bourg la Reine and Pont d’Anthony, where it camps. The quatrain does not +at all obviously read so, but we must suppose that it is the French army +which goes to Chartres. We are not, however, bound to believe that the +marten-like and cunning seven only pretended to establish peace out of +jealousy to France. All Europe and France herself sighed for peace; and +if, when victorious, the enemies were inclined to take back what France +had robbed them of severally, that would not be very wonderful. The seven +nations signatory to the treaties of 1815 were England, Austria, Prussia, +Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal. + +This is a very remarkable forecast, and shows that although Nostradamus +is a national prophet of France, and nearly all his one thousand +quatrains turn upon her and her interests, he seldom exhibits a particle +of partisanship, and you would not know he was a Frenchman from any +word that he lets fall. He strictly limits himself to the utterance of +his vision in the tersest phrase, and the most forcible words that he +can bring to bear for that purpose. I think there is no other instance +known of such inviolable temperance. A man sits down in his study +and prophecies; commits his visions to paper in prose; turns them +deliberately afterwards, and in cold blood, into the pithiest poetry he +knows how; shakes up in a hat, as we have previously remarked, all the +quatrains together, and, when he has effectually destroyed all sequence +and order, counts them out into even hundreds; then, without a word of +note or comment, he sends them forth in type into the world to sink or +swim; be ridiculed or admired, be understood or mistaken, perish or +endure; until such period as their fulfilment in the centuries of time is +realized, and the sleeping world awakens to the miracle, that has slept +also, beside the sleeping world, till light arose to make both clear at +once. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 67._ [I. 232.] + + Le blonde au nez forche[364] viendra commettre[365] + Par[366] la duelle[367] et chassera dehors: + Les exilés dedans fera remettre, + Aux lieux marins commettant[368] les plus fors.[369] + +_Translation._ + + The light-haired one will come to blows with the hooked nose + For the second time, and chase him out: + The exiled will replace him within, + Consigning the strongest of the party to a fortress in the sea. + +Louis XVIII. is designated _Le blond au nez fourchu_ according to Le +Pelletier. _Le blond_ is, no doubt, the sign of the Capets, as shown +by several other stanzas in Nostradamus, but not the aquiline nose, I +think; that, I believe, is intended for Napoleon. So that Louis XVIII. +comes to blows with the hooked nose, or Napoleon, for the second time and +drives him out; he who was exiled before now replacing him within. The +strongest, that is Napoleon and his officers, are committed _aux lieux +marins_; which either means to the English, who go down to the sea in +ships, or else to St. Helena, a prison in the sea. + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 90._ [I. 233.] + + Cent fois mourra le tyran inhumain; + Mis à son lieu sçavant et debonnaire: + Tout le senat sera dessous sa main, + Fasché sera par malin[370] temeraire. + +_Translation._ + + The inhuman tyrant shall die a hundred times; + A learned and debonnaire King shall take his place: + All the senate shall be under his control, + And he shall be grieved by a bold criminal. + +Napoleon is the inhuman tyrant to die a hundred deaths: one his suicidal +attempt; another Elba, with its cinerary and fuliginous ashes; another +Waterloo; and lastly St. Helena, with its ten times ten remorseful +hours, regrets, and studious falsifications of the history of his life. +_Debonnaire_ is, with Nostradamus, an epithet of the Capet family, and +stands doubtless for Louis XVIII. put into his place. The King finds the +Senate quite submissive to his will, but he is cut to the heart by the +daring attempt of the criminal Louvel upon the Duc de Berri, February 13, +1820. + +This is the excellent interpretation of M. le Pelletier. Bouys (p. 80), +writing in 1806 under the full influence of the demon of Napoleon, +gives it a very different reading. The inhuman tyrant with him can be +nobody but Robespierre, who, with a pistol shot, endeavoured to put an +end to himself ineffectually, but blew away half his face, suffering +thirty hours of fearful torment, and finally was dragged to the place +of execution amidst the maledictions of the populace. The _sçavant et +debonnaire_ to Bouys is, of course, Napoleon. The _malin teméraire_ is +a forgotten Georges, whose conspiracy gave a little momentary anxiety +to Napoleon. Here terminate the oracles assigned to Napoleon by M. le +Pelletier. But Bouys adduces several others, which sufficiently relate +to the Emperor to be enumerated here. It is painful to see how men +manipulate these things to suit their theories. We will give now a +quatrain that Bouys cites, as he thinks it favourable to Napoleon; but +he carefully omits the one next to it in the same Century, purely, as it +seems, because it is unfavourable to Napoleon. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 29._ [Bouys, 82.] + + L’oriental sortira de son siège, + Passer les monts Apennons voir la Gaule: + Transpercera le ciel, les eaux et neige, + Et un chacun frappera de sa gaule. + +_Translation._ + + The oriental will quit his post, + To cross the Apennines and see after Gaul: + He will transfix the heaven, the mountain ice and snows, + Striking each of them with his magic wand. + +The Oriental, _i.e._ Napoleon in Egypt, will leave his army behind there, +after almost turning Mahometan; return and cross the Apennines and Alps +to look after the Directory and their doings in France. He will soon even +subdue the elements and Nature by his marvellous roads over the mountains +of ice and snow, and will strike each as with the rod of Moses, or the +wand of a magician; for the archaic and unusual word _gaule_ may mean +that, as well as a riding switch. Bouys misses the plainer meaning of the +first line, but is determined it shall represent Napoleon, so he takes +_Oriental_ to be Corsica, as being east of Toulon. The passage of Mont +St. Bernard with cavalry and artillery he gives rightly enough; the Alps +have to be introduced for the Apennines. The quatrain following next to +this he passes _sub silentio_, for the reason above assigned, though it +is pregnant with meaning; and how this should have been overlooked by M. +le Pelletier, I cannot quite understand; but so it is. + + +_Century II.—Quatrain 30._ [II. 45.] + + Un qui les dieux d’Annibal infernaux, + Fera[371] renaistre, effrayeur des humains. + Oncq’ plus d’horreur ne plus pire journaux, + Qu’avint[372] viendra[373] par Babel aux Romains. + +_Translation._ + + One whom the gods of Hannibal from the lower regions + Shall cause to be born again [shall be], a terror to mankind. + Never will more horror, nor more evil days, + Come upon the Romans. The confusion will be like that before from + Babel. + +Hannibal and Napoleon are the only great generals who ever forced their +military way over the Alps successfully; Hannibal, with his _acetum_, +vinegar, or hatchet, as some have interpreted Livy; and Napoleon for +cavalry and heavy pieces of artillery. He seemed to be the marvellous +Carthaginian born again out of the shades of Hades, a scourge and flail +of men: Babel itself not worse in the confusion that fell upon Rome, +and the Church of Rome through him. We have given this before, at p. +228, but repeat it here with further enlargement, as it belongs more to +Napoleon than to the Revolution. Garencières thinks it was fulfilled when +Charles V. sacked Rome. If we consider, as I do, that the two stanzas are +inseparable, they will fit only Napoleon. + +We come now to a quatrain that M. le Pelletier has overlooked, but which +Bouys (p. 83) with some reason attributes to Napoleon. + + +_Century IV.—Quatrain 54._ + + Du nom qui onque[374] ne fut un Roi Gaulois + Jamais ne fut un foudre si crantif. + Tremblant l’Italie,[375] l’Espagne et les Anglois, + De femme estrangiers[376] grandement attentif. + +_Translation._ + + Of a name that never belonged to Gallic king, + Never was there so terrible a thunderbolt. + He made Italy tremble, Spain and the English. + He wooed a foreign lady with assiduity. + +Bouys introduces into his interpretation of this a good deal of foolish +adulation of Napoleon; pretending that he was not only _crantif_ towards +his enemies, which we must render _a cause of terror_, but also that +he was himself _crantif_, very tender of the lives of his troops. To +prove this monstrous proposition, he quotes the claptrap uttered by him +before the battle of Austerlitz: “I regret to think how many of these +brave fellows I shall lose. I feel for them as if veritably they were my +own children. Indeed I sometimes reproach myself for this sentiment of +tenderness; I sometimes fear it may end in rendering me unfit to carry on +war.” This was, indeed, an heroic fear, says Bouys. We are content to let +its heroism wrestle with its hypocrisy; we foresee which will come by the +first fall. + +Garencières translates that the warrior, whoever he may be, will follow +after strange women; and that would fit Napoleon, though not specially. +But we think it better to render it with Bouys as indicating the Empress +Josephine, who was of Creole blood, and therefore foreign; or Marie +Louise, equally foreign. If the latter, _Estrange_ would stand for +Austrian (_v._ Century I., Quatrain 83). + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 53._ [I. 269.] + + Dedans Bolongne voudra laver ses fautes,[377] + Il ne pourra au temple du soleil + Il volera faisant choses si[378] hautes, + En hierarchie n’en fut oncq un pareil. + +_Translation._ + + In Boulogne he would make up for his shortcomings, + But cannot penetrate the temple of the sun. + He hastens away to perform the very highest things. + In the hierarchy he never had an equal. + +This is a singularly interesting quatrain. It has received three +different interpretations; all three somewhat curious. Garencières opens +the ball. He says there are two towns called _Bolloin_, one in Italy, +one in France; that is, Bologna in Italy, and Boulogne in France. He +thinks Boulogne is intended, and that Richelieu, a man of high things, +and beyond the hierarchy, vowed, a little before his death, that if +he recovered he would make a pilgrimage to Boulogne; to the Temple of +Miracles there, dedicated to the Virgin, here described as the _Sun_, +from that passage in the Revelation, “And there appeared a woman clothed +with the sun;” but the cardinal took the road of death, which led, not +through Boulogne, to the shades below, and certainly not to the Temple +of the Sun. This has an interest of its own, but, as an interpretation, +is utterly wide of the mark. Richelieu on a repentant pilgrimage to the +Temple of the Sun would have been admirable as a caricature in Rabelais; +but, would be no fitter subject for Nostradamus’s pen, than if a lady of +title went to Aix-les-Bains to take the waters there. And observe, he had +to invent a Temple of the Sun to send him to, for never was there such a +temple at Boulogne. + +We have also Le Pelletier trying his hand, and he realizes it in Louis +Napoleon, in his escapade of 1840. When he was made Emperor, his Italian +exploit is represented as a flight to the _Temple of the Sun_. But how he +could suppose _that_ inferior mortal, to be referred to in _n’en fut oncq +un pareil_, I cannot divine. + +Bouys and others attribute it to Napoleon, and his intention to descend +upon England from Boulogne in the flotilla. Is there not a column +there, ridiculously built to commemorate the failure? Is there not +also a Boulogne medal struck (Ford’s “Spain,” i. 272) with one of the +Napoleonic falsehoods (an endless series) imprinted on its face, which +runs, “Descente en Angleterre frappé à Londres”? These are the ridiculous +touches; but now let us enter on the serious interpretation and see what +that will yield us. + +At Boulogne the Emperor will endeavour to blot England from the map of +Europe, and so redeem all his previous shortcomings in that direction. He +promises himself the satisfaction of dictating his terms in London, and +possibly entertained, in that strange brain of his, some dream that he +would be crowned on that royalty-confirming stone of Scone in Westminster +Abbey; where, tradition tells, the Temple of Apollo was shaken down by +earthquake, A.D. 154, the Temple of the Sun. But _Il ne pourra au temple +du soleil_, says Nostradamus: and history has thought fit in this as on +so many other occasions to endorse the forecast of the prophet. Bouys +adds, “Napoléon finira par faire la conquête de l’Angleterre;” but Bouys +is not Nostradamus; and Napoleon, like Richelieu, went to the shades +below from St. Helena, and did not go to the Temple of the Sun nor to +the Stone of Scone. He went away, however, from Boulogne to very great +things, as men count greatness; and was quite without an equal in the +hierarchy of kings. + + + + +LOUIS XVIII. AND LOUIS PHILIPPE. + + +We now come to the Restoration of Louis XVIII. + + +_Presage 38._ [I. 235.] + + Roy salué Victeur,[379] Impereateur,[380] + La foy faussée. Le Royal fait[381] congnu:[382] + Sang[383] Mathien[384] Roy fait[385] supereateur,[386] + De gent[387] superbe humble[388] par[389] pleurs venu.[390] + +This is a very crabbed quatrain. + +_Translation._ + + The King is saluted victor and dominator, + The oath falsified: The King makes himself known again: + Grandson of Louis XIV. becomes King, + Is called back by the proud people humiliated to tears. + +Louis XVIII. is proclaimed King, May 3, 1814, but the people take up +Napoleon from Elba, March 1, 1815, thus breaking faith. Louis XVIII. (Le +Royal) is again recognized, July 8, 1815; the grandson of Louis XIV. +(_sang Æmathien_), a name conferred by Nostradamus on Louis XIV., who +assumed the emblem of the Sun, Æmathien being son of Aurora, who opens +the gates of the morning sun. This grandson becomes now undisputed King, +the humiliated French nation recalling him with tears. + + +_Century X.—Quatrain 16._ [I. 236.] + + Heureux au regne de France, heureux de vie, + Ignorant sang, mort fureur et rapine, + Par nom flateur[391] sera mis en envie: + Roy desrobé,[392] trop de foye en cuisine. + +_Translation._ + + Happy in the kingdom of France, happy in life, + Free from blood, violent death and angry rapine, + He will have a flattering name, and be an object of desire: + A King retired, with too much faith in the kitchen. + +Here we are to take Louis XVIII. as restored to the throne of France: +his life passes happily, without violent experiences of blood, death, +rage, or rapine. The flattering name was given to him of _Désiré_, that +is prophetically hinted in the words “_il sera mis en envie_.” He will +not devote sufficient attention to his public duties, so that he may be +described as _desrobé_, retired or retained at home; and he will be too +much addicted to enjoyments of the table,—_trop de foye en cuisine_. The +gastronomy was proverbial; the obesity consequent upon it made him grow +inert, so that he gradually let the affairs of State drift without giving +them due attention. + + +_Century III.—Quatrain 96._ [I. 238.] + + Chef de Fossan[393] aura gorge couppée + Par le ducteur[394] du limier et levrier; + Le faict patré[395] par ceux du mont Tarpée,[396] + Saturne en Leo[397] 13 de Fevrier. + +_Translation._ + + A prince of Fossano shall have his throat cut + By the keeper of his hounds and greyhounds: + The attempt will be made by those of the Tarpeian rock, + Saturn being in Leo on 13th February. + +Fossana is put, by synecdoche, for Sardinia. A prince, therefore, of +Sardinia shall be stabbed by the Keeper of the Kennel, instigated by +Republicans, when Saturn is in opposition to the sign of the Lion, on +February 13, 1820. M. le Pelletier, who seems somewhat learned in the +houses of the stars, says that Saturn was in opposition to, and not in +conjunction with, Leo on this occasion. But Nostradamus leaves it open. +The Tarpeian rock is figuratively employed to signify the _Mountain_, +or the demagogues and the Republicans generally. The Mons Tarpeius was +first named from murder, and was for ages a scene of murder. Tarpeia, +who betrayed the Capitol to the Sabines, was crushed by their shields +at the gate, and her father, Spurius Tarpeius, was thrown over the +battlements by order of Romulus. Children ill-formed at birth were flung +from its heights. It was better known as Capitolinus, so called (_caput +Toli_) from the head of Tolus, found there when digging foundations for +the Temple of Jupiter: thus the place of the skull, a Golgotha from the +beginning of Rome. Later on criminals were sentenced to be thrown from +it. Many of these deadly associations were, no doubt, present to the +mind of Nostradamus, and made this mountain of death seem to him fit to +foreshadow the death that should emanate from the French mountain. To +dwell upon this is of physiological interest, as showing how very closely +the natures of the poet and the prophet overlap each other; so that, as +in the rainbow colours, there is no line to be drawn as to where one +begins or another ends:—they may be seen, but not severed. + +The Duc de Berri was the son of Marie Therèse of Savoy, married to the +Comte d’Artois, she being the daughter of Victor-Amédée III., King of +Sardinia. This Sardinian was to have ruled France, and, with but one +intervening, to have followed the Corsican in the occupation of the +throne. Louvel, the murderer, stabbed him coming from the opera, and wore +the King’s livery at the moment of the attempt. The forecast is again +wonderful in prefiguring every particular short of the names of the two +individuals. The nationalities are given, the calling of Louvel, and the +day of the month. If all this be Chance, some hare-brained few would +prefer it to what they know of Certainty. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 4._ [I. 240.] + + Le gros mastin de cité dechassé,[398] + Sera fasché de l’estrange[399] alliance: + Après aux champs avoir le cerf chassé,[400] + Le loup et l’ours se donront[401] defiance. + +_Translation._ + + The great mastiff chased from the city + Will be afflicted by the strange alliance: + When the stag is driven to the fields, + The wolf and bear will commence to mistrust each other. + +The Duc de Bordeaux is the great mastiff, dethroned August 9, 1830, by +Louis Philippe, in the dog-days, when the star _Sirius_ is in opposition. +_Le Grand Chien_ burning in the horizon is a synonym for the _gros +mastin_; the city, of course, is Paris. Charles X., who was fond of the +chase, is turned from the great huntsman to the stag. The wolf is Louis +Philippe, a name which lends itself to Lou. P. The bear represents, +according to M. le Pelletier, _la Montagne_, in the assembly, because +bears make their lair in the highest situations. We need not insist on +this resemblance or characteristic pointed out by Le Pelletier. + +There are six quatrains devoted by Le Pelletier to the Duc de +Bordeaux,—the Henri Cinq that was never to be,—that Royal Prince whom +all the Princes should see to be heaven-descended. But as we, who are +not royal, have seen that nothing came of him; and that, being now dead, +nothing can come of him, we shall pass over the six quatrains in silence. +The quatrains of Nostradamus lend themselves most kindly to elucidation +once you find the clue, but they most persistently refuse to have a +meaning read into them from without. + +M. le Pelletier has elaborated the meaning of the six quatrains, about +Louis Philippe with so much ingenious learning that we must give the +whole of them, and let the reader take them at his own valuation. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 84._ + + Celuy qu’en[402] Sparte Claude[403] ne peut regner, + Il fera tant par voye seductive, + Que du court, long le fera araigner,[404] + Que contre Roy fera sa perspective.[405] + +_Translation._ + + He who will cause that the lame cannot reign in Paris,[406] + He will effect so much in his seductive way + That from the short to long he will attain, + Who has brought to bear his deception against the King. + +The meaning of this is that Louis Philippe d’Orléans will cause the +Duc de Bordeaux to be unable to hold the reins of government in Paris. +The anagrammatic substitution of Sparte for Paris is doubly ingenious, +inasmuch as Lycurgus at Sparta established a double kingship so-called. +Of course the office could not be that of king at all, but there was the +name if not the fact, and that suffices for this prince of dexterous +analogists, Nostradamus. Louis Philippe will achieve this by the +byeways of seduction, and will usurp successfully his nephew’s throne +(araigner), putting himself in opposition, says Le Pelletier, to his +lawful King. _Faire sa perspective_ he renders opposition. I do not think +this is the meaning of the phrase. There is an extract from Fontenelle +(I cannot refer to it in his works at present), in which he speaks of +a perspective that will make an emperor or a beggar out of the same +figure, according to the point of view from which you regard it. That is +an optical illusion. Descartes, in his “L’Homme,” mentions the pictures +placed at the end of corridors to cheat the eye agreeably, and adds, +“L’exemple des tableaux de perspective montre combien il est facile de +s’y tromper.” And then there were those perspectives that Holbein and +his contemporaries used to introduce into their pictures, of a skull, or +death’s head, so painted that you could not quite tell what it was till +you reached the right point of view, when it would suddenly contract +and draw its elongated self together to a true skull by a process the +reverse of foreshortening. By the words _sa perspective_, I conceive +that Nostradamus meant that Louis Philippe brought his deception to bear +against the King. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 69._ [I. 250.] + + Plus ne sera le Grand en faux sommeil, + L’inquietude viendra prendre repos: + Dresser phalange[407] d’or, azur, et vermeil, + Subjuger Afrique, la ronger jusques os. + +_Translation._ + + Le Grand will pretend no longer a false sleep; + His disquietude will now lull itself in security, + Arrange his army under gold, blue, and red, + Subjugate Africa, gnawing it to the very bone. + +Louis Philippe, now King, and so become _le Grand_, says M. le Pelletier +(though, as applied to the individual, it looks quite like a misnomer), +will now unmask his designs, and take his repose in security. He will +adopt the tricolour of the Revolution and complete the conquest of +Algeria; Pelissier roasting the refugees in caves, to the very bone. +Everything but the word _Grand_ justifies the interpretation to a nicety. + + +_Century I.—Quatrain 39._ [I. 251.] + + De nuict dans lict le supresme[408] estranglé, + Pour avoir trop sejourné blond esleu, + Par trois[409] l’Empire subrogé[410] exanclé[411] + A mort mettra carte[412] et pacquet ne leu.[413] + +_Translation._ + + When France shall be dominated by three parties, + The last of the family shall be strangled at night in bed, + For having lent too much to the fair Capet. + Put to death because a paper and packet were not read. + +When France is dominated by three alternately (Orleanists, Republicans, +Bonapartists), the Prince de Bourbon, Condé, last of his race, shall +be strangled, at night in his bed, for desiring to follow in the suite +of the Duc de Bordeaux. A new will, duly sealed up, in favour of the +Bourbon, but not read, is the cause of his death. The “not read” means, +not read by the Duc de Bordeaux, in whose favour it was drawn. The +Baronne de Feuchères, whose interests were allied to those of Louis +Philippe, defeated this by the murder. M. le Pelletier acquits Louis +Philippe of complicity in the crime, but he remarks that the interest of +the baronne was incidentally that of the King. Her crime was incited by +the desire to do away with the new will, by which she would be a heavy +loser. It is curious that Garencières considers this quatrain to have +been fulfilled in Philip II. of Spain, who had his own son, Don Carlos, +strangled in bed. The coincidence of the name Philip is singular, but the +remaining two lines he does not attempt to interpret. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 42._ [I. 253.] + + Par avarice, par force et violence + Viendra vexer les siens chef d’Orleans; + Près Sainct Memire[414] assaut et resistance, + Mort dans sa tante,[415] diront qu’il dort leans.[416] + +_Translation._ + + By cupidity and abuse of power, force, and violence, + The chief of Orleans will come to vex his own; + Near St. Memire resistance will be made; + Dead in his palace he will ever after sleep. + +Avarice was always the fault of Louis Philippe. By extortion and abuse +he raised resistance at Saint Meri; in and near the church he forced +the republicans to submission, _dort leans_ a play upon the name, never +again showed energy, but slept a sleep as of death in his palace (_dans +sa tente_). The insurrection that was quelled took place on June 5 and 6, +1832. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 89._ [I. 254.] + + Sept ans sera Philipp; fortune prospere: + Rabaissera des Arabes l’effort; + Puis son midy perplex[417] rebors[418] affaire, + Jeune Ognion[419] abismera son fort. + +_Translation._ + + Seven years will Philip’s fortune prosper well; + He will defeat every effort of the Arabs; + In his embarrassed middle period all goes against the grain, + Young Ogmion will overwhelm his fort. + +Fortune will favour Louis Philippe for the first seven years. He will +repress the Arabs. But in the middle of his reign the Eastern question +will spring up, and cover him with disgrace (this culminated July 15, +1840). For the next seven years all will go against the grain, and the +new Republic (_jeune Ogmion_) will overturn his throne and his Bastille; +the Paris he thought he had so strongly fortified. + +Garencières again introduces Philip II. of Spain, and there seems to +exist some analogy between these two kings. The Spaniard also was +prosperous for some seven years, and in the person of his brother, Don +Juan of Austria, beat the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. Garencières +reads _Barbares_ for Arabs. Later on he had to put his son to death, +and was opposed by young Ogmion; the King, Henri Quatre, of France and +Navarre. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 92._ [I. 255.] + + Après le siege tenu dix-sept ans, + Cing changeront en tel revolu terme: + Puis sera l’un esleu de mesme temps, + Qui les Romains ne sera trop conforme. + +_Translation._ + + After the throne has been held for seventeen years, + Five shall change when that term has run out: + Then, at the same time, one shall be elected, + Who will not be very conformable to the wishes of the Romanists. + +After the reign of Louis Philippe, during seventeen years, five of his +sons lost the throne with himself; and with much manœuvring have never +been able to reapproach it. They were the Comte de Paris, representative +of Chartres, Duc de Nemours, Joinville, Montpensier, and Duc d’Aumale. +The election that followed was that of Louis Napoleon, whose mixed, +or no policy, suited neither the Revolutionary party nor the Roman +Catholics. There is nothing here but the seventeen years to connect this +with Louis Philippe. For the five who changed with the revolt would be +six if Louis Philippe himself were counted, and he certainly ought to +be. The concluding two lines are very vague, and may or may not belong +to Louis Napoleon. I merely cite it, as one of the ingenuities of M. le +Pelletier. + +There are three prophecies cited relating to the Duc de Chartres, which +seem fairly well interpreted; and very wonderful they would be if they +stood alone or related to any one whose fate was of any importance in the +opening scroll of history. All the little interest of Louis Philippe is +centred in himself, and therefore I omit the three quatrains relating to +his son, not because they are not curious, if rightly interpreted of the +son, but that, even supposing them to be so, the Duc de Chartres is a +person and a character not deserving of serious mention in history. The +gossip of a barber’s shop in Nostradamus’s own day would be even more +interesting to any rational investigator of human affairs. + + + + +REPUBLIC, 1848, AND NAPOLEON III. + + +_Century IX.—Quatrain 5._ [I. 261.] + + Tiers[420] doigt du pied au premier semblera, + A un nouveau monarque de bas haut:[421] + Qui[422] Pyse et Luques tyran occupera, + Du precedent coriger le deffaut. + +_Translation._ + + The third[423] shall be a stepping-stone to the throne, + To a new monarch from low position to the top; + He will as tyrant have taken a military post in Tuscany,[424] + And will seek to correct the defects of his predecessor. + +The National Assembly of 1848 shall serve as a foot to Louis Napoleon to +step from private life into a conspicuous position. He had in his youth +been concerned in the Revolution of Tuscany, and purposed correcting the +defect of his predecessor. + +This might mean that he purposed to guide France better than Louis +Philippe had done, or than in four years the Republic had done, or, which +is most probable from his _Idées Napoléoniennes_, to carry to completion +the policy of his uncle Napoleon I. I cannot think it refers to Napoleon +II., Duc de Reichstadt. The entire application of the quatrain is neither +very clear nor very important. + +The quatrain on Cavaignac, I think, is hardly made out satisfactorily, so +I omit it. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 43._ [I. 265.] + + Par le decide[425] de deux choses bastards, + Nepveu du sang[426] occupera le regne:[427] + Dedans Lectoyre[428] seront les coups de dards, + Nepveu par peur pliera l’enseigne. + +_Translation._ + + By the fall or ruin of two bastard things + The nephew by blood will occupy the empire; + In Lectoyre there will be deaths by arrow, + The nephew will fold up his standard for very fear. + +By the overthrow of Louis Philippe and the Republic, two bastard +governments, Louis Napoleon will now succeed to the throne, a nephew by +blood of Napoleon Bonaparte; and, what is not generally known, he was +the only one of the Bonaparte family born in the Palace of the Tuileries. +In battle afterwards at Lectoyre (_coups de dards_ must be taken simply +as battle) the nephew will furl his standard through fear. + +Writing in 1866, M. le Pelletier particularly remarks that the epoch +is left undetermined, and, as to the enigma of _Lectoyre_, nothing can +be known till the event has transpired. It may then be interpreted, +he thinks, in some of the idioms known to Nostradamus—Greek, Hebrew, +Latin, Celtic, Languedoc, etc. He considers the standard to present a +further enigma, and asks “What standard?” This difficulty I do not quite +recognize. The imperial standard that is adopted by him, whatever it +may be. To furl a standard is to close and shut it up, so that no one +will rally to it any more. It symbolizes that the cause it represents is +brought to the ground finally, and that it is no longer flying. + +As to the word _Lectoyre_, we now know that, if it is to be interpreted +at all, it will have to be found in connection with Sedan,—the noblest +reminiscence connected with which is that it was the birthplace of that +great soldier and greater man, Marshal Turenne. He may well be called +_La gloire de Sedan_, whilst as appropriately may Napoleon the Little be +designated as _Cédant de la gloire_, with that furled ensign, _qu’il par +peur pliera_.[429] + +After much difficulty and searching I have at last come upon two old +maps, printed at Amsterdam by Blaeuw; the one dated 1620 and the other +1650, styled “Les Soverainetez de Sedan.” In both of these the embattled +town of Sedan is given, as seated on the right bank of the river Meuse, +whilst on the left bank is shown an extensive territory named _Grand +Torcy_ and _Petit Torcy_. In another map it is given as _Torsy_. These +maps give no indication of the points of the compass. But from another +map, indicating them, the river-bend on which the town is seated appears +to run from east to west; and, if so, Torcy lies south or south-west +of Sedan. In a more modern map it appears as _Le Grand Torcy_ and +is described as lying “sur la route impériale de Mezieres à Sedan.” +Evidently therefore we are entitled to place _Le Torcy_ at Sedan. The +French must determine for themselves, by their military bureau, whether +the French camp was pitched in the meadows of _Le Torcy_; but nothing +can alter the great fact, as now for the first time made plain, that the +_Nepveu du sang_ furled his standard for ever at Sedan or _Lectoyre_, +as the oracle gives it. Now _Lectoyre_ is the precise anagram, letter +for letter, of _Le Torcey_, though the commoner spelling is without +the second _e_, _Le Torcy_. If we are to reckon this as being a chance +coincidence, my only further comment will be, that such chance as this is +quite as miraculous as any miracle in the world could be. + +As regards the words “_nepveu du sang_,” there was a caricature very +popular in France at the time of the candidature for the French +presidency, consisting of two pictures. In one the Prince de Joinville +was commending himself to the French people for election, having the +young Comte de Paris by the hand, and saying, “I am the uncle of my +nephew.” On the other side Louis Napoleon presses his suit by pointing +to a statuette of Napoleon Bonaparte and uttering the words, “I am the +nephew of my uncle;” showing how characteristically _nepveu du sang_ +designates Prince Louis Napoleon. He may almost be said to have chosen it +himself as a cognomen. + + +_Century VIII.—Quatrain 44._ [I. 267.] + + Le procrée naturel d’Ogmion[430] + De sept à neuf du chemin destorner: + A roy de longue amy et[431] au my hom[432] + Doit à Navarre fort de Pau prosterner. + +I propose here to make the meaning as clear as I can without a +translation. + +Napoleon III. (_le procrée_), the natural offspring of the French +Republic (Ogmion), will turn from the right road for seven or nine years +before his fall. Le Pelletier interprets otherwise. He says that the war +in Italy began in the seventh year of the Empire, 1869, and from that +date throughout the nine following years he changed his policy. I think +the line means that from seven to nine years before the end of his reign +he changed his policy. That is to say, from seven years previous to +the close of his reign, when Charles August Louis, Duc de Morny, died, +_i.e._ in 1865; and even for two years previously to that, things took a +different turn. De Morny no longer exercised active control, and his was +the head that had guided all along. When he died, all ran to distruction. +The _roi de longue_ and his friend _my hom_, Le Pelletier states to be +Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi; one of long race and one of low birth, +the tallow-smelter. I think it is Frederic William, _de longue vie_, +and Bismarck, the _bi-valve man_, which it becomes, if we read it as +_my-homme_. I have a great idea that _à Navarre_ is a misprint for _le +nepveu_. Whether _fort de Pau_ may mean with his health re-established +by staying at Pau or not, I cannot say. But, anyhow, I think that the +two last lines are to be read together, and that he is to prostrate +himself to the King and his friend. Louis Napoleon’s whole reign must be +represented as a failure, if you read it with Le Pelletier; mine makes it +a failure during the last seven to nine years. My King and friend bring +about the catastrophe far below the date that his will do. My emendation +to _le nepveu_ certainly clarifies the meaning. The explanation of Pau is +not quite so comprehensible as I could wish; had _Ham_ been a variant it +would have spoken for itself. + +The Quatrain 53 of Century VIII., which I have already explained as the +flotilla of Napoleon Bonaparte, M. le Pelletier fixes as the ludicrous +Boulogne expedition of Louis Napoleon, and the Italian campaign after he +became Emperor; but I think he entirely fails in reading the symbols. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 8._ [I. 270.] + + Sera laissé feu vif, mort caché, + Dedans les globes, horrible espouvantable, + De nuict a classe[433] cité en poudre lasché, + La cité à feu, l’ennemy favourable. + +_Translation._ + + Live fire, hidden death, shall be left + In bombs, a horrible and frightful thing: + By a band at night the city shall be fired with powder; + The city seems on fire, it helps though intended to destroy. + +Fulminating mercury (_feu vif_) in bombs in terrible explosion contains +death hidden. The city, Paris, will be startled with powder liberated +(_lasché_, loosed) by assassins by night. The city will seem on fire. But +the enemy (in spite of himself) will prove favourable to Napoleon. This, +of course, is Orsini’s attempt of January 14, 1858. + +The next verse follows up the thread. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 9._ [I. 271.] + + Jusques au fond la grand arq[434] demolue[435] + Par chef captif l’amy anticipé,[436] + Naistra de dame front, face chevelue, + Lors par astuce duc[437] à mort atrapé. + +_Translation._ + + When the peristyle is thoroughly demolished + By the chief prisoner, the friend being taken before, + A plot born of the woman, long beard and hairy face; + Then by cunning the leader caught will be executed. + +The peristyle (_la grand arq’_) of the opera shall be completely +shattered. Pieri, the friend of Orsini, the chief captive, is seized +beforehand by Hébert, head of the detective service, who recognized +him in the crowd. The plot was conceived in the secret lodges of the +Demagoguy [_de Dame_], whose members wear the beard and hair long. +Orsini, the leader of the whole, will be surprised astutely by the +confessions of Gomez at the restaurant Broggi, whither he had fled, and, +being taken, will be sentenced to death. + +I do not feel very confident as to this interpretation, but give it much +as I find it in M. le Pelletier. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 10._ [I. 272.] + + Un[438] chef Celtique dans le conflict blessé, + Auprès de cave[439] voyant siens mort abbatre, + De sang et playes et d’ennemis pressé, + Et secours par incogneus[440] de quatre. + +_Translation._ + + The Celtic chief is wounded in the strife, + Seeing death strike down his friends near the theatre, + Surrounded with blood and wounds and pressed by enemies, + He escapes the four[441] assassins, by unknown aid. + +The Emperor, slightly struck in the eye by a fragment of glass, shall +see his people strewn in death about the entrance of the Grand Opera. +Pressed by the conspirators, four in number, he will receive unknown +help; whether of angels or pure spirits, M. le Pelletier cannot quite +say. We now know that he had still to see Sedan; but it would be curious +if pure spirits had interested themselves greatly to protect the +cold-blooded murderer of the Champs de Mars and Coup d’État. + + +_Century VI.—Quatrain 4._ [I. 273.] + + Le second chef du regne D’annemarc,[442] + Par ceux de Frize[443] et l’Isle Britannique, + Fera despendre[444] plus de cent mille marc,[445] + Vain exploicter voyage en Italique. + +The second of the Napoleonic race in power will cause England and Hanover +to expend 100,000 marks in fortifications and war material. Fearing +invasion after the Orsini effort, he will then exploit the Italian +campaign, though vainly, as he will not reap the results he looks for. + +This corresponds so clearly with what happened that probably most will +agree that it is a very remarkable forecast. + + +_Century III.—Quatrain 37._ [I. 274.] + + Avant l’assaut l’oraison[446] prononcée, + Milan prins[447] d’Aigle par embusches deceus,[448] + Muraille antique par canons enfoncée, + Par feu et sang à mercy peu receus. + +_Translation._ + + Before assault a harangue is pronounced; + Lombardy is taken by the eagle, being cut off by ambuscade. + An ancient wall driven in by cannon, + Fire and blood, but little mercy shown. + +Before the declaration of war, the Emperor will pronounce (January 1, +1859), in the presence of the diplomatic corps, a threatening discourse +against Austria. Lombardy (Milan, part for the whole) will be ceded by +Austria at the Treaty of Zurich (October 17, 1859); Austria, an old wall, +will yield to cannon, fire, and blood. + + +_Century V.—Quatrain 20._ [I. 275.] + + De là[449] les Alpes grande armée passera + Un peu devant naistra monstre vapin,[450] + Prodigieux et subit[451] tournera[452] + Le grand Tosquan à son lieu plus propin.[453] + +_Translation._ + + A great army will pass beyond the Alps, + A little before a prodigious scamp will come to power; + He will drive the grand Duke of Tuscany + To his nearer home with astounding suddenness. + +In 1859 Napoleon III.’s army will pass the Alps. A little before a +prominent scamp will have come to the front, who will suddenly and in a +most startling fashion drive the Grand Duke of Tuscany to seek refuge in +Austria (_son lieu le plus propin_). + +We have to note here that Nostradamus, whenever he emerges from the +impassibility of the _secret estude_, it is to exhibit a profound +hostility to the genius of Democracy and Revolution. There is therefore +little doubt but that the powerful epithet here employed of the _monstre +vapin_ relates to the red-shirted Garibaldi. + +We have now reached the point which covers the last of the Oracles +of Nostradamus that commentary has yet been able to lay before the +world with its meaning rendered transparent by the correspondence of +interpretation with an event in history. The number of such correlations +of occurrence with forecast falls immensely short of the number of the +quatrains themselves. In fact, only about one hundred and fifty-one, out +of a thousand. The rest give no scintillation as yet, but lie without +sign of existence traceable, dead as a flint, till the iron stroke of +Time’s heel shall develop the spark. _Lateat scintillula forsan._ One or +two Presages and two or three Sixains have been also resolved. Enough, +we trust, has been opened up to show what a treasure-house it is that +we have entered into, how rich in curiosity, if in nothing more. What +may still lie perdu in the bulky remainder of eight hundred and fifty +it is impossible to say; whether, though unidentified, they have been +realized already, or are yet to bud in the future. If nothing more be +ever done with Nostradamus than this book gives, still the work must +for one reason or other hereafter stand out as the most wonderful book +of its kind that was ever written or printed in this world. It has now +to go forth and take its chance, good or evil, of notice or of neglect +amongst the mass of printed matter, largely rubbish, that deluges our +life. It is certainly calculated, so far as it can secure any attention +whatever, to severely shock the prejudices now prevalent amongst mankind. +The half-educated will find it troublesome to read, and disturbing, +perhaps, to think about; whilst the scientific may even denounce it as a +locust-cloud of darkness mediæval in its tendency. Undoubtedly it must +have the effect that Nostradamus in his preface to his son (see p. 50) +says very graphically it will have, “que possible fera retirer le front à +quelques uns.” Although, as he says again, the forecasts may be clouded, +they will be understood by men of sense, and they will grow clearer as +ignorance dies out (see p. 54); which should be our care now. + +To all objectors I rejoin, gentlemen, investigate, please, all the points +in question as searchingly as you can; find every fault in my work, and +in that of the other Nostradamic commentators, that you can; expose all +that is weak or illusive, wherever you find it to be so. Let us see, +then, how far all the learning and acuteness you can bring to bear, +coupled with whatever established prejudice, and its rancour at being +disturbed in comfortable somnolency, can suggest, to overthrow what other +men heretofore, and I now, have taken so much pains to bring together and +give shape to. Consciously I have not set down a single word with any +other desire than that the truth should prevail; and if your criticism +can establish the opposite, I shall still repeat, “Let truth prevail.” +But I do not think you can do this: and if not, there is only one other +thing, open to the learned and the wise that can be done,—that is, to +rewrite their philosophies, so as to make room for the reception of this +rather awkward piece of truth that has here got in the way of our old +theories, and cannot be got out of the way again. To the really competent +and candid reader I have nothing whatever to add beyond begging him to +refer back to the closing words of my preface, as to him they will be +found to contain my whole and entire message. + + + + +APPENDIX. + +_Referred to at p. 178._ + + +The genuine and spurious portraits of Cromwell are numerous to such a +degree, that they may almost be called innumerable; for they can never be +counted, as no one man can get at them all to reckon them up. Their main +authority is said to depend upon the works of four artists, Lely, Cooper, +Walker, Faithorne. Samuel Butler, the author of the ever-marvellous +“Hudibras,” is thought to have painted a likeness, but it counts for +nothing, as it is not now to be identified as existing in any collection. +The first-named three are painters, the fourth is a great engraver. + +In all these, Mr. Frederic Harrison professes to discover “singular +resemblance” [“Cromwell,” p. 32,] but considers that Cooper’s is the +most successful of them all. I find the first to be a most misleading +statement, and one that may be disproved by anybody who will compare +Cooper’s likeness, as given in Carlyle’s “Cromwell Letters” with the +picture by Walker in the National Portrait Gallery. They differ in +every particular,—in character, feature, temperament, and conformation. +Scarcely do they agree even in the wart. There is nothing to identify +them as representing the same individual. Either Lely copied Cooper, or +Cooper copied Lely, and they accordingly, of course, correspond with each +other; but truth is too much sacrificed to flattery by both these courtly +painters, for us to suppose that their work corresponds very accurately +with the sitter. Such examples of Faithorne as are readily accessible in +the Print Room at the Museum convey no adequate idea of the man. Neither +do they resemble Cooper, Lely, nor Walker’s work. There is a profile +print by Houbraken, an excellent performance, which is interesting as +showing that both the chin and forehead receded greatly. There is also a +very peculiar engraving of Thomas Simon’s medal, which is very beautiful +as a work of art. But here again the facial angle is simply villainous, +with very mean diminutive eyes, and the dress almost clerical. The +engraving from the Cooper at Sidney College gives the wart on the left +brow instead of the right. + +From such discrepant things it seems to me next to impossible to derive +any correct notion regarding the face of Cromwell, except that the facial +angle of the side face must have been unusually bad. Yet Mr. Harrison is +able to express himself as follows:— + +“No human countenance recorded is more familiar to us than that broad, +solid face with the thick and prominent red nose; the heavy gnarled brow, +with its historic wart; eyes firm, penetrating, sad; square jaw, and +close-set mouth; scanty tufts of hair on lip and chin; long loose brown +locks flowing down in waves on to the shoulder. His whole air breathing +energy, firmness, passion, pity, and sorrow.” Carlyle’s fancy version is +given below.[454] + +This being derived from a falsity, must itself be false. But is it not +somewhat curious that friends and foes of Cromwell should alike sit down +contentedly before this admirably executed miniature of Cooper’s without +devoting a second thought to its representative value as a portrait of +the man in question? Its artistic felicity should be as nothing to +the historical inquirer. Taken as a mere portrait, this Cooper is as +valueless as Veronese’s presentment of Alexander the Great; or as any +fancy portrait of Oliver would be, if sent in by some skilled modern hand +to the next May show at Burlington House. + +Our sense of surprise increases, when we come to remember that we possess +an authentic original to go by, in the shape of a mask still extant that +was taken at death. Historians draw up rigmarole pen-and-ink portraits +of their own, but are all silent about this, or make only casual mention +of it as “the mask at the Statuaries,” just as though it corresponded +in every particular with Samuel Cooper’s exquisite pigment-figment. +Romancists delight in coloured detail gathered from history; and +historians revel in romance when it saves them from searching into +dry detail. In this case historical gossip slips in to illustrate the +stringent veracity of Cromwell. When Lely was to take his portrait, he +is said to have ordered him to be faithful in representing every blemish +and defect, to paint warts and all, or he would not be paid. Lely knew +what this meant, and acted accordingly. All portrait-painters flatter, +they must to secure a practice; but, they ought to select the best aspect +possible, for so far it is what it professes to be, a likeness. Now the +strong point with your court painter is, to throw in skillfully what is +not there. In this Lely and Cooper have succeeded to admiration. + +Walker, in his several portraits, gives us another set of varieties. His +picture in the Portrait Gallery [Granger, “Biog. Hist.,” iii. p. 290.] +with Cromwell’s son Richard as page tying on the father’s scarf, has been +finely engraved by Pierre Lombart. In this picture, which is a little +wooden, we get an average-looking gentleman going to battle. A man we +should have to look at three or four times before we should individualize +him at all in the memory. Mr. Nobody riding to nowhere particular is +the impression derived. Of the engraving, however, Evelyn says, and he +knew Cromwell perfectly well, “that it gives the strongest resemblance +of him.” He therein physiognomically discovers “characters of the +greatest dissimulation, boldness, cruelty, and ambition, in every stroke +and touch.” I can say nothing of this, for I have not seen the Lombart +engraving. The picture does not convey the idea. + +How pliantly subservient art was in those days, is well illustrated in +another Cromwell engraving by the same Lombart. This artist had done, +after Vandyke, a “Charles on horseback,” from which he erased the face, +and substituted that of Cromwell. The slender figure of the king had to +do duty for the heavy-built brewer of Huntingdon. But times change, and +we with them. So Peter reinstated the king. There must be impressions of +this turn-face print in its three states; for no doubt copies were sold +at every stage. The King is dead. God save the Protector! The Protector +is dead. God save the King! The dead lion is never so good for the crowd +as the live ass; irrespective of the latter creature being far more +representative. A quality much sought after in modern governors. + +There is a portrait of Cromwell affixed to Isaac Kimber’s “Life of Oliver +Cromwell,” which he published anonymously [Granger, iii. 297]. This is +pronounced in the “Letters of Mr. Hughes” to be most like the authentic +family pictures of Cromwell. Vertue engraved it in 1724 for Rapin’s +“History of England,” and when Granger wrote the picture was in the +possession of Sir Thomas Frankland of Old Bond Street. I suppose this to +be still in the hands of the Frankland-Russells of Chequers Court, who +also possess a plaster cast of Cromwell’s face. By the courtesy of the +family I have been permitted to examine this; but it seems to me of no +value, and it has no history. + +We come now to the terra-cotta bust by Edward Pierce, which is in the +National Portrait Gallery, said to be taken from life. Pierce was an +artist in the second generation. His father, of the same christian name, +was a painter, and assistant of Vandyke. Our Edward was trained for a +statuary, and became the pupil of Edward Bird: he also acted as assistant +to Sir Christopher Wren, and is said to have built St. Clement Danes +under him. He did a bust of Wren, for the theatre at Oxford, and also one +of Newton. He died at Surrey street in the Strand, and was buried at the +old Savoy. This bust of Cromwell was, to all appearance, modelled by him +from a cast taken from life, and must therefore, as to measurement and +bulk, be of life size. + +I was kindly permitted by Mr. George Scharf, of the National Portrait +Gallery, to take the dimensions of this bust by measurement, but +practically they are not very useful, inasmuch as the head has a great +abundance of short curly hair, which of course in terra-cotta becomes +perfectly solid, and thereby increases the circumference of the head by +many inches. + + The circumference, hair and all, at his brow is 28²⁄₈ inches. + Nape of neck to frontal bone, where it unites + with nose 15⁴⁄₈ ” + Breadth from ear to ear at level of the central + hole of each ear as near as can be approximated 6²⁄₈ ” + +This last measurement is, I believe, correct, but it is a dimension +that only a large forceps could take with perfect certainty. It is so +small, however, that I feel sure that the other two dimensions must be +very far from giving the true osseous formation, so that several inches +will have to be allowed off them for the hair. Again, the measurement +between the tip of nose and back of head (9⅝ inches) would also require +that deductions be made for a wad of hair at the back. This measurement +when reduced, and coupled with the third measurement given, indicates an +undersized skull for a broad-built man of five feet eleven in stature. + +As for the physiognomy, the nose, though far from fine, is somewhat +aquiline, and the best of all the features of the face. The forehead is +low, ill-formed, and mean. The mouth firm, cruel, deceitful. The jowl +and chin sensual and gross almost to brutality. It is the face of a +man of low passions, possibly ambitious, but of great duplicity, of a +low-bred type, the type as of one sprung from a lower stratum of society +than his history indicates him to have sprung from; and you may readily +suppose that in exchanges of course buffoonery with the roughest trooper +of his corps, he would have been quite within his own province and at +home. His mother’s portrait shows her also to have been a very masculine +coarse-featured woman. + +It is well perhaps to mention here a bust that Grose in a letter to +Granger in 1774, calls “a masterly and spirited bust of Oliver Cromwell +by one Bannier.” It was then in Mr. Gostling’s collection. He says it is +like that engraving given in Rapin’s “History.” I imagine it therefore to +be a fancy rendering, and of very small historic value. + +The expert historians, and of course the general public together with +them, are perfectly satisfied with the Cromwell presented to them by +Samuel Cooper. I confess that I think it a most laughable presentment, +and of quite impossible credence. I do not think Pierce’s bust to be +satisfactory, but I most certainly consider that it is the only likeness +I have had the opportunity of examining that conveys even a hint of +what can be supposed to be the real appearance of the man. There is +but one way now remaining to settle this question. It is very much to +be regretted that, with so much pretence of a desire for historical +accuracy, we should have allowed two hundred and fifty years to elapse +without making the least attempt to settle this question. + +We learn from Breval’s “Travels” that at the Old Palace at Florence there +is a cast preserved of Oliver Cromwell. The mould was obtained from +Cromwell’s face _a few minutes after his decease_, “through the dexterous +management of the Tuscan resident in London.” This, or a cast from it, +ought immediately to be secured for our National Portrait Gallery. A copy +of it would cost very little in either time, money, or trouble to secure; +and when secured three or four should be cast in bronze, and placed in +different museums so that one fire could not destroy all of them at once. + +I feel almost sure that it will be found to confirm the bust of Pierce, +as being more like Cromwell than anything else that we possess. And +further, as Pierce’s work is by no means a grand achievement in the +sculptor’s art, I should hope to find in the Florence cast characteristic +indications that are absent from Pierce’s work. Grandeur of soul is +incompatible with such a face as Pierce gives us. But I confess that I +see no grandeur whatever that could be expressed by a man whose history +is that of Oliver. His base success the world may worship if it will. I +despise success if it must be obtained by Cromwell’s methods. I observe +that the great in history are always mean in fact; and I well know that +you must say to all the men who have been triumphant, let no probing +moralist come near you. Pitiable and contemptible is the man who can envy +the great in the greatness of their crimes. I do not expect that the +cast, if procured, will make the reading any better for Cromwell; but, +if it should, I am quite ready to give him all the advantage of it. At +present I hold that the face is villainous, like the man. + + “... ducitur unco, + Spectandus: gaudent omnes. Quæ labra? Quis illi + Vultus erat? Nunquam, si quid mihi credis, amavi + Hunc hominem.” + + JUVENAL, x. 66. + +Still, love or no love, we have reached the end; and if we should confirm +Pierce, the flesh and bones of the man thus revived will also confirm +the epithets of Nostradamus, which first induced me to enter upon this +investigation. + + + + + “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.”—_John_ iv. 19. + + “Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat: cœli scrutantur + plagas.”—CIC., _Divin._, ii. 13. + + This granted, a pig is nearest wisdom. + + Μάντις ἄριστος, ὄστις εἰκάζει καλῶς.—WITSIUS, _Miscel._, p. 14. + + The best analogist is the best prophet. + + “L’observation des analogies universelles a été negligée, et + c’est pour cela qu’on ne croit plus à la divination.”—LEVI, + _Clef des Mystères_, p. 216. + + Μαντεῖον, ἐπὶ χείλεσι βασιλέως, ἐν δὲ κρίσει οὐ μὴ πλανηθῇ τὸ + στόμα αὐτοῦ.—_Prov._ xvi. 10, LXX. + + There is divination on a king’s lips, and judgment fails not in + his mouth. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] This noble and enlarged thought is worthy of Coleridge, who is +the greatest thinker of our century, whether you take him as poet or +philosopher. Nobody has yet claimed for him the pre-eminence which, I +believe, to be his. The peculiar, nay, unique frailties of the man have +blinded the men of his own time to the super-eminent, intellectual, +_practical_, and imaginative endowments with which he was so affluently +furnished. By the middle of next century, some hundred or so years from +his death, the fact will have dawned upon the world, if not before. It +will then be recognized that such a personality as his, was “a great +birth of time,” and to be registered as such in the deathless calendar of +genius. Saint, seer, and sage was that man. Not “spoilt in the making,” +as the witty Lamb put it, with all the lambent malice of a friend jocose. +We must admit, of course, some damage that hindered general currency, as +also the attainment of such now worthless cash-results as fell to beings +distinctly inferior to himself, such as Byron, Southey, Wordsworth, +Moore, great as some estimate them to be; and this failure shut Coleridge +out from social success,—that success which most of us so ignorantly +and greedily covet here, because it makes the present comfortable. But +the chief reason, of any shortcoming hurtful to success, that may be +observable in Coleridge, no doubt arose from his being far too great to +be adequately measured by any of his fellow-men. Many of them were, it is +true, highly capable men as the world goes. Even Carlyle, however, who +has disparaged him, when placed beside him, dwarfs to a man of Lilliput. +We have to bear in mind always that excellent remark of La Bruyère, +“Celui qui ne prévoit rien, est souvent dupe; celui qui prévoit trop, est +toujours malheureux.” This is true of all prophets, and especially true +of Coleridge. + +But, another thing there is that helps to diminish Coleridge in the +general estimation. He has not completed work enough, in well set and +fixed form, for posterity to be quite able to render him adequate, that +is to say, resplendent justice. His unexampled conversational gifts have +somewhat barred the way to a due appreciation of his equally unexampled +literary potentialities. His conversational aptitudes have perished in +the moment of their triumphant display. Being without record in this +respect, he suffers precisely as the greatest actor does. Triumphs of +the table and the salon are like the triumphs of the stage, we can only +revive them in spirit, on the basis of some felicitously appreciative +sentence, chance embalmed in print, that some competent contemporary +has ejaculated. I, for instance, know the overwhelming power of Kean +only through my mother, and the burning phrases left behind by Byron and +Coleridge. But the next generation can have no cognizance of him beyond +those phrases. It is for this precise reason I indite so long a note as +this on Coleridge, out of the pure respect I bear him for his stupendous +intelligence and incommensurable soul. I have, indeed, tried to put on +record elsewhere my impression of his poetry; but, I have not yet been +able to get it printed. Should it ever be so, it would at least acquire +some value from the fact of its representing, in a limited and qualified +degree, Coleridge’s vivid influence upon one who may partially stand on +the footing of a contemporary. Coleridge is a spirituality in the world, +and his modes of revealing himself are such as lead the run of mankind to +esteem him visionary; but it will be found that it is they, not he, that +must be reckoned “such stuff as dreams are made of.” + +[2] Touching this curse to fall on Napoleon, a somewhat singular analogy +arises in comparing with it the axiom laid down by Thomasius, quoted in +Bruncker’s “Hist. Crit. Philos.,” v. 488. He says that the spirit is, as +it were, resident in the centre of all bodies, and thence emits rays, so +extending matter. But where it draws back the rays from the circumference +of the material to the centre, it soon dissolves and corrupts the body. +_Si vero radios ex circumferentia materiæ spiritus attrahat ad centrum, +resolvitur corpus et corrumpitur._ If we suppose this to have taken +place at the epileptic seizure of Napoleon, the mental attack becomes an +image or antitype of the battle of Leipsic, when the swarm of birds beat +back the eagle. An interpreter, such as Joseph, could have told him the +meaning of the dream or swoon. The defeat was first of all rehearsed in +the soldier’s own brain. + +[3] + + Οἱ δὲ τὰ ἄτομα καὶ αἰσθητὰ δημιουργοῦσι + Καὶ σωματοειδῆ καὶ κατατεταγμένα εἰς ὕλην. + + STANLEY’S “Hist. Chald. Phil.,” p. 43. + +[4] To get one thing, one must always forego some other. Jupiter did not +give prescience to Tiresias till Juno had struck him blind. And for our +own great Milton it was necessary he should have wisdom at one entrance +quite shut out, before, in “Paradise Lost,” he could make men’s memory a +prisoner to his name for ever, in a willing though perpetual serfdom. + +[5] The facts for this life are taken, where no other reference is given, +from a scarce work, entitled, “La première face du Janus François, par +Jean Aimes de Chavigny Beaunois, 1594.” It is found in the Library at +Paris; but not in the British Museum. Fortunately M. le Pelletier gives +an almost literal transcript of this “Brief discours sur la vie de M. +Michel de Nostredame.” + +[6] “Archives du Magnetisme Animal,” vol. viii. “Tous deux” (_i.e._ +father and mother) “appartenaient à une famille Juive,” converted in +the sixteenth century, and of the tribe of Issachar (“Nouvelle Biog. +Générale” [Le Pelletier, i. 16 n.]). + +[7] His grandfather, Moreri tells us. + +[8] Moreri assigns this to the year 1525. + +[9] He calls Scaliger in the heyday of friendship “a Virgil in poetry, +a Cicero in eloquence, a Galen in medicine,” and declares that to him +he is indebted for his scientific attainments (“Penny Cyclopædia,” s.v. +_Nostradamus_). + +[10] “That the great bulk of French society of his day was impressed by +his effusions there can be no doubt” (Chambers’ “Book of Days,” vol. ii., +p. 13). + +[11] Moreri says that nobody knows what his report was. + +[12] Garencières, as we have shown, says Nostradamus dedicated the +“Luminary Epistle” to Henri II. in 1557. M. le Pelletier holds (i. 10) +that Henri II. never knew of the dedicatory epistle written to him by +name, and that, as the events referred to do not concern the House of +Valois, they could have had no interest for him had he known of the +epistle. M. le Pelletier adds a most singular note to this remark, that +the epistle is dedicated “_A l’invictissime, très puissant, et très +chrestien Henry Roy de France Second_.” This epigraph he maintains not +to be addressed to Henri II., for he remarks that he was no longer alive +when it made its appearance. Now, this is not so; for the dedicatory +letter was dated in print June 27, 1558, and the king’s death only took +place in 1559, so that the document was even in print before his death. +But, had it not been so, there is no reason whatever why Nostradamus +should not have supplied the king with a copy of the letter and quatrains +in manuscript long before either of them had been committed to type. +Jean de Roux, Curé de Louvicamp, wrongly suggests that it was intended +as a prophetical dedication to Louis le Grand or XIV. M. le Pelletier +thinks it was not even dedicated to the great Henri Quatre, but to a +“_Henry, Roy de France Second_”—_second_ being the Latin _secundus_, or +prosperous, _i.e._ some king not less illustrious than Henri Quatre, +whose reign is to arise in the future. This it is which furnishes to +the reader the secret purpose of Le Pelletier’s book, which is to set +forth the claims of the Duc de Bordeaux, who would have ascended the +French throne as Henri Cinq. Accordingly, in the body of the book, he +has interpreted five quatrains and one sixain of the prophecies of +Nostradamus as referring to this glorious King _Henri Second_, who has +never arrived, and who, being now some years dead, never can. We have +seen that the Curé de Louvicamp could even suppose that Louis XIV. could +stand for “Henry, Roy de France Second.” M. F. Buget, in his “Étude +sur Nostradamus,” has the same idea, that he does not address Henri +II., because he was not of a character sufficiently great to merit the +attribution of such spiritual authority to him by our prophet, as if the +flattery of a dedication was to be interpreted _au pied de la lettre_. +It could only be addressed, he thinks, to a really great man, a saint. +M. Buget, in his book of 1862, evidently was another of those who made +the fatal error of interpreting Nostradamus out of the future, instead +of carefully following the enigmas thrown out by him to find their +fulfilment in the past. These gentlemen, if they had assiduously read the +Epistle itself, instead of consulting their imaginative faculties, would +have perceived plainly enough that Nostradamus was writing to the only +king he knew, before whom he had personally presented himself, and whom, +as he says, he had highly reverenced from “_iceluy jour que premierement +devant icelle je me presentay_.” The concluding words of the Dedication +are equally plain, and show that he is addressing a king whom he has +individually seen with his own eyes: “_depuis que mes yeux furent si +proches de vostre splendeur solaire_.” All the rest is to be set down to +the strain of courtly flattery that was customarily addressed to kings, +then and down to a period full two hundred years later, especially on +occasion of penning royal dedications. The purpose of this long note is +to establish, once and for all, I trust, that “_Henry, Roy de France +Second_,” stands, without any subtlety at all, simply for King Henri II., +and nothing more. It is vain to endeavour to make millstones transparent +that we may shoot unexpected rays of light through them. They will answer +their purpose by being left in the dark, and will grind grain the better +for it. Transparency will in such cases represent frangibility. + +[13] Aulus Gellius, “Noctes Atticæ,” xv. 7. + +[14] It was really in the sixth month of his sixty-third year that he +died. + +[15] _Temple Bar_, xli. p. 87, authority for the term of years. + +[16] How any could have been written in 1567, I know not, as Nostradamus +died in 1566. But, however this may be, there are twelve _Presages_, or +one for each month throughout the year 1567. The last one is that which +we have already given, as relating to his own death. + +[17] The book was entitled, “Les vies des plus célèbres et anciens poëtes +provensaux, qui ont floury du tems des comtes de Provence” (Lyon, 1575); +a book still sought for, and rather rare. + +[18] “In 1566 died that trifler, so famous throughout the world, Michael +Nostradamus, who boasted while he lived that he knew and could foretell +future events by the influence of the stars, in whose name afterwards +many ingenious men have put forth their imaginings, justifying him who +said so aptly, ‘Nostra damus,’ etc.” + +[19] Bouys does the same for Napoleon I. + +[20] See the ban he utters in Century VI., at the close—“_Barbari procul +sunto._” He shows a quite Horatian and heathen antipathy to the _profanum +vulgus_. + +[21] Cæsar Nostradamus was born at the beginning of 1555, so he was +but a few weeks old when his father dedicated to him the first four +“Centuries,” published for the first time in 1555, by Macé Bonhomme, +the printer at Lyons. In the name of this son the epistle is really +a dedication to his spiritual sons; that is, to his interpreters and +students in all future ages. + +[22] Lymphatics, Garencières (p. 16) tells, were anciently those who were +mad for love; and he absurdly adds that the sign of it was, that such +persons threw themselves into the water,—_lympha_ meaning water. Varro +says that in Greece those who were mad were called νυμφολήπτους, which +means caught by nymphs. Festus, to fit this, thinks that men went mad by +seeing the image of nymphs in the water fountains. Others have it that +they were afraid of water, as if it were hydrophobia that possessed them. +But _nympha_ and _lympha_ approach each other so nearly, that when a man +is once caught by a nymph he is, for the time being, mad to all intents +and purposes,—“it is not given to a man to love and to be wise.” Leaving +all this to be settled as it may, there is no question but in the medical +technology of Nostradamus a deep melancholy is what was understood by the +Lymphatic motion,—melancholy being the temperament most apt for study, +poetry, and vaticination. Garencières invents a word for the occasion, or +uses one that has since grown obsolete. He employs the verb _lymphatize_. + +[23] “Such alone as are inspired by the divine power can predict +particular events in a spirit of prophecy.” + +[24] “Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, _i.e._ +from the powerful and from kings, and hast revealed them to the small and +weak.” This is Nostradamus’s gloss upon Matt. xi. 25. + +[25] Acts i. 7. + +[26] Nostradamus seems, whenever he alludes to this appearance of flame +as preceding vaticination, to have in his mind the descent of tongues +of fire at Pentecost (Acts ii. 3), διαμεριζόμεναι γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός. +A flame of fire, be it observed, conveys a double symbol: it resembles +a tongue in form. Its luminousness and its purifying tendency express +the celestial nature of spirit, as contrasted with matter, and also +inspiration. So that intrinsically and extrinsically it represents +prophetic utterance. Grotius contributes an unusually good note upon this +passage, pointing out that as in Genesis (xi. 9), confusion of tongues +scattered mankind, so here (Acts ii. 3) the gift of tongues was to bring +men again into one brotherhood. + +[27] This passage is very difficult to bring to a clear sense in +translation. Garencières has simply evaded it. It seems to mean that +God operates all the great effects in the universe; that, as He is the +Maker, so is He the perpetual operator in the world,—its cause and life; +but that the guardian angels are good and bad, and are charged with some +sort of duty and office, not as affecting the mechanic frame of the +world, but in respect of mankind. This is in conformity with the Cabala +and Hermetical teaching; but what he precisely means cannot, I think, be +quite absolutely stated. + +[28] “He who is called prophet now, once was called seer.” + +[29] “For all things are naked and open.” + +[30] “I am able not to err, fail, or be deceived.” + +[31] “Whence it shall not deviate from age to age.” + +[32] “I will visit their iniquities with a rod of iron, and with blows +will strike them.” This somewhat resembles a passage in the Psalms (ii. +7), but it is not a quotation. + +[33] “I will trample them and break them, and not show pity.” This +resembles Isai. lxiii. 3. + +[34] In prose, and not in verse, as the quatrains are. These prose +forecastings have, I am afraid, been altogether lost. + +[35] “When the time arrives for the removal of ignorance.” + +[36] “When Minerva was free and favourable.” + +[37] “There can be no truth entirely determined for certain which +concerns the future.” + +[38] See Joel ii. 28. + +[39] Which proceeds from fate, but from God, and nature. + +[40] “Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee, to release the +children of death” (Ps. lxxviii. 11). + +[41] “The sea blushed red with the blood of naval fights.” + +[42] “Many things, O most potent king of all, of the most remarkable kind +are shortly to happen, that I neither could nor would interweave them +all into this epistle; but in order to comprehend certain facts, a few +horrible destinies must be set down in extract, although your amplitude +and humanity towards all men is so great, and your piety to the gods, and +that you alone seem worthy of the grand title of the most Christian King, +and to whom the highest authority in all religion should be deferred.” + +[43] Romance tongue, _sele_ for _selle_, tripod seat, _tripode æneo_, +such as the priestess of Apollo or Pythia sat on to deliver oracles. + +[44] Latin, _prosperare_, to succeed, or realize an experience. + +[45] _Qui_ for _ce qui_. + +[46] Latin, _virga_, branch or wand. + +[47] Latin, _limbus_, hem, border, fringe. + +[48] Latin, _per_, in, or through. + +[49] Ex Michaele Psello, _de Dæmonibus_. Works of Marsilius Ficinus, ii. +884, ed. 1641, folio. + +[50] This refers to some Good Friday evening on the 10th Calend of April +Old Style, as set forth in the first line of this quatrain. + +[51] This is exhibited in the third line of the quatrain: _Le feu +estainct, assemblée diabolique_. + +[52] Æneid, iii. 92 and vi. 347. + +[53] Old word for _jamais_, never. + +[54] Latin, _a_, by. + +[55] Bouys [_Oracles_, p. 103] says that the King alone had the right to +a visor of pure gold. I believe this to be pure nonsense. It would be +little stronger than lead. It merely means a gilt casque, and I think +some of the accounts say so in as many words. If Bouys were right, the +King courted death. + +[56] Greek, κλάσις, breaking or lopping. + +[57] Latin, _una_, the one or first. + +[58] See also Brantôme, _Vie des hommes illustres de son temps_. + +[59] _Qu’en_, for _qui en_. + +[60] Romance, for _lutte_. + +[61] _Porté_, pour _remporté_. + +[62] Latin, _subito_, suddenly. + +[63] Romance, _surprins_ for surpris. + +[64] Romance, _surprins_ = _surpris_. + +[65] Latin, _exspoliare_, totally despoiled. + +[66] Romance, for _pris_. + +[67] Romance, _hostaige_, maison, house, palace. + +[68] Romance, _tiers_, third. + +[69] Latin, _trucidare_, cut the throat. + +[70] Latin, _inconditus_, dispersed. + +[71] Greek, σάρπος, wooden case, coffin. + +[72] _Sortiront bas_, for _d’en bas_. + +[73] Latin, _infernus_, subterranean. + +[74] Romance, _vefve_, veuve. The word is made here to apply to the wife, +Mary Stuart, whom he leaves a widow without children. The grammatical +effort is somewhat violent; but _vef_ or _veuf_ is the masculine form, so +there is very little choice given. + +[75] In the quatrain this ought to be written _eage_, as it stands in the +_texte-type_, or the line will not scan. + +[76] _Près_, for après. + +[77] This is how M. le Pelletier renders the last line. + +[78] Italian, _piloto_, pilot. + +[79] Latin, _mandatus_, appointed to a charge. + +[80] Latin, _classis_, fleet. + +[81] Romance, _contrebandé_, marching in a contrary band. + +[82] _Ordo_ is, _Venise craindra une armée de barbares qui viendra_. + +[83] This line is a foot short. Garencières reads: + + Le coup volant luy crevera un œil. + +[84] _Noir_, anagram of roi, cutting off _n_. + +[85] _Arcs tendus_, arquebus. + +[86] Latin, _tantum_, much. + +[87] The family name of Pope Gregory XIII. was Hugo Buon-Compagni. On +May 13, 1572, he was made Pope. He assumed the name of Gregory out of +respect to St. Gregory Nazianzen. He caused the Church to encourage the +murder of refractory kings; he promoted the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s +Day, which Sir Paul Rycaut, the historian of the Popes, does not so +much as mention in the life of Gregory. He only says towards the end +that “he may be numbered amongst the good Popes.” As Buon-Compagni was +a good lawyer before he became a good Pope, he was pre-qualified for a +virtuous career in any line of life. He re-confirmed the excommunication +of Queen Elizabeth; he rectified the Calendar which goes by his name,—the +Gregorian. The Jesuits’ College was finished by him at Rome, dedicated so +oddly— + + Religioni et bonis Artibus. + +In his day Japan was, by Jesuit missionary effort, brought within the +pale of the Church: on which a wit remarked that Japan varnish was +introduced into Europe, and Christian varnish into Japan. He died at +eighty-three, and to the last could almost mount on horseback without the +help of his servants. His place of retirement, Rycaut says, was Frescati, +about ten miles distant from Rome, where the Borghese Palace now is, and +was then called _Monte Dragone_—a most fit name for the residence of the +_Old Worm_ of St. Bartholomew’s massacre.—_V._ Paul Rycaut, “Lives of the +Popes,” ed. 1688, vol. ii. p. 163. + +[88] Will sound in full volley. + +[89] These letters are interpreted by the old commentators and Guynaud +(p. 107) as meaning the peace concluded with Philip II. of Spain: V., +cinq, S., sucesseur, C., Charles—_i.e._, Successor to Charles Quint. + +[90] Romance, _vefve_ = veuve, widow. + +[91] Latin, _qui_, celui qui. + +[92] Latin, _ductus_, led. + +[93] _Appaiser_, for pour apaiser. + +[94] _Pourchas_, old word, pursuit, active intrigue (_proquassatio_). + +[95] Razes, tonsured priests and monks (_têtes rasées_). + +[96] Greek, πεσσικός, draught-playing, or gambling. The word was applied +to gaming by the Greeks, as we find a story in Plutarch [Liddell and +Scott, Lex.], exhibiting Hermes as playing draughts (on the πεσσευτήριον) +with Selene, and winning five days, which he adds to the year. Guynaud +(p. 119) reads _poche_, which I take to be an abscess, wolf, or devouring +ulcer; both he and Le Pelletier interpret it as meaning Poland. + +[97] _Plaindre_, for se plaindre. + +[98] _Guiere._ Nobody explains this word, and yet it seems to stand much +in need of it. It is given by Roquefort, as from _gubernator_, a general. +Leader, or we may say _dux_, for the Duc d’Alençon. It is really _guides_ +or guide. _Guber_, _govern_, _guide_, being all three cognate. + +[99] Latin, _decisus_, cut off, severed. + +[100] This term is applied to Poland by Nostradamus in allusion to its +elective throne, which became purely venal—a thing at last coming to be +played for as a hazard at dice. But, curiously enough, the less authentic +reading _poche_ is almost equally descriptive—a burning ulcer eating into +the body politic till it destroys it. + +[101] Latin, _virtuosus_; according to M. le Pelletier “vigorous.” +Classical Latin has no such word, and the lower Latin means _probus_, +_bonis moribus et virtute præditus_. Nostradamus probably meant +_vertueux_, in old French, to be equivalent to _robuste_. + +[102] _Aloi_, the quality of the substance of a metal. The battle of +French etymologists is very instructive over this word, as may be seen in +Littré. Of course, however, it comes from _à loi_, conformable to law. +But I think there is a misprint, and that we ought to read _toute loi_ += _toute la loi_. Guynaud (p. 122) reads _loi_ in the second line for +_foy_. We might suppose that that variant had been introduced to correct +the fourth line, and was only by a “devil” carried to the second instead, +by which that imp of mischief contrived to leave two errors in place of +one. In confirmation somewhat of this, the _texte-type_ reads _tout à +loy_. + +[103] Latin, _ira_, anger. + +[104] Ordo, deux mourront par ire, etc. + +[105] Romance, _prins_, pris. + +[106] Romance, _joyne_, jeune homme. + +[107] Romance, _cultre_, couteau. + +[108] Latin, _perpetratio_. + +[109] _Husne_, a small tower, or belvidere. + +[110] Romance, _murtre_, meurtre. + +[111] Latin, _pernicies_, destruction. + +[112] Romance, _esmues_, émus, seditious. + +[113] _Tien_, for _tienne_. + +[114] Latin, _Lætitia_, joy, pleasure, and play on _Lutetia_, Paris. + +[115] Romance, _cavilleux_, cavillers. + +[116] _Mendosus_, anagram of _Vendosme_ (the _u_ standing for _v_ of +course). The _texte-type_ reads _Mandosus_; but as _Mendosus_ is the +perfect anagram of Vendosme, and makes also the Latin word’s meaning +_full of faults_, it is best to read _Mendosus_. + +[117] _Norlaris_, anagram for Lorrains the patronymic of the Guise family. + +[118] Romance, _esleu_, _élu_, chosen. + +[119] _Cape_, for _Capet_, a descendant of Hugh Capet. + +[120] Latin, _tacite_, silently. + +[121] _Norlarin_, anagram for _Lorrain_; here it represents the Duc de +Mayenne. + +[122] _Qu’à_ for _qui à_. + +[123] Romance, _si_ for _très_, very. + +[124] Latin, _traditor_, traitor. + +[125] His body shall be dragged through the streets in the mud of the +gutters. + +[126] _Robin_, anagram for _Biron_. + +[127] Romance, _sceu_ for _su_, known. + +[128] _Lafin_ was the name of the secretary, the accomplice of Biron. + +[129] The ordo here is _dans l’Espagne amye_ which means, then at peace +with Henri IV. + +[130] Romance, _poste_, messenger, postillion. + +[131] _La plume au vent_ is supposed by le Pelletier to stand for +_currente calamo_. I should rather think it means the feather (wing) to +the wind. It was written with a quill, and started on its way as a bird +flies; but _irrevocabile semel emissum_. We are to understand this line +to relate to l’Oste’s treasonable complicity with Spain, of which an +account will be given further on. Also, _l’escrivain_, in the closing +line stands for the same individual. + +[132] We shall see that the two Spanish couriers were arrested at the +post office in Paris. Le Pelletier confuses all this from not happening +to know that l’Oste is the scrivener, so he applies it to the affair of +Lafin, whose messenger, when carrying Spanish despatches, had thrown +them into the river when he found himself pursued. Unfortunately, when +he finds himself in the difficulty which this involves him in, he glozes +till he has forced the words to fit his erroneous view. He had far better +have stated the difficulty, and said that he could not harmonize the +text. But he very rarely trips thus. + +[133] _Le Grand Chyren_ is the anagram of _Henri le Grand_. Before +mounting the throne, he bore the name of Vendosme, from his father +Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and King of Navarre. In the first +Quatrain of the series, _Henri Quatre_, _Vendosme_ was anagrammatically +given as Mendosus; as to _Chiren_ it is the precise anagram of _Henri_, +as spelt in the old language _Henric_, from the Latin _Henricus_. +Numerous etymologies have been assigned to Henry. Camden derived it from +_honore_, Verstegan from the Teutonic _Han_, a haven, and _Rice_, Saxon +for rich. Killian writes it _Heynrick_, or _Heymrick_, rich home. This is +very nearly right, but now it is generally considered that _rick_ stands +for powerful; so chief of a house or district. + +[134] _Los_, old word for glory. Latin, _laus_. + + “A la sainte divinité, + Soit _los_, honeur, et potesté.” + + _Le Mystère des Actes des Apôtres._ + +[135] Latin, _victor_, conqueror. + +[136] _Dauffois_, for _Dauphinois_ synonym, for _Dauphin_. + +[137] _Portera_, for supportera, says Le Pelletier. For my part, it seems +best to leave it to its natural rendering, that he will carry his colours +into Nancy. + +[138] Latin, _obturare_, to shut up in. + +[139] _Prouvés_ is for approuvés. + +[140] _Delivré_, is for livré. + +[141] This is a play upon words, unrecognized by Garencières, as he +did not know that _Clerepeyne_ was the name of the man who cut off +Montmorency’s head, although, of course, Garencières is quite alive +to the fact that the quatrain refers to Louis XIII. and the great +Montmorency. In Latin _clara pœna_ means celebrated punishment. Here is +another instance of the mention of a name of an obscure individual that +history for a moment flashes light upon, and then drops him back into the +mud of oblivious ooze for ever,—emblem apt of Fame! This was written, if +not printed, a good eighty years before Clerepeyne became the midge-mote +of a sunbeam upon that late autumnal day in history, when the night +struck chilly on high roofs in Dauphiny. + +[142] Latin, _decisus_, suppressed cut off. + +[143] _Ne monstres._ I think there is a printer’s error here in the +_texte-type_, and that we should read _le monstre_. + +[144] _Double_, diploma, or duplicate of a treaty. + +[145] Latin, _ille aquâ ductus_, he that is taken by water. + +[146] Richelieu, if you examine him by Philippe de Champagne’s splendid +triple portrait of him, hanging in our Gallery, may be read as if in life +by any physiognomist who pleases to devote the time to it. I have gazed +many a time, through long years, with gifted friends and others, and +oftener still alone, into those heartless eyes, attracted irresistibly (I +only now see why) by the vast discrepancy between the world-wide renown +of this French Minister, and his cynically petty face—sly, vulpine, +unfeeling, unprincipled, spiteful, a coxcomb of feminine manners, of an +egotism and paltry vanity inordinate, but of a refinement, showing the +highest social culture, a tongue that could gloze with ladies; he might, +by _lettre de cachet_, have shut up a French Walsingham in the Bastille +to prevent his own overthrow; but as to coping with him or a Burleigh as +a statesman, as an equal in any powerful cabinet in Europe, by force of +character, he could not have done it. Artifice, backed by the force of +France, then rising into unity of action, or helped by circumstances that +tied the hands of his antagonist, he might even throw a giant unawares. +Richelieu was an artificial contriver, not a born ruler, if a mature face +of fifty be any index to the volume or memoir of a man’s life. + +[147] Arrange these words, _l’animal domestique à l’homme_, i.e. _the +dog_. + +[148] Latinism, _fulmen à virgâ_, saltpetre; that is, the powder and +ram-rod. + +[149] Romance, _si_, synonym of _très_, very. + +[150] Romance, _prinse_, _prise_, taken, brought. + +[151] The _chien_ is the cock or hammer of the lock. + +[152] Added to the text in the edition of 1605. + +[153] _Paux_, plural of _pal_, _pieu_, a term of blazonry, stake. + +[154] Read _cors_, horns. + +[155] Æmathien, or Emathion, Le Pelletier says, son of Cephalus and +Aurora, who opened the gates of the morning to the sun. I do not find +this account of him anywhere. Cephalus is the chaste Joseph of mythology, +tempted by Aurora. But Hesiod makes him father of Phaeton by her. +Possibly M. le Pelletier has mistaken Æmathion for Phaeton. Generally, +Emathion is reckoned as son of Titan and Aurora, and a king of Macedonia. +His connection in some way however with the sun is certain, and this +suffices for the use made of his name by Nostradamus. Ἠμαθίων is given +by Suidas as a proper name. Now, Ἠμάθιος is _daily_, with but the change +of one letter. Further than this Ἠμάθιος is Macedonian, and Alexander is +called _Emathius dux_, as in Milton, “the Emathian conqueror bid spare;” +implying that Louis le Grand should be a counterpart to Alexander the +Great, an impostor who also pretended birth from Apollo. By which flight +of ambition he bastardized himself by choice, dishonoured his mother, +and put his father outside the door. Shakespeare says, “By this sin fell +the angels;” but a too prosperous fool seems equally ready to annihilate +himself by it, and all belonging to him, of his own act. + +[156] Latin, _per_, through. + +[157] Romance, _emmy_, entre, between. + +[158] _Phi_, for Philip. + +[159] Latin, _classis_, fleet. + +[160] _Corseque_, Romance for Corsica. + +[161] Romance, _esgrongné_, or _esgruné_, pulverised. + +[162] Turn this; when Æmathion shall build Hercules. + +[163] Latin, _felinus_, like a cat. + +[164] _La barque_ of St. Peter, the Holy Seat, Rome. + +[165] Latin, _tentare_, to assail. + +[166] _Phocen_ is another reading. Marseilles, founded by the Phocians, +A.C. 660. + +[167] Old word for west, or sundown. + +[168] Latin, _per_, because of. + +[169] _Voiles_, for vessels. + +[170] Latin, _classis_, fleet. + +[171] Latin, _Narbo Martius_, Narbonne, in the department de l’Aude, said +to be so called from its founder _Martius_. [See p. 160, IX. 38.] + +[172] Romance, _si_, very. + +[173] _Cap_, for Capet. + +[174] Ordo. He who shall succeed to the great monarch dead. + +[175] _Faudra_, future tense of _faillir_, fail, or disappear. + +[176] Latin, _gens_, nation. + +[177] _Franche_, for _gent Franche_, French nation. + +[178] Latin, _per_, by reason of. + +[179] Latin: _Aries_ sign of the Ram. + +[180] _Bastarnie_, corresponding to ancient Poland. + +[181] Romance, _nay_, _né_, born. + +[182] _Lonole_, anagram for Ὀλλύων, destroying, from the verb ὀλλύειν, to +destroy. Destroyer. + +[183] _Donra_, for donnera, will give. + +[184] _Topique_, flowers of rhetoric, oratory. + +[185] + + When hempe is sponne, + England’s done. + +When Elizabeth was in the flower of her age, Bacon remembered well to +have heard the above; hempe standing for Henry, Edward, Mary and Philip, +and Elizabeth. “Which,” says he, “thanks be to God, is verified only in +the change of name; for that the King’s style is now no more of England +but of Britain.” Observe the wonderful propriety of the words used by +Nostradamus. He noted at the right spot and instant a national change of +name; a point of precision that nine out of ten lettered Englishmen would +fail to reply to correctly, in answer to the sudden question, When was +England first called Great Britain? It would be interesting to know the +history of this “trivial prophecy” as his lordship calls it, for it has a +good deal of the true spirit of forecast in it. It certainly was genuine, +as it evidently was known to the narrator as being in circulation before +it was accomplished. + +[186] Romance, _dechassé_, simply _chassé_. + +[187] Latin, _per_, by reason of. + +[188] Latin, _ira_, anger. + +[189] Romance, _tracer_, follow a road, track. + +[190] _Contre_, à côté de, opposite, or near to. + +[191] Italian, _macellaio_, butcher, from Latin _macellum_. + +[192] Romance, _nay_, né, born. + +[193] _Pempotam_, a shocking word made out of Greek and Latin +πᾶν—_potens_, all powerful. + +[194] Latin, _Copia_, military forces. + +[195] Latin, _Lusitani_, Portuguese. + +[196] The full title runs: “The Prophecies of Nostradamus concerning the +fate of all the Kings and Queens of Great Britain since the Reformation, +and the succession of his present Majesty King George, and the +continuation of the British Crown in his most serene Royal House to the +last day of the world. Collected and explained by D. D., 1715.” This book +is in the British Museum. I do not know whether it is scarce or not. It +is not common, for I never meet with it in booksellers catalogues. + +[197] Hume has very ably handled this important question in his Seventh +Essay (Hume’s “Philosophical Works,” iii. 373, Edinburgh, 1826). He +there sets out that it is no modern invention as some have maintained, +for the Asiatics combined against the Medes and Persians, as Xenophon +shows in his “Institutions of Cyrus.” Likewise Thucydides exhibits the +league formed against Athens, which led to the Peloponnesian war, as +being grounded on this principle. Afterwards, when Thebes and Lacedæmon +disputed the supremacy, Athens always threw her strength into the lighter +scale to preserve the balance. She was for Thebes against Sparta till +Epaminondas won at Leuctra, and then she immediately changed sides, as +of generosity, but really jealous to preserve the balance. If you will +read Demosthenes, he says, in the Oration for the Megapolitans you may +“see the utmost refinements on this principle that ever entered into the +head of a Venetian or English speculatist.” On the rise of the crafty +Macedonian he again bugled the alarm to Greece, which brought the banners +together that fell at Chæronea. The principle was right, but the too +great delay had knit Fate’s smile into a frown. Envy (if you like to call +it so, but I call it a jealous prudence) must in a community of States +prevent any one from overtopping, as Athenian ostracism expelled the +citizen who grew too lush and vigorous for a communion in equality. Hume +points out with perspicuous beauty how England went too far. Her emulous +antagonism to France made her so alert to defend her allies that they +could count upon her as a force of their own. The expenses consequent +upon this imprudent course led to funding, _i.e._ the _National Debt_; +and that has led us into an absurd meekness, a dread of war, and the +peace barkings of the Quaker Bright; so that England dares not fire a +howitzer when Russia, contrary to her most solemn pledges, annexes Merv, +Bokara, and Khiva, and cannot find one word to say when Germany has her +foot on the throat of France. Blunders in extravagant advocacy, blunders +in parsimonious neglect of a principle, do not diminish its importance; +they only emphasize it. With a prophecy out of dry reason Hume says it +will become “more prejudicial another way, by begetting, as is usual, +the opposite extreme, and rendering us totally careless and supine with +regard to the fate of Europe.” That is how we now stand. In a very recent +French cyclopædia, _l’équilibre Européen_ is said to be quite a modern +idea, with nothing corresponding to it in antiquity. The writer pretends +that it originated with the Church, and that Podichad the King of Bohemia +sent Marini to Louis XI. to point out the necessity there was for a +_Parliament of Kings_ to adjust matters between the Church and people. +This may be the first form of a Congress. Francis I. carried on the same +policy, and Henri IV. extended it to an idea of a Christian republic of +federated nations, as against a universal monarchy. This idea enabled +Cromwell to meddle as European arbiter, whereas he ought only to have +acted as moderator and equalizer of parties. Leibnitz called the House +of Hapsburgh a continual conspiracy against the rights of the people, +and Richelieu got the _equilibrium_ established and introduced at the +Treaty of Westphalia, as a principle of the law of nations, though with +the concomitant of _Congresses_. The princes so assembled plotted against +Poland, as might have been anticipated, and in the course of seventy +years they were enabled entirely to break up the Balance of Power in +Europe. Cromwell, Richelieu, Napoleon, and Bismark, by force, finesse, +chicane, and brutal bluntness, have overturned the very groundwork of +the principle. The English, having at first stirred up war by means of +subventions, have now tumbled, only too laxly, into the stupid doctrine +of non-intervention. Congresses should never have been allowed. These +“Parliaments of Kings” can only do mischief, as they have no controlling +power to refer to. They lack a _King_ above the Parliaments, and as that +is _impossible_, Congresses can only meet for evil. The strongest are +irresistible in such congregations. The weaker can get no justice and +no sympathy. If they take the field, everybody is against them; if they +submit, they are despoiled without hope of a remedy: whereas, formerly, +a wrong done might excite a feeling of justice in a neighbour, and so +induce him to help; or, where justice was weak, fear of similar treatment +might opportunely bring forth the required aid. + +[198] _Si_, for très. + +[199] Read, _Qui mettra les Anglois en déconfiture_. + +[200] Observe here how very different is Clarendon’s estimate of James I. +from the trash that Sir Walter Scott indulges in at the King’s expense, +in those romances of his from which half the world draw their notions of +history. + +[201] Latin, _per_, during. + +[202] Variant, _le tertre_, the knoll or rising ground. + +[203] D. D. reads here _ne dira t-on qu’ouy_, and I think the sense +requires it. + +[204] Historical discrepancies ought to be chronicled, for they confuse +all investigation, and force every conscientious new comer to commence +the whole work over again. A writer in the “Book of Days” pretends to +be particularly accurate (ii. 309), noting that “the storm in reality +happened on Monday, August 30, and must have been pretty well spent +before the Friday afternoon, when Oliver breathed his last.” Rosse, in +his “Index of Dates,” says (v. _Storms_) that there was one on September +3. Carlyle (“Cromwell Letters,” iii. 457) chronicles the stormy Monday, +but not the stormy Friday. Hume says a violent tempest “immediately +succeeded his death.” Clarendon, who may be supposed to know better than +any of them, writes (v. 648, ed. 1731:) “And this now was a day (_i.e._ +the Friday) very memorable for the greatest storm of wind that had ever +been known, for some hours before and after his death.” + +[205] This, of course, is “living on barley bread,” as everybody +translates it. I think, however, it has reference to the phrase _faire +ses orges_, to enrich one’s self unscrupulously at the expense of others. +If that be so, it becomes excellently applicable in the present context. +[Noël.] He had sown his wild oats, and now began _à faire ses orges_. + +[206] _Tant_, should, I think, be _temps_. + +[207] Greek, κόπτειν, to strike = _coup_; it may even stand here for a +_coup d’état_. [Borel.] + +[208] Construction is _mettant à des plus grands le pied sur la gorge_. + +[209] _Foudre_ metaphorically, saltpetre, here fireballs. The belief at +the time was that the fire was the work of incendiaries, and it has never +been disproved, though it has been ridiculed by those who set up for +liberty and enlightenment. The Illuminati will not allow London to have +been thus burnt by others; and it is quite certain that they themselves +will never set the Thames on fire. What Nostradamus asserts here, history +has asserted. That is enough for the present purpose. + +[210] _La dame._ Garencières takes this for St. Paul’s, once dedicated to +Diana, who is the ancient dame. We may take it for the mother Church, if +we like; and it would not be using much violence if we read _le dome_, +for that might very well mean, as in the Latin, _doma_, house or church, +as St. Jerome uses it—_Domus Dei_, in fact. + +[211] _Cherra_, future of the verb _choir_, tomber, to fall. + +[212] _Secte._ By this Garencières thinks is meant the eighty-seven +churches that were burnt with St. Paul’s, belonging to the same +Protestant sect. We might read _sorte_. + +[213] _Luite_, Romance for _lutte_, battle. + +[214] Variant, _Luy, satallites la mort degousteront_. + +[215] Esleut, or _esleu_. + +[216] Romance, _dechassé_, driven away. + +[217] _Versée_, for _renversée_. + +[218] In this high-wind of revolution men will mask their countenances +with the cloak of hypocrisy. + +[219] Latin, _vexata_, troubled. + +[220] _Oncques_, never, _nunquam_. + +[221] Romance, _ne_, _ni_, nor. + +[222] The order is “_Qu’avint oncq’_ plus d’horreur ni plus pire à +Babel qu’il n’adviendra aux Romains par les journaux.” This is M. le +Pelletier’s reading, and he interprets it of Voltaire, the encyclopedists +and journalists of the seventeenth century, who assailed the faith and +the Church of Rome. But surely the one like Hannibal was Napoleon, and +the _journaux_ in this old speech does not stand for _journals_ and +newspapers that had no existence, and therefore no name in the time of +Nostradamus. _Journal_ meant a day’s work, such as could, in ploughing, +be done by a man with two oxen. + +[223] Latin, _per_, whilst. + +[224] Latin, _pro_, for. + +[225] _Cruches_ = urns, Cinerary urns. Garencières read _urnes_. + +[226] _Sainte Dame_ I take to be equivalent to our English _Halidom_, +consisting of _Holy_ and _Dome_—a terminative seen in kingdom and +Christendom, and signifying rule or lordship. It has also been written +as _Holidame_, as if referring to the Virgin Mary. Of course, if that +were the correct etymology, it would furnish the exact rendering of +_Sainte Dame_: but, as it is, it is equivalent. A voice feigning that +of the Blessed Virgin may well be represented by a voice feigning +that of religion and faith. I take this from Garencières, and not the +_texte-type_. + +[227] _Sublimis_, high, elevated. + +[228] Latin, _obnubilare_, to cloud, obscure. + +[229] Romance, _comprins_, _compris_, contained in. + +[230] _Sens_ = _sans_, without. + +[231] _Chief_ = _chef_, God. + +[232] Latin, _munimen_, rampart. + +[233] Rapis, anagram, for _Paris_. + +[234] Latin, _nunquam_, never. + +[235] _Arroi_, for _desarroi_, disorder. + +[236] “On désigne quelquefois sous ce nom un habitant d’Alexandrie dont +le véritable nom est Néopol, qui fut martyrisé sous Dioclétien. Outre +ce Saint, dont la vie est complètement inconnue, les bollandistes font +mention d’un Napoléon, brillant cavalier, neveu de Cardinal Fossa-Nuova, +qui se tua en tombant de cheval à Rome en 1218. Saint Dominique, temoin +de la douleur du pauvre cardinal, ressuscita le jeune homme. Napoléon +reconnut ce bienfait en menant une vie fort chretienne et, quand il fut +mort pour tout de bon, l’Église le béatifia. Toutefois, il n’avait pas +sa place fixe dans le calendrier. Ce fut Pie VII. qui lui assigna pour +sa fête la date du 15 août, dans le but sans doute de plaire à Napoléon +Bonaparte.”—“Grand Dictionnaire Universel du dixneuvième Siècle,” par M. +Pierre Larousse, tom. xi. p. 804. Paris: 1874. + +[237] Latin, _tantum_, so much. + +[238] Romance, _outre_, beyond. + +[239] Latin, _castula_, tunic. It was a kind of petticoat worn by women +next the skin, and fastened under the breasts, which it left exposed. It +stands here for the goddess of Republican Liberty, which is generally +represented in this dress of the Roman virgins. + +[240] Latin, _incerta_, uncertain. + +[241] _Par_ = _per_, Latin, by reason of. + +[242] A variant is _trombe_. We are told that the modern commentators +find in this word the anagram of _Rome_, by syncope of _t_ and _b_. So +you might in _rompu_, by substitution of _e_ for _p_ and the elision of +_u_. But as no good comes of doing either, I should suggest to leave them +alone. + +[243] _Le part_ is the same word as in the last quatrain, and stands here +for the husband. + +[244] _Solus_, Latin for _seul_. + +[245] _Mary_, or _marri_, is from the old word _Marrir_, _s’affliger_, +and means afflicted, full of grief. + +[246] _Trahyr._ _Trahitor_, _trahiter_, from Latin _traditor_ = +_traître_, English traitor. + +[247] _Coutaux_ M. Le Pelletier takes as soldiers. _Par coutaux_ = _per +custodes_. They betrayed him into the hands of guards. I think it may +also mean _coustiller_, a soldier armed with the _coustille_, a short, +straight cutlass. + +[248] _Avons_ = _avus_, grandfather. + +[249] A variant reads _pour_. + +[250] Construe _Trop de bon temps_. + +[251] _Legier_, for légèrement. Romance language. + +[252] _Par_, for Latin _per_, because of. + +[253] _Tantum_, Latin, very. + +[254] _Venustus_, Latin, comely. + +[255] _Faict_, Latin, _factus_ made. + +[256] _Face_, Latin, _fax_ torch. + +[257] _Aduste_, Latin, _adustus_ burnt. + +[258] _Chef_, head. + +[259] “Le corps et la tête placés dans un panier d’osier sont à l’instant +même portés au cimetière de la Madeleine, jetés aussitôt dans une fosse +profonde de douze pieds, ouverte de six, garnie et recouverte de chaux +vive, et dissous immédiatement. On l’inhume auprès des personnes qui +avaient péri le 20 mai, 1770, jour de la fête donnée par la ville de +Paris, à l’occasion de son mariage, et auprès des Suisses morts dans la +journée du 10 août.” + +[260] _Ergaste_ is _estrange_ in Pierre Rigaud’s edition. Ἐργαστήρ is a +workman, and M. le Pelletier says _Ergaster_ is Latin. It may be, but +I do not find it in Facciolati, though _ergastulum_, a workhouse, is +there given. When Marie Antoinette was in the Temple, she was reduced +to working with her hands, like a workwoman (_ergaste_). But _ergaste_ +is the anagram of _estrange_, the one letter _n_ excepted. Probably +_estrange_ is the preferable reading, inasmuch as Marie Antoinette was an +Austrian, and so _étrangère_. + +[261] _Prins_, Latin, _prensus_, taken, captive. + +[262] _Pellix_, Latin, _pellex_, prostitute. + +[263] Qui = Latin _cui_, to which. + +[264] Alquiloye = _Aquilæ lex_, law or rule of the Imperial Eagle. + +[265] _Subit_ stands for _subito_, suddenly. + +[266] _Tiers_ = third. + +[267] _Vuidez_ = Latin, _videte_, see. + +[268] _Que_ = how much. + +[269] _Forneron_ = Latin, _fornax_, furnace. + +[270] _A_ is the Latin _a_, privative. + +[271] _Cappe_, is put for _Capet_. + +[272] _En bref_, _temps_, understood. + +[273] _Ne_, again used for _ni_. + +[274] _Sacrés_, for _consacrés_. + +[275] _Prime_, Latin, _prima_, first. + +[276] _Gofres_ is deep, profound. + +[277] _Cultements_, Latin, _cultus_, worship. + +[278] _Tiendront fort_, will struggle hard. + +[279] _Detranchés_, Romance for _tranchés_, _tête_ understood. + +[280] _Infelice_, Latin, unhappy. + +[281] _Le_ to be understood before _conjoindra_. + +[282] _Marrit_, afflicted. + +[283] _Scome_, Latin, _scomma_, gibe, taunt. + +[284] _Istra_ = _ira_, will go, or will go forth. + +[285] _Mont_golfier, the inventor of ærostatics. + +[286] _Qui_, Latin for who, a man who. + +[287] _Prins_, taken. + +[288] _Sext_, for _sextus_. + +[289] _Mansol_, _man_, _sol_. _Manens solus_ means celibate, or priest +under vows. + +[290] Latin, _incitatus_, agitated. + +[291] _Pont_, pour Pontificat, or Pontifex. + +[292] πολύς, grand, considerable. + +[293] _Man. sol._, _manens solus_, as before. + +[294] The ordo is, les deux prochains destrois fuiront le tarasc. + +[295] _Prochain_ = proche parent, who partakes in a heritage. + +[296] ταραχή = tumult. + +[297] Romance, _destrois_, afflicted, dejected. + +[298] _Mars_, god of war. + +[299] _Augur_, for Roman priest. + +[300] _Gens_ is Latin for _nation_. + +[301] _Boreas_ is north wind, or north. + +[302] _Classis_, Latin, is a body of men, used here as army. + +[303] The ordo is, [où elle] aura poussé son armée trop loin vers le nord. + +[304] _Seur_ = sœur. + +[305] _Fatum_, Latin, fate, destiny. + +[306] _Duira_, for conduira. + +[307] Δαν-αρχή, Princedom of Dan. The old Kings of Denmark pretended to +derive from Dan, seventh son of Jacob, it is said. + +[308] Γῆς υἱός, son of earth. _Terræfilius_, giant. + +[309] _Unda_, wave, _onde_. + +[310] The title of this book is “Machiavel Commenté par Nᵒⁿ Buonaparte,” +1816, published by H. Nicolle, 12, Rue de Seine. I have a copy, but there +is none in the British Museum. The Preface and the Introductory Discourse +on Macchiavelli are full of ability. The translation of the “Prince” in +French occupies the left-hand column of each page, and seems well done; +on the right-hand column are given the emperor’s annotations, where they +occur, otherwise it stands blank. They are severally initialled G., R. C., +or E—General, Republican Consul, Emperor,—according to the period at +which Napoleon may be supposed to have written them. Some of the remarks +are clever, but perhaps scarcely show the grip of Napoleon; which, +whether right or wrong, was always that of an iron vice. I now imagine +it to be an ingenious forgery, but it is quite curious enough to merit +further inquiry. This footnote, it will be seen, does not correspond with +what I have said in the text. I wrote that under the impression that the +document was genuine, and it would be just, if the book were true. But +I leave it as it is, though it tells slightly against myself, as the +contrast, between the first and second thoughts seems to me instructive. +It shows that, let a man walk by right faith or by wrong, he must steer +by the belief that is present with him. + +[311] _Signum_, ensign, standard, or perhaps symbol of rule or domination. + +[312] _Sceptrum ferre_, sceptre-bearing, reigning. + +[313] _Siége_, position, situation. + +[314] _En séjour_, permanent, durable. + +[315] _Coq_, the Gallic cock. + +[316] _Tago_, or _tango_, to touch or take, le Pelletier says; but +it does not yield very good sense. Perhaps τάγμα, a regular body of +soldiers, in Dion Cassius it stands for the Roman _legion_. Garencières +reads here TAG _à misère_, “The _tag_ to misery,” and says it is +wretchedness to come from Portugal to France, _Tag_ being the _Tagus_, +on which Lisbon is situated. This might be interpreted well to mean the +mischief arising to the empire from the successes of Wellington in the +Peninsular war. + +[317] The jay, of course, is Esop’s Fable of that bird, tricked out in +finer feathers than its own. The elegant rendering by La Fontaine [iv. +9, Ed., 1838] of _Le Geai paré des plumes du Paon_ had, when Nostradamus +wrote, not then taken shape. The original is so accessible, that it may +suffice to give here the English version. + + “A peacock moulted, and a jay. + Assumed the feathers fine, + And, strutting in a peacock-way, + Thought ‘now I look divine.’ + + “The first who met him laughed outright; + Others he found to sneer; + The peacocks voted him a fright, + His brother jays all quizzed ‘the sight,’ + But none would have him near. + + “Of biped jays like this, there are + Thousands from here to Zanzibar; + We call them ‘plagiarist!’ + But hush! For setting souls ajar + Is not my line, I wist.” + +[318] This curious phrase manifestly points to Napoleon wearing short +hair, in military fashion, as distinguished from the flowing locks of +the line of Capet,—shaven as contrasted with bewigged. This is one of +the many coincidences that connect the Commonwealth of England with the +French repetition of it at the Revolution. Croppies, or Roundheads, +distinguished the sanctimonious insurgents of the Commonwealth from the +cavaliers with their flowing locks. The Tory cavaliers wore wigs; the +Whigs undermined the bewigged. + +[319] _Sordide_ should be written _sordid’_, and _teste_, _test’_, if we +wish the line to scan. + +[320] _Puis_, for _depuis_. + +[321] Latin, _per_, pendant. + +[322] Latin, _vexare_, raise, inflate, according to Le Pelletier; but +Facciolati gives no such meaning. “Vexed Bermoothes” gives it. + +[323] _Dextera_, Latin, right hand, or sword hand. + +[324] _Discorde_ should be _discord’_, or the line will not scan. These +may be minor matters, but those who think them unimportant are not wise. +It is an excellent rule in literature to let nothing remain wrong that +can be set right by a little scholarship and industry. In the world it is +very different; there you should never put anything right, for everything +wrong has a host of latent friends, that will fight very savagely in its +defence. + +[325] _Cappe_, for Capet, says M. le Pelletier. The texte-type gives a +variation here as _la Chappe_. This yields no help at all, except as +showing by the variant that there is something wants altering. The line +will not scan as it is. I think it should be altered to _le Cap_. If +it stands for Capet it is masculine, and when it occurred before, in +Quatrain 20 of Century IX., it was given as _Esleu Cap_. + +[326] These two lines furnish an hyperbaton and will be best transposed, +that the great Prince will have married a woman before the divine wrath +falls upon him. + +[327] This is equivalent to _tout d’un coup_, suddenly. + +[328] This line is too long by a foot; _appuy et credit_ mean the same +thing, and one should be omitted. The line should be corrected thus: + + Et son appuy à un coup viendra mince. + +[329] Par is Latin, _per_, throughout. + +[330] Equals _qui en_. + +[331] The texte-type furnishes _porter_, with _porte_ as a variant. M. le +Pelletier embodies this in his text. I should replace the word that he +excludes. Further, I should regard _passera_ as being a form of the Latin +_patior_, and the French _pâtir_, and therefore read _pâtira_. _Porter +pâtira_ will then mean suffer it to bear. _Charge_, for the scansion, +should be _charg’_. + +[332] _Grande_ should be _grand’_, for the scansion. + +[333] _Tranchera_ should read _il tranchera_. + +[334] _Esclavonie_ is put for modern Hungary. + +[335] _Olestant_ is another variation of the nom fatidique de Napoleon, +p. 171, from ὄλλυμι, to destroy, ὀλέσθαι. + +[336] _Poussée_, for _repoussé_. + +[337] _Entour_ should be _entour’_, for _entouré_. + +[338] _Entour_ here is for _entourage_. + +[339] _Cymbres_, κύμβη, cymbals. + +[340] _Tube_, _tuba_, trumpet. + +[341] _Sonnaillons_, literally, bell-ringing, but perhaps clarion may +serve. + +[342] This line cannot be scanned; we must read _de l’Aquillon_. + +[343] This requires, for both grammar and scansion, _grande_. + +[344] The _E_ in _contre_ must suffer elision, thus: _contr’_. It is +right in Garencières’s. + +[345] κύμβη, is a cup, usually, in Greek. M. le Pelletier gives κύμβος as +a cavity or precipice. I find no such meaning as precipice. There is a +great difficulty to settle the meaning here. Κύμβη means a cup, a boat, +a wallet, and also, is like κύβη, the head. We should perhaps simplify +the issue by confining ourselves strictly to the Latin word, _Cymba_, +which is boat or skiff. Always a light boat, as in the Georgics, i. 136, +where the little boats were made of _alnos cavatas_, the riverside alders +hollowed out. It is rather a craft for a small lake than for the sea; as +Ovid charmingly puts it: + + “Non ideo debet pelago se credere, signa + Audet in exiguo ludere cymba lacu.” + +But, then, what sense would it yield, “a man being between two boats, +tied hand and foot?” Between two abysses, M. le Pelletier interprets; +but, then, we do not find that, either in Greek or Latin, the word +yields that meaning. He interprets it of Elba and St. Helena. But was +an island ever called an abyss; I think as seldom as ever κύμβη meant +one. Hesychius gives κοῖλος μυχός, a hollow recess, the penetralia of +the women’s apartments, and he adds also βυθός, the depth of the sea, to +explain κύμβος. In Martinius’s “Lexicon Etymol.,” there is a very curious +quotation from Isidore, Bk. 19., which makes the _cymba_ to be the space +occupied by a ship in the displacement of the water beneath it. I think +out of all this we may extract a meaning for the _deux cymbes_. As two +places, or recessed prisons, hollowed out of the sea, he shall be put, +bound hand and foot. The line, to scan correctly, should have the word +_et_ left out. + +[346] _Fitine_, φυτόν, plant, scion, child. + +[347] _Pocillator_ is cupbearer. + +[348] _Faucer_ is fauser, to trick. + +[349] _Scyphus_, cup. There is a singular appropriateness in this word, +whether intended or not by Nostradamus, for Athenaeus describes the +Bœotians as first using huge silver drinking-cups, or scyphi, which were +denominated Herculean, because Hercules, who was very fond of feasting, +used such, and first invented the cry of “no heel taps!” _ut libantes +nihil in calice vini relinquerent_. The reader will bear in mind the +_Hercules de Gaule_ of a former quatrain. + +[350] _Itales_, _Ætalia_, Elba. + +[351] _Par mer_, Gulf of Genoa. + +[352] _Forains_, Latin, _foris_, strangers. + +[353] _Sauf_, Latin, _sabous_, English, safe. + +[354] _Sauf de_ coup de feu. + +[355] _Le dard du ciel_ is the thunderbolt. + +[356] Latin, _ferire_, to strike. + +[357] _Estandue_ is standard. + +[358] Latin, _gens_, nation. + +[359] Latin, _monstrum_, prodigy. + +[360] _Morts_ should be read _Meurt_, perhaps, as referring to Napoleon, +who showed great delight, it is said, when he found that Wellington +intended to fight him. It cannot refer, as Le Pelletier would have it to +do, to the celebrated _mot_ of Cambronne or General Michel, as it has +been proved that it was never uttered at all, but manufactured by a wit +_après coup_. + +[361] The stone is in the tree. Le Pelletier would here understand +_silex_, the flint axe of primitive ages. This seems to me to be very +far fetched, and I would rather read, with Garencières, the stone into +thunderstone or aerolite, which seems to be far less forced. + +[362] Hyperbaton: the construction is _feront entrée a Paris clos +d’armée_. + +[363] Latin, _clausus_, shut, cut off from the French army. + +[364] _Forche_, fourchu, or forked. Latin, _furca_, hooked. + +[365] _Commettre_, ellipsis for _se commettre_, to come to blows with any +one. + +[366] Latin, _per_, through, or by means of. + +[367] Latin, _duo_, a second repetition. + +[368] Consigning. + +[369] _Plus fors_, read _plus forts_. + +[370] _Malignus_, Latin, a criminal. + +[371] _Fera_ should be _feront_, I think. + +[372] _Avint_ I take to mean _avant_. + +[373] _Viendra_ for _viendront_. + +[374] _Onque_ should be _oncq’_, to scan. + +[375] _Italie_ is the reading of the _texte-type_. Bouys reads _Itale_, +and then the line will scan. + +[376] _Estrangiers_ was probably pronounced as of two syllables only, but +it is difficult to make this line scan. + +[377] _Fautes_, to be taken as shortcomings. + +[378] _Si_—very. + +[379] Latin, _victor_, conqueror. + +[380] Latin, _Imperator_. + +[381] Latin, _factum_, action, act. + +[382] _Congnu_ = connu, known. + +[383] _Sang_, son or grandson. + +[384] _Mathien_, Æmathien. + +[385] Latinism, _factus_, made, become. + +[386] Latin, _superator_, rule, dominator. + +[387] Latin, _gens_, nation. + +[388] _Humble_ = humiliated, perhaps _humblée_. + +[389] Latin, _per_, by reason of. + +[390] The order is, “venu à cause des pleurs de la superbe nation +humiliée.” + +[391] The original text is corrupt here, but this yields the best sense. + +[392] _Desrobé_, withdrawn, or shut up. + +[393] Fossano is the alternative reading, a town in the Sardinian States. + +[394] Keeper of the hounds and greyhounds. + +[395] Latin, _patratus_, done, committed. + +[396] The Tarpeian rock at Rome. + +[397] Latin, _Leo_, the astronomical sign of the Lion. + +[398] _Dechassé_ = chassé, chased away. + +[399] _Estrange_ has again the meaning of foreign, or out of the family. + +[400] The order is _après avoir chassé le cerf aux champs_. + +[401] _Donront_ = _donneront_. + +[402] _Celuy qu’en_ = _Celuy qui fera qu’en_. + +[403] Latin, _Claudus_, lame. This Le Pelletier has before endeavoured, +with surprising dexterity, to show to be the Duc de Bordeaux. + +[404] This whole line is difficult. _Araigner_, in the Romance language, +is said to mean to plead and gain a cause against another. The _court_ +and _long_ we had before, in Century VIII., 57, applied to Napoleon, as +rising from a soldier to the long-robed Emperor; here he had to refer to +Talma to teach him how to carry it. Now, again, it means the rise from a +mere dignitary to Kingship. + +[405] Latin, _qui_. + +[406] _Sparte_ = Paris. The letters _te_ may be considered as one letter, +the _e_ being mute. It will then convert, according to the rule of the +anagram. + +[407] _Phalange_, flag, standard, writes M. le Pelletier. As far as I +can discover anything, this statement appears to be entirely erroneous. +The word “phalanx,” as connected with matters military, always signifies +a body of men in military order. It may in the plural even stand +indefinitely for armies. In the singular it is very confusing. It may +stand for a party of twenty-eight men or eight thousand (Potter’s +“Antiquities,” ii. 56). Danet says six thousand men. Gibbon introduces +one of his constantly recurring slovenly phrases about it,—absurd in +fact, but philosophic in form. He is comparing the legion with the +phalanx (i. 22), and tells us, “It was soon discovered by reflection, as +well as by the event,” that it could not contend with the legion. It is +obvious here, that if it had been discovered by reflection it would never +have been tried by the event. This somewhat justifies the sarcasm of +Porson, that schoolboys ought to be set to translate Gibbon into English. +As a pleasing variety, Smith sets the number when complete at about +sixteen thousand men. One feels inclined to say that these classical +guides are conveying us to that ditch, which is never far to seek, +when the blind are leading the blind. Martinius, in his curious “Lex. +Phil.,” cites Pliny to show that the Africans first fought the Egyptians +_fustius_, with staves, which they called _phalanges_ in the plural, or +_phalanx_ in the singular, so that it is an African word. פלג, in +Hebrew _phalag_, is a staff. Also there is a spider called _phalangion_; +and as the pikes of the first five ranks in a _phalanx_ were interlaced, +they were somewhat like a web of staves. Many may regard all this as +extremely useless; perhaps they will concede that it is curious; if so, I +shall consider it to be useful. I have long found that whatever is very +curious is useful. It sets the mind agreeably in movement, and often +throws a new light on things that previously had no interest and seemed +obscure. At any rate, we have now established that _phalange_ is not to +be rendered _standard_, but troops, army. + +[408] Latin, _supremus_, the last. + +[409] The order is, “Quand l’Empire sera exanclé par trois subrogés.” + +[410] Latin, _subrogatus_, substituted; read _subrogés_. + +[411] _Exancillatus_, subdued to, under the yoke of. + +[412] Latin, _charta_, paper. + +[413] Romance, _ne leu_, not read. + +[414] _Sainct Memire_ is the anagram of S’Meri. To make this pass, M. le +Pelletier drops one _m_ and one _e_. + +[415] _Tante_ is to be read _tente_. + +[416] _Leans_ is an old word for _là dedans_. + +[417] Latin, _perplexus_, troubled. + +[418] _Rebors_ = _rebours_; _à rebours_ is against the grain. + +[419] _Ognion_ is _Ogmius_, the Celtic Mercury or Gallic Hercules. It has +figured in 1792, 1848, and again after the German war, 1872. At the two +first periods they put the figure of this Hercules on their five franc +pieces, with that idle exergue, _Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_. This +vocable, _Ogmion_, is equivalent to _Oignon_, onion, or bulbous root of +the lily. If there could be any doubt at all about this, Nostradamus has +taken care to remove it, calling it _le grand mercure d’Hercule fleur de +lys_, in Century X. 79. + +[420] _Tiers_, pour _le tiers_ État. The third order now claiming to +govern itself. + +[421] _De bas haut_, for _de bas en haut_ elevated from a low to a higher +and conspicuous position. + +[422] Latin, _qui_, he, who. + +[423] The third estate will serve, as a toe of the foot to the first +rank, a stepping-stone to place. + +[424] Lucca and Pisa stand for all Tuscany, where, in 1831, Louis +Napoleon and Charles Bonaparte, his elder brother, had, with one cannon +served by himself and a few Italian partisans, possessed himself of +_Civita-Castellana_, in the Pontifical States. + +[425] Latin, _decidium_, a word not of classical usage, signifying ruin, +or a fall. + +[426] Romance _sang_, family. + +[427] Latin, _regnum_, empire. + +[428] _Lectoyre_, a town in France, in the department of Gers. +Garencières adopts the variant Lectoure, which he says is a town in +Gascony. The word occurs again, Century VII. 12, and there he says it is +a city of Guyenne. _Lectora_ was the Latin name. It was a place of great +strength, and picturesque; but, unless we can find it to be an anagram, +there is nothing to connect the town in any way with the fortunes of +Louis Napoleon. + +[429] The word _pleira_, is of course, only an archaic transposition +of _pliera_. The line here can in no way be made to scan, being two +syllables or one whole foot short. I would suggest it be read Nepveu (du +sang) par peur pleira l’enseigne. + +[430] _Ogmion_ has been explained already to be the symbol of the French +Republic. + +[431] The _texte-type_ reads _et amy au_. + +[432] _My-hom_, Le Pelletier says, is _demy-homme_, a man of low birth, +and Roy _de longue_ = _de vielle race_. I prefer to read _de longue +vie_, and understand the King of Prussia; and _my-hom_ I take to be the +bivalve-man, or Bismarck. + +[433] Latin, _classis_, band; à classe, by a band [sic?]. It might be +better here to render _classe_ as “crash,” κλάσις, _brisure_. _De nuict +la classe_, a crash by night. + +[434] Latin, _arca_, chest, or dam. + +[435] Latin, _demolitus_, demolished. + +[436] Latin, _antecaptus_, seized beforehand. + +[437] Latin, _dux_, leader. + +[438] Latin, _unus_, the first. + +[439] Latin, _cavea_, theatre. + +[440] Romance, _incogneus_, unknown. + +[441] The four were Orsini, Pieri, de Rudio, and Gomez. + +[442] Greek, Δαν-ἀρχή, as we had it before (_v._ p. 289). + +[443] _Frise_, Hanover. + +[444] Latin, _dependere_, to weigh out, spend. + +[445] M. le Pelletier calculates that the golden mark was equal to 250 +grammes, or 100,000 marks = 10,000,000 francs. + +[446] Latin, _oratio_, harangue. + +[447] Romance, _prins_, _pris_, taken. + +[448] Latin, _decisus_, cut off. + +[449] _Delà_, for _au delà_. + +[450] Italian, _vappa_, scamp. + +[451] Latin, _subito_, suddenly. + +[452] _Il tournera_, for _il fera tourner_. + +[453] Latin, _propinque_, at hand, near. + +[454] “Stands some five feet ten or more; a man of strong solid +stature, and dignified, now partly military carriage: the expression +of him valour and devout intelligence,—energy and delicacy on a basis +of simplicity. Fifty-four years old, gone April last; ruddy-fair +complexion, bronzed by toil and age; light brown hair and moustache are +getting streaked with grey. A figure of sufficient impressiveness;—not +lovely to the man-milliner species, nor pretending to be so. Massive +stature; big massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect, ‘evident workshop +and storehouse of a vast treasury of natural parts.’ Wart above the +right eyebrow; nose of considerable blunt aquiline proportions; +strict yet copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and +also, if need were, of all fierceness and rigours; deep loving eyes, +call them grave, call them stern, looking from under those craggy +brows, as if in life-long sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, +thinking it only labour, and endeavour:—on the whole, a right noble +lion-face, and hero-face.” (Carlyle, “Cromwell Letters,” ii. p. +435). + + + + +INDEX. + +“’Tis the compass that you steer by through a book.”—Οὔτις. + + + A + + Abb’s Head, St., 206 + + Abraham, astrologer, 59 + + ——, habitation of, 65 + + Achem in Sumatra, 66 + + Adriatic, _Austria_, 69 + + Advent, _v._ _Vulgar_ + + Æmathion, 151, 156, 157, 160, 162 + + ——, Napoleon, 163 + + ——, Louis XVIII., 324, 325 + + Ætalia Elba, 248; + Itales, 311 + + Africa, 321 + + Agen, 6 + + Agoult, Marquis de, 249 + + Aix, 9 + + Ajaccio, 291 + + Albanins, 201, 203 + + ——, Albanois, 191 + + Albert, Jeanne de, mother of Henri IV., 128 + + Alexander, 80; + son of Apollo, 151 + + Algeria, 332 + + Algol Caput, 136 + + Almanacs, 9, 36 + + Aloi, 118 + + Alphabet, 70 + + Alps, 346 + + Alquiloye, 268, _v._ _Aquilon_ + + American, the, 141 + + Amiens, 134 + + Ampulla, 242, 308 + + Anagram used as mask, xiii.; + various, 29 + + ——, Anagramme Herne, 246 + + ——, Nicole = Lincoln, 172 + + Angels, evil, 46; + angeli, 193 + + Angles, 193 + + Angoulême, Duc de, 264, 269 + + Anthoni pont, 313 + + Anti-Christ, reign of, 12, 37; + empire of, 62 + + ——, second antichrist, 76; + infernal prince, 72 + + ——, moon symbol of, 239 + + ——, Saturne, 203, 206, _v._ _Faith_ + + Antwerp, 173 + + Apennines, 318 + + Apollo Philesius, 80 + + Apollyon, 171 + + April, Calends of, 83 + + Aqua solis, 193 + + Aquilon, 305, _v._ _Alquiloye_, _v._ _North_ + + Arabs, 334 + + Aristotle minced, 235; + understanding, 255 + + Arles, 146, 147 + + Armada, 182, 190 + + Arras, 220 + + Artaxerxes, 308 + + _Artiste en pronostics_, 40 + + Artois, Comte de, 327 + + Assembly, _v._ _National_ + + Assignats, 231 + + Astrologers too much faith, 36; + astrologi, 76; + astrologue, 94 + + —— Gauric, 93 + + ——, La Brousse, 135 + + —— César, 136 + + Astrology needful to medicine, 9; + judicial, 30, 48 + + ——, nocturnal calculations, 56 + + ——, revolution of stars, 42, 235 + + Atheism, atheistic democracy, 239 + + ——, levelling spirit of, 35, _v._ _Fifth Monarchy_ + + Atomic theory, xxiii. + + —— atoms, xxiv. + + Augur = Pope, 283 + + Augustus, climacteric, 18 + + Ausonius, poet, 196 + + Ausonne, League at, 194 + + Austerlitz, sun of, 287; + Borodino, 302; + claptrap, 320 + + Austria, 346 + + Austrians, white, 305; + Adriatic, 69 + + Aventine, 280 + + Avénement, commun, _v._ _Vulgar Advent_ + + Averroes, 3 + + Avicenna, 3 + + Avignon, Nostradamus, at school, 3, 281 + + Azostains, 70 + + + B + + Baalzephon, 217 + + Babylon, Paris, 305; + new Babylon, 63 + + ——, Babel, 306, 319 + + Bacchantes, 204; + fury, 43 + + —— la maynade, 201 + + Bacon, Lord, death Henri II., 94; + hempe, 170 + + Balance of power, regne de, 183, 185 + + ——, Hume on, 187 + + Balloon, 281 + + Bannier bust, Cromwell, 355 + + Barabbas, 230 + + Barbaroux, 251 + + Barcelona, Mons Jovis, 61 + + ——, Barselonne, 131; + George I., 222 + + Barque of St. Peter, 193, 302 + + Barreaux, Des, 138 + + Barricades, quatrain on, 120 + + Bartholomew’s Day, St., quatrain on, 106; + Favin on, 112 + + —— Henri IV., 128; + knife of, 154 + + Bassano, Duc de, 309 + + Bastard, Cromwell, 172 + + Bastarnan, Poland, 166; + Basharion, 225 + + Bastille tournament, 92, 121, 126; + Louis Philippe, Paris, 335 + + Bates on prayer, 32 + + Beachy Head, 159 + + Bear at Bridge Foot, 218 + + Béarnais, 129 + + Beelzebub, 295 + + Bees, 294; + Abeilles, 308; + liqueur des, 311, _v._ _Wasps_ + + Bernard, Mont St., 318 + + Berri, Duc de, 269, 317, 327 + + Berthier, General, 282 + + Bethune, 220 + + Beza epigram, 16 + + Bibliography of Nostradamus, 25 + + Bird, Edward, 354 + + Birds, strange; Imperial eagles, 73 + + Biron, sixain, 132 + + Bisance, 219 + + Bismarck, 189, 341 + + Black for white, 232 + + Blaye, 160 + + Blois, 12; + Château de Blois, 122 + + Bonanni, 109 + + Bonaparte, 287; + family, thirteenth century, 289 + + ——, Charles, 290, 337 + + ——, _v._ _Napoleon_ + + Books burnt by Nostradamus, 48 + + Bordeaux, Duc de, 269, 328; + gros mastin, 328, 330 + + ——, Claude, 329, 333 + + Bordeaux, Ausonne, 196 + + Boreas, 283, _v._ _North_ + + Borodino, 301, 308 + + Boscobel, 209 + + Bosphorus, 65 + + Bouillé, Marquis de, 187, 246, 249 + + Bouillon, Cardinal, 219 + + Boulogne, 321; + medal struck, 322 + + Bourbon, Cardinal de, 12; + _mot_, 114 + + Bourg la reyne, 313 + + Bourges, 156 + + Bottomless pit, 311 + + Bouys, 159, 175, 178, 182, 236, 243, 253, 317, 323 + + Bowels, 207 + + Branchidæ, 87 + + Branchus, 77, 82 + + Brantôme, 114 + + Breda, 201 + + Breval’s Travels, 356 + + Brevity, 38, 102, 144, 169, 244; + mitré, 252, 315 + + Bright, Quaker, 188 + + Britain, 151; + Great Britain, 170; + quatrain, 194 + + Brocksburn, 206 + + Broggi Restaurant, 344 + + Brompton, 4 + + Brosse, la, 135 + + Brumaire, 289, 295, 296 + + Brussels, 143, 173 + + Brutus, 250 + + Burnet, Thomas, xiii. + + Butler, Samuel, 351 + + Buckingham, Duke, 199 + + Buget, F., 13 + + Burns, xvii. + + Butcher, Cromwell, 177; + Napoleon, 236 + + Butler, Bishop Thomas, 35 + + + C + + Cadiz, Bay, 191; + Gaddir, 192 + + Cæsar, 297, 301, 302 + + Cagliostro, 38 + + Caiaphas, x. + + Calendar, Gregorian, 84; + rectified, 109 + + California, 73 + + Cambresis Treaty, 14, 89 + + Cambronne, 312 + + Campan, Madame, 247, 250 + + Camisards, War of, 160 + + Caniga, Don B. de, 138 + + Cannes, Napoleon lands at, 311 + + Cap. le grand, 130; + État du Caput, 153; + Cap. Esleu, 245, 274; + Capet, 299, 306; + blonde, 217; + Debonnaires, 317; + Fair Capet, 332 + + Capitolinus, 327 + + “Captif,” 155 + + Carlyle less than Coleridge, ix., 176; + hero, 180, 206, 213 + + ——, Cromwell portrait, 352 + + Carlos, Don, strangled, 333 + + Carpathian thread, 87 + + Casau, Charles de, 131 + + Cases, Las, 289 + + Castulon, 239 + + Catholics, Roman, 229, _v._ _Church_ + + Cavalier, Jean, 160 + + Cavaignac, 338 + + Causes, knowledge of, xxiii., 47 + + Celibacy, mansol, 280, _v._ _Marriage_ + + Celique, 193 + + Celtique for France, 283 + + “Centuries” begin, 7 + + César, Astrologer, 136 + + Chaldaic oracles, xxiv. + + Champagne, Philippe de, 146 + + Chance, 174, 245, 278; + Duc de Berri, 327, _v._ _Coincidence_ + + Charlemagne, 291 + + Charles I., xvi., 37, 171; + quatrain on, 172, sold, £400,000 + + ——, Quatrain, execution, 173; + trial, 175; + quatrain, 196 + + Charles II., wit, 141, 171; + Breda, 102; + crowned (1654), 208; + Worcester, 209; + restoration, 210 + + Charles V., Emperor, 94, 229, 239; + sacks Rome, 303, 319 + + Charles IX., 14, 96; + quatrain, 103; + Condé, 106; + character, 107 + + Charles X., 268, 283; + he hunts, 328 + + Charles X., Cardinal Bourbon, 129 + + Charms, 85; + rites, 87 + + Chartres, 313; + Duc de, 336 + + Chavigny, J. Aimes de, 2; + studies Nostradamus twenty-eight years, 21 + + Chequers Court, 354 + + Cherra, 159 + + Chien, or gun hammer, 148 + + Children excluded from prophecy, 39 + + Christianity of gold, 152 + + Chronology, _v._ _Time_ + + Church persecuted, 71; + clergy, 275; + state of, 63 + + —— suppressed, 276; + monks, 276; + temples, 277 + + —— Priests, 297; + Napoleon, sponge, 297, 298 + + ——, _v._ _Catholics_ + + Cicero, 286 + + Cinq Mars Conspiracy, 145 + + Cipher, 137 + + Civil War (1557), 98, 115 + + Civita-Castellana, 337 + + Clairvoyance, 40, 81, _v._ _Table-turning_ + + Clarendon, Earl, 200 + + Classis, 283 + + Clement VII., 303 + + Clement Danes, St., 354 + + Clément, Jacques, 100; + quatrain, 124; + le doux, 106 + + Clerepeyne, 142 + + Clèves, Princesse de, 93 + + Climacteric, 17, 18 + + Cock-moon, 238; + Cock, 283 + + “Cogito ergo sum,” xxiii. + + Cognac, Treaty of, 196 + + _Corn’ et cry_, 192 + + Coincidences, 1; + Henri IV., 19; + Philip II., 162, 335 + + ——, Le Torcey, 340, _v._ _Chance_ + + Coleridge as poet, viii.; + on Jews, xiii.; + on Truth, xxvii. + + Coligny, Admiral, 104, 110, 112 + + Colours, red and purple, xix.; + French flags, xx.; + green, 233, _v._ _Flag_, _v._ _Red_ + + Commun Avénement, _v._ _Vulgar Advent_ + + Communion, Henri III., 115; + Clément, 125; + traitor at prayers, 138 + + Compiègne, 101 + + Confession, auricular, 119 + + Conciergerie, 96, 266 + + Condé, Prince, 105; + strangled, 333 + + Congress, 189 + + Conspiracy, 64; + Cinq Mars, 145 + + Conscription, 285; + Tag, 292; + Classis, 283 + + Convention, 277 + + Cooper, Samuel, Cromwell, 351 + + Copperspath, Pass at, 205 + + Corinth, 214 + + Corsica, 155; + Charles Bonaparte, 290; + Napoleon born, 236, 286 + + Covenanters, £400,000, 173; + Service-book and Solemn League, 198 + + Cowper, 154 + + Cranfield, Lionel, 199 + + Cretans, the two, 69 + + Crisiaque, 40 + + Critics, xxv.; + lines on, 76 + + Cromwell, xvi., xvii.; + belies himself, 168; + Lonole, 170; + bastard, 172; + Nostradamus on, 176; + Protectorate, 177; + butcher, 177; + portraiture of, 178, 351; + dissolute, 179; + well-born, 179; + Church lands, 179; + funeral, 180; + arbitrates, 189, 202; + slaves, 207; + _soldat simple_, 208, 297; + death quatrain, 210; + Protector, 212; + Fox, 212; + saint, 212; + epileptic, 301; + bust, 354; + success, 356 + + Cromwell, Robert, father of Protector, 179 + + Curious, the, xxvi.; + astrology of D. D., 224, 288 + + —— Macchiavelli’s “Prince,” 290 + + —— strangeness, 135, 174, 186, _v._ _Coincidences_ + + —— episode, sound, 217; + phalanx, 332 + + —— Book of Oracles, a curiosity, 347 + + Cymbes, 306 + + Cyphe, 307 + + Cyprus, 104 + + + D + + Dame, the great, 60; + St. Paul’s, 214; + Sainte Dame, 233; + Government, 223; + insensate dame, 304 + + ——, republic, 343 + + Dantisco, N. G. A., “Rerum in Galliâ,” 195 + + Death sought and not found, 311; + fear of, 135 + + Debonnaire, Capets, 317 + + Dedications, 14; + to his son, 42; + “Luminary Epistle,” 65 + + Deluge, 51 + + Democracy, beast, xx.; + atheistic, 239; + Nostradamus, 347 + + Demons corporeal, 83; + _lingua demonum_, 185; + speech of, 220; + _v._ _Guardian_ + + Demosthenes, 188 + + Denis, St., 101; + violated, 233 + + Denmark, 289 + + Departments for Provinces, 232 + + Descardes, 138 + + Descars, 94 + + Descartes, _cogito_, etc., xxiii., 330 + + Diamond necklace, 260 + + Didyma, 80 + + Directory, 282, 296, 318 + + Disorder, method of the book, 275 + + Doon hill, 206 + + Doria, Charles, 131 + + Drake, Cadiz Bay, 182 + + Dubarri, 267 + + Dunbar battle, 205 + + Duphot, General, 282 + + Dutch war, 214 + + + E + + Eagles, Imperial, 73, 186, 238, 283; + aigle poussée, 304 + + Earthquake, 242 + + East wind, 217; + Napoleon, 286; + l’oriental, 318; + Sultan of, 66 + + Eastern kings, 66; + Soliman II., 98; + Eastern Question, 334 + + Ecclesiasticus, 79 + + Ecstasy, 40 + + Edinburgh quatrain, 201, 205 + + Education, board schools, 182 + + Edward, VI., 184 + + Égalité, Duc d’Orléans, 273 + + Egypt, 163; + Oriental, 318 + + Elba, 240, 308; + place of the air, 64, 307; + Itales, 311 + + Elias, tradition of, xxiv. + + Eliot, George, 4 + + Elizabeth, Queen, 103; + excommunicated again, 309, 168; + quatrain, 190 + + Elizabeth, Madame, 268 + + Embalming, 147 + + Emmanuel, Duke Savoy, 14 + + —— I., Victor, 279, 342 + + —— IV., Charles, 279 + + Emperor, 236 + + Encyclopædists, 233 + + England, xvi.; + chapter on, 166; + seven governments, 166; + Bouillé on, 187 + + English red, 305 + + Envers à l’, 173, 175, 228 + + Epaminondas, 188 + + Ephesus, 215 + + Epigram on Condé, 106 + + Epilepsy, Herculean, 47; + in general, 300; + _divin mal_, 300 + + Episode, _v._ _Curious_ + + “Epistle, Luminary,” to Henri II., 12, 13, 55, 257 + + Ergaste, 263 + + Escurial, 240 + + Essex, Lord, 191 + + Estrange, 320; + Austrian, 321 + + _État l’, c’est moi_, 153 + + Eternity, 47, 49 + + _Être Suprème_, 277 + + Eugène, Prince, 220 + + Evelyn, Cromwell portrait, 353 + + Evil predicted, 39 + + Eye is not sight, 80, 255, _v._ _Soul_, _v._ _Visible_ + + + F + + Fact, xii. + + Faithorne, 351 + + Faim, Castle of, 24; + Baron Faim, 309 + + Fairfax, General, 202 + + Faith, 34; + Nihilist, 36, _v._ _Antichrist_ + + Fame, 58 + + Fanchese, Don, 137 + + Fate, Fates, 287 + + Feuchères, Baronne de, 333 + + Ferrare, 268 + + Ferrière’s, la, squadron, 155 + + Ferte sous Jouare, la, 139 + + Fifth Monarchy, 213, _v._ _Atheism_ + + Fire, flame of, 45; + subtle, 46; + fire, 51; + of London, 214 + + Firearms, 148 + + Fireballs, 214 + + Flag, tricolour, xx., 279; + eagles, 304; + phalange, 331; + white, 269; + gold, blue, red, 332, _v._ _Colours_ + + Flame, thin, 48, 50; + flambe exigue, 76; + of fire, 45; + missive, 52; + human flame, 233 + + _Fleurs-de-lis_, 15, 151; + Ognion, 334 + + Fleurus, 281 + + Floods (1607), 195 + + Florence, 100, 101; + Bonaparte family, 289; + + —— Bust of Cromwell, 356 + + Fontaine, la, 294 + + Fontainebleau, 302; + abdication at, 309 + + Fontenelle, 330 + + Forces, God of, 295 + + Forehead, lifted up, 50 + + Fossan, Sardinia, 326 + + Fossen, 269 + + France, kingdom of Libra, 185; + dame insensée, 304 + + Francis I., 196 + + François II., 102 + + Frankland, Sir Thos., 354 + + Frederic William, 342 + + French vanity, 140, 141; + Rex Christianissimus, 153; + _grand peuple_, 231; + language, 293; + _fière gent_, 312; + gent superbe, 324 + + Friday, Cromwell dies, 211 + + ——, Good, 80, 84 + + Fronde, 158 + + Futurity, _v._ _Prophecy_ + + + G + + Gaddir, Cadiz, 192 + + Gallic, Ogmion, _v._ _Ogmion_ + + Garencières’ primer, 26 + + Garibaldi, 342; + vapin, 346 + + Gand, 173 + + _Gauche, jugement à_, 175 + + Gaul for France, 283 + + Gaule, switch, 318 + + Gauric, Luc, 93 + + Genelle, Anne Ponce, second wife, 7 + + Genius, guardian, 83; + familiar spirit, 78 + + Genoa, 100; + Gulf of, 311 + + _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Nostradamus, vii. + + George I., James I. his great-grandfather, 194 + + ——, Quatrain on, 222, 223; + peace, 224 + + George’s, St. Day, 211 + + George, conspiracy, 317 + + Gibbon, 331 + + Girondists, 274 + + Glaive, cité au, 261 + + God withdraws, 234; + in history, 31; + operating, 46 + + Godwin, 176 + + Gog and Magog, 65 + + Gold, Christianity, 152; + corruption by, 186; + England, 187; + wealth, xxix., _v._ _Riches_ + + Golden Age, 273 + + Golgotha, 327 + + Gomez, 344 + + Gospel, Boulevard of Rochelle, 114 + + Gostling, 355 + + Government ends with George I., 223 (La Dame) + + _Grand peuple_, French, 231 + + _Grande cité_, _v._ _Paris_ + + Grêlet, Michel, 110 + + Great Britain, _v._ _Britain_ + + Green colour, 233 + + Gregory XIII., 108, 109 + + Greigne, 156 + + Grogne, 155 + + Griffin, 305 + + Grose, Captain, 355 + + Groslot, Jérôme, 104 + + Grotius, 46 + + Guardian angel, 46, 83, _v._ _Demon_ + + _Guespes et mouches_, 307, _v._ _Vespres_ + + Guillotin, Dr., 261; + _couperet_, 248 + + Guion, 289, 292, _v._ _Ogmion_ + + Guise, death of, 100, 113, 116; + quatrain, 122; + family, 129 + + Gustavus Adolphus, 224, 306 + + Guynaud, “Concordance Nostradamus,” 92; + queer criticism, 149 + + + H + + Hair white in a night, 247 + + Halidom, 233 + + Hannibal, 229; + Napoleon, 319 + + Hanover, House of, 183 + + Hapsburgh, House of, 189 + + Harrison, Frederic, 179, 351 + + Haslerig, 205 + + Head shaven, 116, 296, 300, 303 + + Hébert, 344 + + Hegira (A.D. 621), 59 + + Helena, St., 307, 308, 316 + + Hempe, 170 + + Henri II., xv.; + a patron, 10; + killed, 13; + “Luminary Epistle,” 55; + death, 91, 239 + + —— III., xv., 97; + murder, 99; + civil war, 115; + Poland, 116; + quatrain, 117; + death, 125 + + —— IV., xv., 19; + Béarnais, 129; + popularity, 140; + Ogmion, 335; + chapter on, 128; + abjures, 130; + sixains, 133 + + —— V., 13, 328 + + Henriade, 141 + + Henry VIII., 196 + + Heptades, 185 + + Hercules, Celtic, 289, 292; + Scyphus, cup, 307; + _v._ _Ogmion_ + + Herne, 245 + + Hero, Carlyle’s, 180, 213 + + Herod, a sort of prophet, x.; + a god, 230 + + Herschel, xi. + + Highlanders, 207; + _haut lieu_, 205; + Royal Army, 202 + + Hières, Island of, 65 + + Historical fragments, 89 + + History, Philosophy of, 31; + happy country, 39; + predicts evil, 39; + lies, 122; + re-written to meet Nostradamus, 300 + + Hodgson, 206 + + Holbein, 330 + + Holland, 173 + + Holy Spirit, 28 + + Honesty, 232 + + Honnorat, St., Island, 131 + + Houbraken’s Cromwell, 352 + + House of Commons, 243; + Babel-room, 287 + + Howard, Lord, 191 + + Hughes, Letter of Mr., 354 + + Hume, on balance of power, 187; + miracles, 145 + + Hungary, 303 + + Husne, tower, 129 + + + I + + Idées Napoléoniennes, 338 + + If, Château d’, 131 + + Ignorance, letters will suffer, 51, 54 + + Immortality of man, 263 + + Impeachment, 200 + + Imposture, 36, 40, 89 + + Inspiration, 30, 43; + melancholy, 50, 90 + + Interpretation, no interpreter of the quatrains, 56 + + ——, more might be interpreted, 89; + mode of, 254 + + Ireland, 158; + discontent, 198 + + Isle, Roget de l’, 285 + + Itales, Elba, 311 + + Italy, Ausonne, 194; + emperor born, 236 + + + J + + Jacobine Clubs, 126 + + Jamblicus, 82 + + James I., 171; + great-grandfather George I., 194; + wisdom, 200 + + —— II., 158, 218 + + Jansenism, 158 + + Jant, Chevalier de, 143, 144 + + Janus Gallicus, 113 + + Japan, Christian, 109 + + Jarnac, 106 + + Jay, fable of, 294; + Talma teaches Napoleon, 329 + + Jesuit College motto, 109; + Jesuit clubs, 126; + Charles Emmanuel IV., 279 + + Jews, Coleridge, xiii.; + prophets, xiv. + + Jodele epigram, 11 + + Joel, Punic chronicle of, 60 + + Joinville, Prince de, 341 + + Josephine, 300, 321 + + Joubert, Étienne, 143, 144 + + Jovialists, 66 + + Journaux, 229; + simply days, 319 + + Jury, 265 + + Justice, Court of, 265 + + + K + + Kean, Edmund, ix. + + King’s evil, 58; + parliament of kings, 189; + king of French, 247 + + Kimber, “Life of Cromwell,” 354 + + + L + + Lafin, 132 + + Lamballe, Princesse de, 248 + + Landmarks, 232 + + Languedoc Canal, 137 + + Lasche, 179 + + Latin race to triumph, 62; + world, 72 + + Launay, Seigneur de, 6 + + Laud, Archbishop, 197 + + Laurel, forked rod of, 82 + + Law, the speculator, 231 + + Law Courts, 287 + + Lawyers, 109, 139; + Gregory XIII., 109 + + League, 194, 195 + + Lectoyre, 338 + + Leibnitz, Egypt, 163; + House of Hapsburgh, 189 + + Lely, Sir P., 351; + “Warts and all,” 353 + + Lenthall, Speaker, 207 + + Lepanto, 105, 335 + + Lerma, Duke, 137 + + Lesley, General, 206 + + Levelling spirit, 35 + + Libertat, Pierre, 131 + + Liberty, leap of, 65, 180; + of conscience, 194; + phantom, 223; + Castulon, 238; + cap of, 249, 252; + Nantes, 278; + tyranny, 294 + + Libra, France, 185 + + Light, cerebral and latent, 40 + + Lion-sun, 238 + + Liturgy, English, 197 + + Livy, 15, 19 + + Lombardy, 346 + + Lombart, Pierre, 353 + + Long and short robe, 297, 329 + + London, 158; + senate of, 173; + fire of, 214; + thirty of, 218 + + Lonole, Cromwell, 170 + + Los, _laus_, glory, 140 + + Louis XIII., Montpellier, 3; + chapter on, 142; + death, 147; + the Just, 185 + + —— XIV., son, 119; + king, 147; + chapter on, 150; + Canal, Languedoc, 157; + _v._ _Æmathion_ + + —— XV., chapter on, 164 + + —— XVI., xx. (1792), 69; + people rise, 237; + chapter on, 241; + flight, 247; + mitré, 251; + Captif libère, 256; + quatrain portrait, 259; + quicklime, 261 + + —— XVII., Toulon taken in name of, 273, 296 + + —— XVIII., 268, 283; + Roy d’Europe, 305; + blond, 316; + Duc de Berri, 317; + chapter on, 324; + Désiré, 325; + _foye en cuisine_, 325 + + Louis, St., Day, 211 + + Louis Philippe, coincidence, 162, 335; + chapter on, 324, 330; + wolf, 328; + six quatrains, 329; + seventeen years, 335, 338 + + Louvicamp, Curé de, 144 + + Louvel, 317, 327 + + Love of near things, 235 + + Luc, St., 23 + + Luciennes, Château de, 26 + + Lucky day, Cromwell, 211 + + “Luminary Epistle,” 12, 13; + translation, 55, 257 + + Lusitanians, 181; + _v._ _Portuguese_ + + Lymphatics, 43 + + Lyons, Plancus, 70 + + + M + + Macchiavelli, Prince, 290 + + Macelin, Cromwell, 177 + + Madelaine, 262 + + Magic, occult process, xiv.; + books burnt, 30, 48; + chapter on, 75; + formula, 76 + + Mahomet, 301; + Mahometical dreams, 52 + + Malta, 65 + + Mammon, 21, 129 + + Mansol, 280, 282 + + Mansuetus, St., Day, September 3rd, 211 + + Marlborough, Duke, 219, 220 + + Marcellinus, 86 + + Marguerite, St., Island, 131 + + Marie Louise, 300, 309, 321 + + —— Therèse, 158, 327 + + —— Antoinette, 247, 265, 268; + death, 273 + + Marine cité, 272 (Toulon), 296 + + Maritime cité (London), 214 + + Mark’s, St., Venice, 289 + + Marriage, 119, 120; + republican, 278 + + Mars, heroical, 213 + + Marseilles, St. Hières, 65; + taken by Spain, 131; + Phocen, 157; + Napoleon’s return, 311 + + Marseillaise sung, 230; + de l’Isle, 285 + + Mary, Queen, 183, 184 + + Massacre of Protestants, 199 + + Mastiff, 63; + mastin le gros, Sirius, 328 + + Materialism, 236 + + Mathien, _v._ _Æmathion_ + + Maurepas, 269 + + Mayenne, Duc de, 123, 129 + + Maynooth grant, 167 + + Mazarin, 35, 150 + + Medici, Catherine de, 38; + curious arts, 94; + quatrain on, 96, 111; + death, 115; + regency, 116; + Guise, 123 + + Medina, Duke of, 192 + + Menade, 201, 204 + + Mendosus, 128 + + Menehould, St., 246, 249 + + Meri, St., 333 + + Meslée, infelice, 278 + + Mesopotamia, 69 + + Metaplasm, 280; + Herne, 246 + + Method, 253; + disorder, 275; + _v._ _Order_ + + Metz, 151 + + Michel, General, 312 + + Middle Ages, 36 + + Milk and honey, 242 + + Millenary, seventh, 57 + + Milton, xxvii., 38, 124; + contrary to Cromwell, 180 + + Minerva, favouring, 57 + + Mines, Spanish-American, 231 + + Ministers, 67; + in eighteen years, 259 + + Miollis, General, 284, 302 + + Miracle on Miracle, 252 + + Mirror, 60 + + Mithras, 249, 251 + + Mitre, 249 + + Mob, triumphant, 230, 259, _v._ _People_ + + Molière, 175 + + Monarchy, decline of French, 164; + Fifth, 213 + + Monks, 276, _v._ _Church_ + + Mons Jovis, 61, 70 + + Mont, St. Jean, 313 + + Montagnards, 274 + + Montagne, la, 328; + Tarpeian rock, 326 + + Montenotte, 228, 289 + + Montesquiou, 105, 106 + + Montfauçon gibbet, 111 + + Montgaillard, de, 262 + + Montgolfier, 280 + + Montgomery, Earl, 91, 92; + arrest, 95 + + Montmédi, 246, 256 + + Montmirail, 248 + + Montmorency, Lord Constable, 11; + the great, 142 + + Montpellier, 3 + + Moon, blue, 206 + + Morals, soul’s instinct, 311 + + Morny, Duc de, 342 + + Moscow, 285, 304, 310 + + Motret, M., 143 + + Munster, Terburg, 173 + + My-hom, 341 + + + N + + Names anticipated, 28, 90; + new names, 288; + names of rank, 245 + + Nancy, 142, 151 + + Nantes, 277 + + Napoleon, abdication, 309 + + ——, Æmathion, 163 + + ——, Analogues, Charlemagne, 291 + + —— ——, Charles V., 229 + + —— ——, Cromwell, 208 + + —— ——, Hannibal, 229, 319 + + —— Apollyon, Olleon, 171 + + —— ——, Destroyer, xx. + + —— ——, Guion, 289, 292 + + —— ——, Hercules, Gallic, xxi., 289 + + —— Bonaparte, dropped for Nap, 288 + + ——, Brumaire, 295 + + —— Butcher, 236 + + ——, Condottiere stock, 290 + + —— Conspiracy, Georges’, 317 + + ——, Consecration and torment, quatrain, 306 + + —— Eagle, 304 + + ——, Epilepsy, 300 + + ——, Epithets, butcher, 236 + + —— ——, Jupiter, 64 + + —— ——, Mastiff, 63 + + —— ——, Hercules, _v._ _Apollyon_ above + + —— ——, King of Babylon, 305 + + —— —— Nom farouche, 287 + + —— ——, Oriental, l’, 318 + + —— —— Tête rasée, 296, 303 + + ——, _Étoile mon_, 302 + + ——, Guespes et mouches, 307 + + ——, male sex destroyed, 303 + + ——, Bouys, 159, _v._ _Bouys_ + + ——, chapter on his rule, 286 + + —— family, thirteenth century, 289, 290 + + ——, King Paris, 306 + + ——, King Rome, Denmark, 289 + + ——, Lieutenant, Consul, Emperor, 297 + + ——, Napoleonism seventy-three years, xix. + + —— Nobility, Montenotte, 289 + + ——, quatrain on, 302; + a weight on France, 292 + + ——, rats eat his heart, 311 + + ——, _soldat simple_, 208, 297 + + —— _Nez fourchu_, 316 + + ——, pyramids, forty centuries, 287 + + —— sympathy, 308 + + —— Talma, 329 + + —— _Vespres et mouches_, 295 + + ——, Waterloo quatrain, 312 + + ——, St., August 15th, 237; + anecdote, 238 + + —— II., Duc de Reichstadt, 338 + + —— III., Boulogne, 322, 336 + + ——, Idées Napoléoniennes, 338 + + —— Nepveu du sang, 338, 340 + + —— quatrain, 337 + + ——, St., August 15th, 237 + + Narbon Camisards, 162; + Count, 248 + + National Assembly, 231, 247 + + —— Assignats, 231 + + —— departments, 233 + + —— Saulce, 250 + + National Convention, 266 + + ——, chapter on, 272 + + —— decree, 277 + + Nature, voice of, 231; + overcome, 318 + + Navarre, 341 + + Nelson, _rubuit æquor_, 72; + Trafalgar, 182 + + Néopol, St., 237 + + Nepveu du sang, 338 + + Nero, 273 + + Newton, Sir Isaac, bust, 354 + + Nicole = Lincoln, 172 + + Neil, O’Phelim, 199 + + Nîmes, 160 + + Noll, old, Cromwell, 171 + + Non-intervention, 189 + + Norlaris, 128 + + Normandy, Duke of, 268 + + North, two Lords of, 67 + + ——, boreas, 283, _v._ _Aquilon_ + + ——, ignorance of the, 70 + + ——, kings of, 71 + + —— Russia, 66, 72 + + Nose, a curious phrase, 56 + + Nostradamus Almanacs, 9 + + ——, appearance, personal, 20 + + ——, _artiste en pronostics_, 40 + + —— birth, 1 + + —— brevity, 169, 244, _v._ _Brevity_ + + —— brothers, 22 + + ——, Charles IX., 14 + + —— dates, mode of stating, 190 + + —— death, 15 + + ——, democracy against it, 347 + + ——, equal he has none, vii., 90 + + —— epitaph, 19, 28 + + —— fame, future, 58 + + —— familiar spirit, 81 + + —— family, Jewish, 2 + + —— Gold, two hundred crowns, 12 + + —— Gout, 12 + + ——, history to be re-written for, 300 + + ——, horoscope princes, 12 + + —— imposture, xiii., 36, 89, 177 + + —— integrity, 97; + good faith, 111 + + —— made celebrated by Henri II.’s death, 92 + + —— marriage, second, 7 + + —— medicine, 36, 37 + + —— method, xii., 184; + sequence, 102, 243, _v._ _Order_ + + —— name known, 33 + + —— oracles published, 256 + + ——, opinions on, have been omitted, 35 + + ——, passivity of, 184, 347; + no partisan, 314 + + —— primer, oracles used as, 26 + + —— prophecy begun, 7; + not like Hebrew, 39 + + —— —— presage, capable of, 57 + + —— ——, pig prophecy, 24 + + —— psychological interest, 75 + + ——, publish, slow to, 36 + + ——, Sommerive, Earl, 156 + + ——, spirit, his, described, 38 + + —— spiritual sons, 42 + + —— style, 144, 263, _v._ _Method_ above + + ——, time, no sense of, 178 + + —— visions, see by, 275 + + —— year (3797), 50 + + Nostradamus César, 22; + préface à mon fils, 42 + + + O + + Obedience, veneration, 223 + + ——, reverence in England, 182 + + ——, must work and serve, 230 + + ——, revolt under Louis XVI., 241 + + Obscurity and prophecy one, 31 + + Œdipus, 176 + + Ognion, _v._ _Ogmion_ + + Oignon, 334, _v._ _Ogmion_ + + Ogmion, Gallic, 70, 334; + Henri IV., 335, 341 + + Olestant, Olleon, xix., 171, 303, _v._ _Pit_ + + Olleon, xix.; + Cromwell, 171 + + Omens not done, 197 + + O’Neil, Phelim, 199 + + Opinions on Nostradamus not treated of, 35 + + Oracles, French king’s study Nostradamus, 33 + + —— ceased not on Good Friday, 88, 151, 347 + + Oratory, Napoleon’s, 286 + + ——, England beware of, 187 + + ——, orators, 242, _v._ _Speech_ + + Order, sequence, 102, 158, 174, 243, 315 + + ——, method, 253; + disorder, 275 + + Orges _faire ses orges_, 212 + + Orleans, Duke of, 244; + death, 273, 333; + _dort leans_, 333 + + Orsini, 343 + + Oste, l’, Nostradamus, 132, 136 + + Oxygen, 266 + + + P + + Pagan tendency of Nostradamus, 40, 41 + + Pampotan, 69; + England, 181 + + ——, _rubuit æquor_, 27 + + Pan is dead, 88 + + Pancras, Old, 175 + + Paper money, 231 + + Paris, siege (1590), 100; + city of sword, 108, 261 + + ——, great city, 120, 282 + + ——, cité à feu, 343; + Jesuit clubs, 126 + + ——, Babylon, New, 63, 305; + in disarray, 237 + + ——, assault of, 282; + entered, 314; + dechassé, 328 + + —— Sparte, 329; + Bastille, 335 + + —— Rapis, 237; + ship, emblem of, 158 + + ——, allies in, 309 + + Paris, Comte de, 341 + + Parma, 101 + + Parliament, impeachment, 200 + + Pascal on opinion, xxviii. + + Patience of an interpreter, 255 + + Pau, 341 + + Paul’s, St., burnt, 214 + + Pavillon, Lord, 11 + + Peace, the great, 63 + + Pelissier, 332 + + Pelletier, M. le, secret purpose of book, 13 + + Pellix, 264, 266 + + Pempotam, 181; + Pampotan, 69 + + Penance, 119 + + Pentecost, 45 + + People “blood be on us,” 259 + + ——, democracy, antichrist, 239; + revolution, 347 + + —— eaux, 223; + idiots, 229 + + —— earthquake, 242; + intoxicated, 201 + + ——, many-headed, 200 + + ——, mob, 230 + + ——, tyrant comes, 169 + + Perouse, chef, Sixtus V., 99 + + Perspective, 330 + + Peter the Great, 167; + his will, 186 + + Peter, St., ship of, 193; + Pierre, 281; + piscature, 302 + + Phalanx, 231 + + Philip II., 92, 130, 131; + coincides with Louis Philippe, 333 + + —— III., 161 + + —— IV., 153, 158, 173 + + —— V., 153, 161; + overthrown, 162 + + Philippe d’Orléans, 164 + + Philippe, _v._ _Louis Philippe_ + + Philo Judæus, vii. + + Philosopher, Plato Pry, 145 + + Philosophy in doubt, 34; + in history, 31 + + ——, sentimental, 233, _v._ _Rousseau_, _v._ _Science_ + + Phocen, Marseilles, 157 + + Photius “Amphilochia,” ix.; + heretical, x. + + Phrygian bonnet, 249 + + Piedmont, Adriatic, 70 + + Pierce, Edward, 354 + + Pierre, en l’arbre, 312 + + Pillar pulled down, Vendôme?, 65 + + Piracy, literary, 10 + + Pit, bottomless, 311 + + Pius VI., chapter on, 280 + + —— VII., 237, 284, 302 + + Plague, 5; + powder, 7; + plague London, 214, 215 + + Plancus, Lyons, 70 + + Poetry, 39; + poets to be well fed, 107; + poet and prophet, 327 + + Poitiers edict, 118 + + Poland and Henri III., 116, 117, 118; + Bastarnan, 166; + partition, 186, 189 + + Polymarch, the Theban, 192 + + Ponant = west, 157 + + Pont = pontificate + + Pope, vicar of cope, 72, _v._ _Pius_ VI., and others under name; + deposed, 282; + augur, 283 + + —— regicide, 121, _v._ _Peter, St._ + + Porphyrius, 83 + + Porson on Gibbon, 331 + + Portrait painters, 353 + + Portraiture, Cromwell, 178; + Appendix, 351 + + Portuguese, 181 + + Pourceau, Cape, 155 + + Prayer, 234 + + Préface à mon fils, 42 + + Prejudices, or auricular fancies, 44 + + Press, _journaux_, 229 + + Pretender, rebel, 221; + Charles Edward Stuart reads “Oracles,” 33 + + Prince, a child, 108 + + Privilege abolished, 272 + + Proferé, 287 + + Proper names anticipated, 28 + + Prophecy, astral, 53 + + ——, afflatus, 52 + + ——, by basin, 85 + + ——, Bouys, 159, 183 + + ——, _cité au glaive_, 262 + + ——, desirable, 75 + + ——, emotional effusion, 59 + + ——, evil, like history, 39 + + ——, Grêlet’s, 110 + + ——, hempe spun, 170 + + ——, Henri II., 26 + + ——, honest man a prophet, vii. + + ——, imaginative impression, 45 + + ——, _infelice meslée_, 278 + + ——, inherited gift, 57 + + ——, lies, 86 + + ——, maddens, 26 + + ——, mitré, 252 + + ——, millenary, seventh, 57 + + ——, more might be interpreted, 89 + + ——, Nostradamus not a prophet, 30, 46, 49, 60, 90 + + ——, obscure always, 31 + + ——, patience interprets, 255 + + ——, power of, 45 + + ——, reasoning it is not, 35 + + ——, secret idiom of, 245 + + ——, sixth sense, viii., 34 + + ——, spirit of, 43 + + ——, tripod, 86 + + ——, true prophecy, 39, 43 + + ——, —— language of, 244 + + ——, unintelligible before event, 8; + Pretender, 33; + to relatives of Nostradamus, 112 + + —— year (3797); up to, 50 + + “Prophecies of Nostradamus by D. D.,” 183 + + Prose, _solutâ oratio_, 53 + + Protectorate, 177 + + Provençal quatrain, 293 + + Providence shapes history, 31 + + Pry, Plato, 145 + + Prussia, King of, 341 + + Psalm, 117, 206 + + Psellus, 84 + + Punic chronicle of Joel, 60 + + Puntales Castle, 192 + + Puritans, 194 + + Purpose of this book, 89 + + Pyramids, battle of, 287 + + Pyrenees, peace of, 157; + crossed, 161 + + Pythagoras, xi. + + + Q + + _Quarterly Review_, 176, 219 + + Quatrains, Nostradamus would like to give dates to, 67 + + Quicklime, Louis, xvi.; + head, 261 + + + R + + Radstadt, peace of, 229 + + Raimond, Lord Florimond de, 27 + + Raleigh, 124, 191 + + Rapin’s, “History,” 354, 355 + + Rapis = Paris, 237 + + _Rasée, tête_, 296, 303 + + Ratonneau, 131 + + Ravaillac, 126 + + Reader, the capable, xxv. + + Reason, goddess of, 234, 276 + + ——, human understanding, 35, 48 + + ——, words an apoplexy of, 286, _v._ _Science_ + + Rebel, Pretender, 221; + new fruit, 156 + + Red, rouges republicans, 228 + + —— cardinals, 274 + + ——, Cardinal de Bourbon, 129 + + ——, English red-coats, 305 + + ——, kill each other, 274 + + ——, reds and whites, 65 + + ——, rouges abandon purple, xix., _v._ _Colours_ + + Regicide popes, 121, 154 + + Religion, loi saincte, 231 + + Renatus or René king, 3 + + Renée, Nostradamus’s mother, 2 + + Republic, beggars brawl, 240 + + —— of 1848, chapter on, 337 + + ——, philosophic, 121 + + ——, tempered by daggers, 124 + + Restoration (1660), 210 + + Retz, Cardinal de, 35 + + Revelation, inspired, 30 + + Revolution, French, earthquake, 242 + + ——, 1688, 218 + + ——, _tiers état_, 243 + + ——, Vulgar Advent, xvii., 37, 69 + + Rheims, 242 + + Rian, Jean de, 155 + + Richelieu, Cardinal, Boulogne, 321; + Cinq Mars, 146; + congress, 189; + Havre de Grace, 296; + malevolent, 153; + vulpine, 154 + + Riches despised, 157; + love not, 292, _v._ _Gold_ + + Rights of man, 233; + phantom, 223 + + Riquet, Paul, 157 + + Robespierre, 317 + + Rochelle, 160 + + Rochepot, Lord, 137 + + Rod magic, 77 + + ——, Moses, 318 + + ——, sibyl, 82 + + ——, winchel, 78 + + _Roman de la Rose_, 175 + + Rome, city of the sun, 65 + + ——, Golgotha, 327 + + ——, Hannibal’s curse, 229 + + ——, King of, 291 + + ——, Napoleon, King of, 289, 302 + + ——, Pius VI., 280 + + ——, Romanie, 304 + + ——, Romains, 39 + + ——, sacked by Charles V., 303 + + —— taken, 282 + + Rosne, or Rhone, 283 + + Rostopchin, 304 + + Rota, 192 + + Rouen, 130 + + Rouges, _v._ _Red_ + + Roundheads short hair, 296 + + Rousseau, red-head, xx., 233 + + Roux, Jean de, 13 + + Roy-Roy, Henri III., 126 + + Russia, 72, 188, 284 + + Russell, Lord John, 86 + + Rhythm, 56 + + + S + + Saints, Cromwell, 212; + Napoleon, 237; + saint worship, 277 + + Salic law, 165 + + Salon de Craux, 7 + + Salt exorcised, 176 + + Samuel, 301 + + _Sang_, 243, 244 + + Sardinia, 155, 278; + Fossan, 326 + + Sarzana, 290 + + Saturn, age of gold, 73, frenzy, 206; + saturnine, 213 + + Saturnians, 201, 203; + _v._ _Antichrist_ + + Saulce, 248 + + Sauts, kick of gun, 141 + + Savone, 302 + + Savory, Strand, 354 + + Scaliger, J. C., 6, 37 + + Sceptics, haphazard, 278, _v._ _Science_ + + Scepticism, 35, 75; + interpretation, 254, _v._ _Atheism_ + + Scharf, Mr. George, 354 + + Schools, board, 182 + + Science, 34; + encyclopædists, 233 + + —— illuminati, 214 + + —— method, 253 + + ——, Montpellier, 5; + self-sufficiency, 254, _v._ _Sceptics_ + + ——, study of nature, xxii. _v._ _Reason_ + + ——, telescope, 253, _v._ _Philosophy_ + + ——, wisdom of, 79 + + Scotch, 172; + Scotland, 196; + Church of Scotland, 198 + + Scone, 208, 323 + + Scott, Sir W., 200 + + Sea, the, Pempotam, 181 + + Sebastian, St., Castle, 192 + + Sedan, 228, 339, 340 + + Ségur, Comte de, 301 + + Seine, 114 + + _Sele_ = selle, tripod seat, 76 + + Sense, a sixth, 34; + anticipatory thought, 32 + + Sentiment, _v._ _Religion_, 233 + + Senate of London, 173 + + Septante, 190; + Septenaries, 185 + + Sepulchre, Holy, 66 + + Sequence, _v._ _Order_ + + Serfdom, George I., 223 + + _Servus servorum_, 109 + + Seventeen-92 (1792), 69 + + Seventy-three years, 63, 227 + + SEXT, 280 + + Sforza, 290 + + Ship of St. Peter, 158, 193, 302 + + Shipton, Mother, xvii. + + Short robe, 297 + + Sibyl, 82 + + Sicily, Trinacria, 70 + + Sidney College, 352 + + Simon, _cordonnier_, 266 + + Simon, Thomas, Cromwell, 352 + + Sixains, presented to Henry IV., 133 + + Sixth sense, viii., 34 + + Sixtus V., 99, 130 + + Slaves, Highlanders sold for, 207 + + _Solaires, les_, Christians, 152 + + Solar pass, 85; + order, 88 + + Soldat simple, 297 + + Solemn League, 198 + + Soliman II., 98, 239 + + _Solis Templum_, 193 + + Solitude, 233, 235 + + Sommerive, Earl, 156 + + Somer’s Town, 217 + + Sons, spiritual, 42 + + Soul, comfort to, 78 + + —— eye, 80; + eye and soul, 234 + + —— immortal spirit, 263 + + ——, indivisible unity of, 255 + + —— morals, 311 + + —— prophecy, 253, _v._ _Immortality_ + + Sound, conveyed, 216 + + South, King of, 71 + + Spain, 72; + Spanish succession, 161; + slow, 192 + + Sparta slow, 192; + _Sparte_ = Paris, 329 + + Speech, Napoleon, 286; + five talkers, 295, _v._ _Oratory_ + + Spirit of man, 263; + drawn to centre, xxi., _v._ _Soul_ + + Spiritual sons, 42 + + Spond, Lord, 27 + + Sponge, Church treated as, 297 + + Stael, Madame de, 290 + + Stars, revolution of, 42; + intelligence, 46; + withdrawal, 234 + + Stendal, 290 + + Stomach, _estomac intercluse_, 23; + Kitchen, 325 + + Stonehenge, 193 + + Storm, 211 + + Stafford, Earl, 172 + + Stuart dynasty, 170 + + Stuart, Henry, 193 + + Stuart, Mary, 102, 170 + + Success, despicable, 356 + + Suicide, Napoleon, 306, 310 + + Sully, Duc de, 108 + + Sumatra, Isle of, 66 + + Sun = Church or Christianity, 119; + Louis XIV., 152; + temple of, 221 + + Sunlight kissed, 254 + + Surrey Street, Strand, 354 + + Sword-saviour, 295; + _sabreur_, 230; + Paris, city of, _Cité au Glaive_, 262 + + Symbol, double, 45 + + Sympathy, craved, 308 + + + T + + Table-turning, xiv., 88; + little table, 86, _v._ _Clairvoyance_ + + TAG, 292; + Tagus, 293 + + Taine, 290 + + Talma, 329 + + Tarasc, 282 + + Tarpeian rock, 326 + + Telescope, 335 + + Temple, Miss, 4 + + Temples, desecrated, 233, 277; + celique, 192 + + Temple, Paris, 230 + + Terburg’s, Munster, 173 + + Terseness, _v._ _Brevity_ + + Teste rase, 296, 303 + + Thames, 159 + + Theodorus, 87 + + Theodosius, 88 + + Thiers, 250 + + Thinkers, solitary, 233, 235 + + Thomasius, spirit drawn to the centre, xxi. + + Thou, de, 147 + + Thrasibulus, 64 + + Tiers état, 242 + + Time, Nostradamus no sense of, 178, 208; + date quatrains, 67 + + ——, future = past, 57 + + ——, _Neron_, 337 + + ——, order, 276 + + Tiresias, xxvii. + + Toledan art, 40 + + Tolentino, 281 + + Tongue, 286 + + Torcy, le, 340 + + Torné-Chavigny, Abbé, 264 + + Torrington, 159 + + Tory, Taurer, 201; + Tories, 202; + Tory cavaliers, 296 + + Toulon, 272, 296 + + Toulouse, Hotel de Ville, 143 + + Tourzel, Madame de, 249 + + Trafalgar, 182 + + Tranche, guillotine, 245; + Dr. Guillotin, 261 + + Trèves the Elector, 142 + + Treviso, 289 + + Trévoux, Dictionnaire de, 246 + + Tricolour, 279, _v._ _Flag_ + + Trimmer, 213 + + Trinacria, Sicily, 70 + + Tripod, 57, 81, 86 + + Truth, Vauban, 157; + let it prevail, 348; + Coleridge, xxvii. + + Tuilleries, 154; + secret gate of, 246; + stormed, 248; + rebuilt, 273; + Napoleon, 295; + Napoleon III. born in, 339; + Treilhos, 294 + + Turenne, Marshal, 339 + + Turin, 268 + + Turk, Sultan, 66; + Byzantine sails, 69; + Soliman II., 98; + Lepanto, 105, 335 + + Tuscany, 337; + Duke of, 347 + + Tuxis, ambassador, 138 + + Tyranny, 294; + Olestant, xix., _v._ _Liberty_ (same thing) + + + U + + Utrecht, peace of, 162, 222 + + Unity, to divide it, 255 + + + V + + Valence, 281, 283 + + Valens, Emperor, 86 + + Valois, extinction of family, 98 + + _Vapin monstre_, 347 + + Varennes, 245 + + Vauban, 156, 157 + + Vaudreuil, de, 248 + + Vaultorte, 245, 247 + + Vendée, la, 278 + + Vendôme (pillar pulled down?), 65 + + Veneration, _v._ _Obedience_ + + Venice, 69, 104; + St. Marks, 289 + + Venus, 118 + + Vervain, the prospering plant, 87 + + _Vespres et mouches_, 295 + + Vicar of the cope, pope, 72 + + Vienna, treaty of, 187 + + Villars, Marshal, 160 + + Villeroy, 136, 151 + + _Vin et sel_, 153, 174 + + Vincence, Duc de, 309 + + Virgil, earthquake, 242 + + Virgin Mary, 233 + + Virginia, 190 + + Visible world, 78, _v._ _Eye_ + + Visions, 38; + dissolving views, 101; + of night, 201; + names heard, 275 + + Voltaire, Henriade, 141, 233 + + _Vox populi_, 230 + + Vulgar Advent, 37, 44, 69; + _vulgus_, 39; + dogs, 44; + chapter on, 227 + + + W + + Walker, Cromwell, 351; + likenesses vary, 353 + + Wasps and flies, 307 + + Water magical, 77; + basin, 85; + waters = people, 233 + + Waterloo, quatrain, 312; + Napoleon’s baggage, 290 + + Wax, 276 + + Wellington, 293, 312, 313 + + West, Napoleon, 66, 98, 286 + + Westminster Abbey, 323 + + —— Hall, King’s trial, 175 + + Westphalia treaty, 151, 173 + + Whig, 213 + + Whitby omits “Book of Revelation,” 31 + + White, _blancs_ (royalists), 228; + Austrians, 305; + whites, 65; + black for white, 232 + + Whitehall, 124, 154, 199 + + William III., 159; + revolution, 218 + + Wine, 71; + _sel et vin_, 154, 173 + + Winchel-rod, 78, _v._ _Rod_ + + Wit, on Japan, 109; + on Assumption, 238 + + Witches’ sabbath, 84 + + Women Aix, modest, 7; + sœurs, 233; + naked, 234, 278 + + Worcester, battle, 209 + + Words, master in, 38; + loquacity, 46; + not understood, 242 + + World, age of, 58; + creation, 67; + unseen, 78 + + Wren, Sir Christopher, 354 + + Wrong to be let alone, 299 + + + Y + + Young, Dr., poet, 4 + + Ydiaques, Don, 137 + + Ypres, 220 + + Yvan, 308, 309, 310 + + + Z + + Zurich, treaty of, 346 + + + + +ENVOY. + + +“He that knows anything worth communicating and does not communicate it, +let him be hanged by the neck.”—_Talmud, Sucah_, p. 58. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79378 *** diff --git a/79378-h/79378-h.htm b/79378-h/79378-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..861b3d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/79378-h/79378-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,19680 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Oracles of Nostradamus | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; 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+} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1.0em;} +.poetry .indent10 {text-indent: 2.0em;} +.poetry .indent20 {text-indent: 7.0em;} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.smcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; +} + +.allsmcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.titlepage { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img { + max-width: 100%; + width: auto; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} + </style> + </head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79378 ***</div> + +<main> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage larger"><span class="smcap">Oracles of Nostradamus</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br> +CHAS. A. WARD.</p> + +<blockquote class="titlepage f90"> + +<p>“Gentem quidem nullam video, neque tam humanam atque +doctam, neque tam immanem tamque barbaram, quæ non significari +futura, et à quibusdam intelligi prædicique posse censeat.”—<span class="smcap">Cicero</span>, +<i>De Divinatione</i>, i. 2.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp100" id="leadenhall1" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/leadenhall1.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="titlepage">LONDON:<br> +The Leadenhall Press, E.C.</p> + +<p class="center smaller"><i>Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd:<br> +New York: Scribner & Welford, 743 & 745, Broadway.</i></p> + +<p class="center smaller">(<i>All rights reserved.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<blockquote class="titlepage f90"> + +<p>“Quorum potentia intellectualis immediate à Deo agitata +creditur, prophetæ dicuntur; quorum voluntas heroës; at +quorum intellectus et voluntas censetur agitata à potentiis +invisibilibus dependentibus, appellantur magi.”—<span class="smcap">Christ. +Thomasius</span>, <i>in Brunck, Hist. Phil.</i> v. 512.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<figure class="figcenter titlepage illowp100" id="leadenhall2" style="max-width: 15.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/leadenhall2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>THE LEADENHALL PRESS, LONDON, E.C.<br>(T. 4543)</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<div class="poetry-container titlepage f90"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Tu te mocques aussi des prophètes que Dieu</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Choisit en tes enfants et les fait au milieu</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De ton sein apparoître, afin de te prédire</div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Ton malheur à venir; mais tu n’en fais que rire</i>.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou soit que le grand Dieu l’immense éternité</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ait de Nostradamus l’enthousiasme excité,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou soit que le démon bon ou mauvais l’agite....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme un oracle antique, il a de mainte année</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prédit la plus grand part de nostre destinée.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Ronsard</span>, <i>To Nostradamus</i>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TO_MY_MOTHER">TO MY MOTHER.</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Οὐδὲν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι πατρὸς καὶ μητρὸς ἄμεινον</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ἔπλετο, τοῖς ὁσίη, Κύρνε, μέμηλε δίκη.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Theognis</span>, p. 16, ed. 1766.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“But higher far my proud pretensions rise,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The son of parents passed into the skies.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Cowper</span>, <i>On My Mother’s Picture</i>, line 110.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="allsmcap">IF THERE CAN BE ANYTHING IN A BOOK LIKE +THIS WORTHY OF DEDICATION TO A BEING SO +NOBLE AS THOU IN LIFE WERT EVER, A BEING +NOW MORE ENNOBLED STILL BY THE HEAVEN-BLEACHED +RAIMENT OF IMMORTALITY PUT ON; +TO THEE, PURE SOUL SERENE! TO THEE DOES +THY STILL LOVING SON, EARTH-HAMPERED, DEDICATE +THIS THE BEST LABOUR OF HIS HEART AND +HEAD AND YEARS. THE BEST OF IT IS THINE +INDEED ALREADY; AND WERE THE REST WORSE +HARVESTED THAN PERHAPS IT IS,—MORTALITY +BEING ALLOWED FOR DULY,—THY SOUL RECEIVING +MUST BE MUCH CHANGED BY EXALTATION, IF +QUEEN-LIKE, IT CANNOT MAKE A SORRY LOVE-GIFT +RICH BY GOLDEN WELCOME GIVEN IT.</p> + +<p class="allsmcap">IF THINGS OF KITH BE KIN, GOD WILLING, WE +SHALL MEET AGAIN ERE LONG. TILL WHEN, +FROM THIS BARE HEATH TERRENE AND HOMELESS, +I SPEED THE WORD ADIEU. DEAR ONE! +FOR A LITTLE WHILE ADIEU.</p> + +<p class="center allsmcap">THY SON,</p> + +<p class="right">C. A. W.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THREE_PROPHECIES">THREE PROPHECIES OF OLD TIME.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>That Troy should triumph in Rome—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Καὶ παίδων παῖδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Iliad</i>, xx. 306.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>That America should be discovered—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent10">“Venient annis</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pateat Tellus, Tiphysque novos</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Delegat orbes; nec sit terris</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ultima Thule.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Seneca.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>French Revolution, 1788-89, predicted in 10th Century.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Des le Xᵉ siècle, Albumasar avait calculé que l’année <i>mil sept cent +quatre-vingt-neuf</i> serait féconde en révolutions sociales, à cause de +l’une des grandes conjonctions de Saturne. L’astrologie est vanité, +erreur, mensonge, tout ce que vous voudrez; mais enfin voilà une +prédiction d’une authenticité irrécusable.”—<span class="smcap">Albumasar</span>, <i>De Magnis +Conjunctionibus Tract.</i> ii., <i>Different.</i> 8. <i>Vide</i> <span class="smcap">Migné</span>, <i>Dict. des +Prophéties</i>, ii. 339.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>This is no doubt a strange book. An attempt to +gather a meaning out of a few of the involved, +crabbed, and mystical quatrains of the great seer of +France, the greatest perhaps that the world has ever +seen, must of necessity be strange. My treatment, +too, may possibly seem to many no less strange than +the subject-matter itself. I will speak specially as +to this latter point towards the close of the preface.</p> + +<p>In last December, treating upon Nostradamus in +the <i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, I had occasion to remark +that every honest man of awakened powers is a kind +of prophet, and has to do with the future, or eternity, +as it is usually styled. Since then I have come upon +the same idea in the writings of Philo Judæus. He +thinks that the Scriptures testify in some sort that +every good man is a prophet:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“For a prophet says nothing of his own, but everything that +he says is strange, and prompted by some one else; and it is +not lawful for a wicked man to be an interpreter of God, as also +no wicked man can be properly said to be inspired; but this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>statement is only appropriate to the wise man alone, since he +alone is a sounding instrument of God’s voice.”—<span class="smcap">Philo</span>, <i>Heir of +Divine Things</i>, § 52, Bohn, ii. 146.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Again, at page 32 of this book, it will be seen that +I have described the faculty of anticipating the future, +a thing so remarkably developed in Nostradamus, as +being, if once we admit its existence in him, a perceptive +endowment of the whole human race, that +must be classified as a sixth sense. I have since +found, with no little delight, that Coleridge, in his +“Table Talk” (ed. 1836, p. 19), designated such +faculty as “an inner sense,” for, speaking of ghosts +and dreams, he says;</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It is impossible to say whether an inner sense does not +really exist in the mind, seldom developed, indeed, but which +may have a power of presentiment. All the external senses +have their correspondents in the mind; the eye can see an +object before it is distinctly apprehended; why may there not +be a corresponding power in the soul? The power of prophecy +might have been merely a spiritual excitation of this dormant +faculty.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>⁠</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span></p> + +<p>In the matter of prophecy, Photius says, in his +“Amphilochia,” that prophecy is by no means +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span>necessarily connected with virtue: for that Herod +pre-announced, as it were, that the Gentile magi, +Judæa, and the world were about to recognize Christ +for King, and so he desired to make away with him. +In this way he played the part of prophet to the +whole human race. Caiaphas, he thinks, was not +conscious of what he said; in the mania of a desire +to kill, his lips prophesied that it was right that one +should die to save the whole world. “Let his blood +be upon us and upon our children,” is a foreboding +instinct of the same description. In the council of +the Pharisees (John xi. 48), it was prophetic, “If we +let him alone, the Romans will come and take away +our place and nation;” and though <i>they</i> followed out +their own counsel, this is just what happened. “And +see,” he adds, “the ass in the Old Testament could +forecast future things.” He was an heretical writer, +Photius, but he was evidently not so far away, as the +world is now, from believing that prophetic endowment +is a sense widely distributed to humanity in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span>general. These hints alone may furnish us with food +for useful meditation.</p> + +<p>Now, with all this a reader will very likely say, +Supposing we grant you the prophetic as a sixth +sense, to be henceforth reckoned as a permanent +though generally latent endowment of the race, what +is the good of such a sense, supposing, with you, that +your prophet can never be understood till after the +event has taken place, and then only when some +drudging interpreter has untwisted his tortuous +language and thrown it into the intelligible vernacular?</p> + +<p>There are several ways of replying to this. First, +are there not thousands of objects in the domain of +nature that man has not yet discovered the use of? +Anatomists are still at a stand to tell us what is the +use of the spleen. What naturalist can say for what +reason the noxious serpent is sent into the world? +Why the Georgium Sidus was only discovered by +Herschel in 1781, instead of by Pythagoras, a much +greater man? Sensible men have commonly to content +themselves with simply ascertaining the existence +of a fact, and they have to rest all the while in total +ignorance of why this fact exists. Again, suppose +you believe, as the majority do, in the Christian +revelation; how can you account for the multiplicity +of sects who read the Bible each in its own way? +Can you account for a divine revelation that reveals +one thing to one man and a contrary thing to another? +Obviously, then, there are many things that exist as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span>facts, and yet no man living can assign the reason of +them. With regard to any fact that can be asserted, +the first thing to establish is, Is it a fact? That +once settled, you may wait for the rest of it until you +can get it.</p> + +<p>But again, and with special regard to Nostradamus, +you will see (and by referring to the index you may +find the various places at which I treat of it) that he +must have had the whole sequence of visions passing +clearly before his eyes, with some vocal utterances +occasionally accompanying them, by which the names +of men and places and things were announced to +him. His method was to set this down in prose +narration, either during the sitting or instantly afterwards. +On inspection, at cooler intervals, and when +he had descended from the heat and ecstasy of +fatidical rapture, he would discern at once that the +sequence must be broken and the names concealed. +If, as it stood in prose, it had been understood by the +world, it would have fallen not as a prophecy but as +a thunderbolt; not as a thing in book-form, but as an +earthquake, that must have changed or shaken the +face of Europe, and so have interfered perpetually +with its own realization.</p> + +<p>Seeing this, he followed the practice of the elder +oracles of Delphi, Dodona, and the rest. He broke up +the sequence, threw the utterances into metre, mingled +much learning linguistic to darken them, and obscured +the names, of the great men introduced, under the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span>impenetrable mask of the anagram. Thus regarded, +it is not a subject for wonder that he did this: it +would have been akin to madness to have done +anything else.</p> + +<p>It now becomes desirable that I should furnish +some clue to enable a reader to arrive rapidly at the +pith of this book and its oracular forecasts, so that he +may discern for himself in a few minutes, whether, or +whether not, the topics treated of have for him a +sufficient interest to lead him on to make a thorough +study of the book, or to decline it altogether. There +is a huge prejudice in this our day that sets in +strongly with the multitude against anything that +endeavours to deal seriously, or by mystical insight, +with things occult, spiritual, or future.</p> + +<p>The reader, first of all, should glance over the life +of Nostradamus. It will be for him to determine +whether my vindication of his name from imposture +be adequate or not. Dr. Cobham Brewer is the most +recent writer who asperses him as a “charlatan” (see +his “History of Germany,” p. 164). The reader will +see that Nostradamus is of Jewish birth. Coleridge +remarks (“Table Talk,” p. 31) that all other nations</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Seem to look backwards, and also to exist for the present; +but in the Jewish scheme everything is prospective and preparatory; +nothing, however trifling, is done for itself alone, but +all is typical of something yet to come.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Further than this, Thomas Burnet, in his eloquent +Latinity, tells us (“Archæ. Philos.” Book I. chap. vii. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span>p. 59, ed. 1727) that Apollonius said bitterly of the +Jews that they were the most inept of barbarians, and +never invented a single thing useful to mankind. +That they were what Bacon would call a people of +“no fruit.” They taught nothing in their schools, says +Burnet, of the circle of the sciences, “ad encyclopediæ +studia,” as we do now, but that no race in the world +so abounds with prophets, and men endowed with the +celestial spirit, as “the Jews.”</p> + +<p>Those who care anything for the occult processes, +that incite to prophetic utterance, would now do well +to read the chapter on magic, commencing at <a href="#Page_75">p. 75</a>. +It gives a few hints as to the practices of adepts, and +of the Roman superstitions about tripods, alphabetic +interrogatories, and so forth; and it becomes tolerably +clear from all this, that Nostradamus was skilled in +all the known methods of incantation, astral, pharmaceutic, +or electrical, and that he practised them in all +their fulness, though with reticent circumspection, and +very reluctant and enigmatic avowal. The account +of the conspirators against Valens (<a href="#Page_86">p. 86</a>) strongly +resembles the modern table-turning. But, as this +chapter is more curious by far than necessary, it may +be passed over by all those who merely wish to +appraise quickly the value of Nostradamus as a figure +in history with claims to prophetic faculty hanging on +to it.</p> + +<p>From the Historical Fragments, commencing at +<a href="#Page_89">p. 89</a>, it will be seen that he clearly prophesied the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span>violent death of Henri II., to whom he dedicates his +“Luminary Epistle.” The historical context is very +interesting, as showing not only the exact fulfilment +of the forecast of Nostradamus; but, that another +astrologer, who was consulted by the king, had forewarned +him in almost the same words of the same +danger threatening, that he should die “in duel.” We +see the king adhering to the literal word <i>duel</i>, and +out of court etiquette feeling the manifest impossibility +of the prophecy being fulfilled. We get also +the gossip of the court about it, and about the value +of horoscopes, from the Princesse de Clèves; furthermore, +we learn about the obstinate blindness with +which the king forced on his own destruction at the +very close of the day and tournament, by the indulgence +of a pure whim against the advice and wish of +everybody around him. The murder of Henri III., +in like manner, is announced, together with the death +of his father, at <a href="#Page_99">p. 99</a>; at <a href="#Page_124">p. 124</a> it is foreshadowed +again as proceeding from the hand of a young monk; +and at <a href="#Page_125">p. 125</a> the name of Clément is hinted by a +play upon the French words signifying mild and +clement. The massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, at +<a href="#Page_106">p. 106</a>, stands out in all its vivid horror, and as proceeding +from the very hands of <i>le roi farouche</i>; but, +compressed into four lines only.</p> + +<p>The coming of Henri IV. to the French throne is +introduced with the very name of his family, Vendôme, +figured in the anagram Mendosus. Here we find +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span>also (<a href="#Page_132">p. 132</a>) the execution of the Marshal de Biron; +his name is actually given as Robin, which yields it +letter for letter in anagram. This, too, is concerning +a man not probably born when the stanza was devised. +The name of the marshal is disguised, because +it would have marked him out too distinctly when he +came upon the stage of public life; but, the name of +Lafin is given, the subordinate individual who betrayed +Biron to the King. It occupies pages to describe this +event, but with the terseness, reappearing constantly, +which is so remarkable a feature in the style of +Nostradamus, he compresses the whole event, and all +that he has to say upon it, into six lines.</p> + +<p>The chapter on Louis XIV. (<a href="#Page_150">p. 150</a>) teems with +curiosities of the same inscrutable order; though less +startling than what we have already pointed out, +yet is it quite sufficient to have made the reputation +of an ordinary man.</p> + +<p>We may now pass to England (<a href="#Page_166">p. 166</a>), and the +quatrain relating to its seven governmental changes, +throughout a period of two hundred and ninety years; +this is as startling as anything of the kind can well +be. The next instance, that on the Stuart Dynasty +(<a href="#Page_170">p. 170</a>), conveying, as it does, the struggle between +Charles I. and Cromwell, is simply miraculous; and it +should challenge the attention of a listening world. +This would seem to be the inevitable result, unless +the learned of all orders and degrees can, singly or +combined, do away with the interpretation put upon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span>it. <i>Lonole</i> is now for the first time pointed to as +being the anagram of <i>Old Noll</i>, or Oliver Cromwell. +But before this transpired, M. le Pelletier had none +the less applied the quatrain to Charles and Cromwell. +If this fails to convince a reader that he is in the +presence of a seer and worker of wonders, I do not +know what can bring recognition home to him. +The single line (<a href="#Page_173">p. 173</a>)—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">has, as presenting the execution of Charles I., made, +in former but forgotten days, the round of the world, +and from time to time has served to keep alive a sort +of dumb admission that there had once been a +fatidical diviner of note called Nostradamus. Burns +remarks, what we all know, that “the passion of +prying into futurity, makes a striking part of the +history of human nature.” It does not look much +like it, though, when such a prophecy as this has +been allowed to pass out of memory; so that few even +of educated men could re-syllable it to you, or furnish +you with any better criticism on the man who penned +it, than that he was an old French impostor and +astrologer. They know ten times as much about +Mother Shipton, concerning whom little or nothing +is authentic; whilst Nostradamus’s book has been +probably in print for nearly three hundred and fifty +years.</p> + +<p>The next is a quatrain on Cromwell exclusively +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span>(<a href="#Page_177">p. 177</a>), “more butcher than king,” as Nostradamus +calls him; and he will be found to regard Napoleon +(<a href="#Page_236">p. 236</a>) in very much the same light. He gives +England an ascendancy of the seas (<a href="#Page_181">p. 181</a>) for a +stretch of more than three hundred years,—a term +which, I think, will be found to be on the point of +expiring now. Of course his quatrains relating to +England are, on the whole, much inferior in interest +to those relating to France. What stands collected +under the heading of “England” will, nevertheless, +well repay perusal. The Battle of Dunbar, for instance +(<a href="#Page_205">p. 205</a>) is in its way as vivid, though conveyed in but +four lines of verse, as Carlyle’s famous account of the +engagement which is given in the Cromwell Letters. +He prophesies the death of Cromwell (<a href="#Page_210">p. 210</a>) to fall +on the 3rd of September, seven years later than the +battle of Worcester. It is true we gather this by +implication, but with all the other wonders duly +weighed, a candid reader will admit this to be the +probable intention and true meaning here. The Fire +of London is given as falling out in 1666 (at <a href="#Page_214">p. 214</a>).</p> + +<p>His name for the French Revolution is <i>Le Commun +Advénement</i>, which I render The Vulgar Advent. +This, right up to the very end, is the most astounding +part of all that has been recorded by Nostradamus, or +brought into intelligibility by his commentators. +This preface would run to far too great length were +I to attempt even to touch upon all of the points of +interest, that we here find to be so strangely dealt with. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span>Take merely the first stanza (<a href="#Page_227">p. 227</a>). Napoleonism +is spoken of, almost before it has been announced, as +proscribed; and, to spring up again as it did in 1848; +and then to sink finally seventy-three years after. At +that passage (at <a href="#Page_227">p. 227</a>) the reader may see how, out +of the mouth of Napoleon himself, the exact term of +seventy-three years proves to be the correct period. +This has never been so much as hinted before. If +anything be miraculous, in the accuracy of prevision, +I think this may,—and with but little superstition,—be +deemed to be so.</p> + +<p>There is a remark to be made of some importance, +to my thinking, because it establishes the subtle +analogy that sometimes subsists in the relation +between things, that are not generally reckoned to +have any connection one with the other. Now, the +Vulgar Advent, of course, is signalized by the usurpation +of government by the people; but is it not highly +significant that, out of the natural fountain of speech, +and with no particular or conscious intention accompanying, +the low proletarian rabble, that bring it about +in blood, are spontaneously designated by themselves +and others as the <i>Rouges</i>? The abhorrent many, when +they play the despot, don the colour <i>red</i>, and doff for +ever, as they hope, the royal <i>purple</i>. They may hope +what they please; but, when their vices ripen, they +<i>must</i> fall under the empire of one,—who is iron-shod, +sword-girt, and rat-eaten as to the heart,—who will +trample them into order. Call him Lonole, Olestant, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span>or clement Cæsar, which you will; a beast from the +abyss must arise to rule the bestial. This is the +truly representative man who emerges at the epochs. +Rousseau, the red-head, with the curse of Iscariot +upon him, may begin the series. A red philosopher +first introduces his Pandemonium as order; secondly, +<i>Les rouges rouges le rouge assomeront</i> (<a href="#Page_274">p. 274</a>); and +thirdly, the destroyer, the Napoleon, or Apollyon, introduces +and then crowns himself with his own hand. +A red series in a red sequel so sealed, so shuts the same.</p> + +<p>As we are upon analogies, another curious one may +here be noted. The colours of the tricoloured flag +symbolize revolution by the reversal of the order of +nature. The primary colours in the solar spectrum +are, as well as in the primary arc of the rainbow, red, +yellow, blue (<a href="#Page_331">p. 331</a>); whilst in the tricolour the succession +is blue, white, red. Out of this flag, or bow, +in the political heavens there is no hope to come, +for it yields no promise but that of a deluge,—<i>rouge</i>.</p> + +<p>The sanguinary death of Louis XVI. is foreshown +at <a href="#Page_241">p. 241</a>. In the “Luminary Epistle” to Henri II. +(<a href="#Page_69">p. 69</a>) the very year is given (1792) to which the +quatrain of Louis’s death refers. Take next the +arrest at Varennes (<a href="#Page_243">p. 243</a>), and then another miracle +of precision shines forth; for Saulce, the grocer’s +name in that little town, is pregiven (<a href="#Page_248">p. 248</a>). The +Tuilleries are mentioned by name,—a place where +burnt a tile-kiln, when Nostradamus was inditing for +us the prophecy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span></p> + +<p>Now refer to the Napoleonic rule (<a href="#Page_286">p. 286</a>). See +Napoleon born in the west of Europe, and the way +he could seduce, in a language not his own, is pointed +out to you; and, his name is to be a name that the +Fates know (<a href="#Page_287">p. 287</a>).</p> + +<p>Take, again, that strange identification of the +Gallic Hercules with his analogue Napoleon. How, +as a jay taught by Talma, he at the Tuilleries apes +the fine birds and court splendour of the old <i>régime</i> +(<a href="#Page_294">p. 294</a>). Then read the quatrain at <a href="#Page_297">p. 297</a>, where +the simple soldier reaches empire, and so strikes +close analogy again with Cromwell. Then read +(<a href="#Page_300">p. 300</a>) that awful curse fulminated, when counsel +shall die out of the shaven head; see Sclavonia gather +(<a href="#Page_303">p. 303</a>), and old Moscow burn, whilst the eagle (<a href="#Page_304">p. +304</a>) is beaten back with a swarm of birds, and hovers +to its fall at Leipsic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</span></p> + +<p>I do not deem it necessary to particularize any +further; for if all this gathered into one conspectus +is not enough to carry conviction home to the mind +of any one; and, make the reader know that at Salon, +three hundred and odd years since, there lived a +Frenchman, who saw all this in visions of the night, +interpretative speech accompanying, and set it down +at first in too clear prose, and secondly in rhythmic +riddles afterwards; why, then, I think that fifty times +more evidence, thrown in upon the top, could carry no +conviction with it.</p> + +<p>I have said many things about science and its +modern tendencies that will be deemed foolish by +some, and by others undeservedly severe, so that a +few words upon it seem necessary here. If the word +“science” merely means the study of nature, it has +my admiration as a pursuit. But if it means <i>knowledge</i>, +I say it is an absolute misnomer. There is no +true knowledge out of wisdom, and all that is wisdom +in man is comprised in his veneration of Deity. +“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” +It is evident, that what we call science in this day, +does not tend that way at all.</p> + +<p>But, to take it briefly another way, if you do not +know the <i>first cause</i> of anything, you can only attain +to a knowledge of relativities, but never of anything +as it is in itself. Your methods can have neither +beginning nor end. Hence a man can only attain to +relative knowledge which, in the strict meaning of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</span>words, is not knowledge at all. Thus science is +impossible.</p> + +<p>Those, who pretend to science, talk much now about +an Atomic Theory. They speak of their atom, contrary +to its etymology, as being a thing infinitely +divisible. This they adopt as a subterfuge, that no +one may be able to drive them home. But if you +leave them to their own devices,—their own chemical +analyses, quantitative and qualitative, when they get +beyond vapour, leave them in possession of a <i>nothing</i> +to divide. It is then they approach Deity <i>in minimis</i>; +but for the cloud upon their sight they cannot see +Him. Such men apprehend nothing except through +the intellect; but the perfect intellect yields only half +the man. It can only deal with the subject-matter +furnished to it by the senses. There is, high-placed +above it, the spirit of life; which possesses a sense of +its own, and by this the heart and head are interlinked. +When the ideas (for lack of a better word) +of these two are thought into harmony,—or, what +Coleridge would call “unity,”—then, and then only, is +the comment of the whole man perfect. Take this +for an axiom: If you believe your sense, you may be +right; if you believe your senses, you are out of +them.</p> + +<p><i>Cogito ergo sum</i> (“I think therefore I am”) has +been accredited to Descartes as wisdom for a long +time. It is nonsense. It is a proof gathered from +the action of the intellect alone, and is a <i>critique</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</span>physical, rather than metaphysical, and here can +afford no proof of anything.</p> + +<p>Another word about <i>Atoms</i>, and I must have done, +or this will not be a preface, but a metaphysical +treatise; and though that may be greatly wanted, this +is not the place for it. Yet, as I have arraigned +science, it becomes advisable that I should furnish to +the competent reader a spot or foothold, where being +placed, he may, if he will, command my meaning. +In the Chaldaic oracles there occur two curious lines; +I quote them below that there may be no equivocation +possible.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> “Now, these fabricate individual +things (τὰ ἄτομα, atoms), and sensible objects, and +corporeal things, and things classed under matter.” +The Neoplatonists said that ideas were an emanation +of the divine fire. Plato said very much the same +thing of the human soul itself. An atom thus +becomes a fiery <i>individuality</i> (atomic); not, observe, +what the nonsensical chemist of to-day calls it,—when +by his terrene fire he has reached vapour,—an infinitely +divisible atom, but a particle indivisible; that, having +traversed all the forms, goes out at the other end of +matter; or back again in a chariot of fire to the idea +it started from. The world’s Opifex made it by fire, +and the tradition of Elias is that it will be dissolved +by fire at last; but what, friend, should it prove that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</span>it is every day doing so always? A fiery idea began +it, and in an idea of fire it ends. Also man’s life is +nothing but a leap through matter from fire to fire. +The ordeal by fire was a type of this.</p> + +<p>The professional critic and expert must, after this +sketch, be left to himself to judge of everything here +set down according to the established rules of art, +and the interests multifarious of the special literary +organ he may write for and derive emolument from. +I expect but little recognition from such criticism; +yet, as it is often the result of a life devoted to +study and of wide learning, its indifference, or even +its hostility, is likely to prove useful,—whether by its +fault-finding or in its discovery of actual error. +Whatever its sagacity may in this way show to be +wrong, I hope to receive with equanimity and thankfulness, +and to put right should a second edition be +asked for. So much for the professional critics.</p> + +<p>What remains to be said touching my method of +treatment will probably have no interest whatever for +such critic, nor yet for the general reader. It purely, +and I think solely, concerns the thoughtful and +capable reader. The exceptional man, who finally, +and all the world over, is the best friend of the true +writer; and who, banded with others like himself, +determines solidly the value of, and ultimate position +to be given to, every new book, that is a book at all, +born into the world of letters.</p> + +<p>Such a reader I would only forewarn against two +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</span>preliminary objections, that might at a hasty first +glance tend to excite some prejudice in his mind. +The episodes indulged in, and the apparent self-sufficiency +of utterance exhibited on questions of +moment, that seemingly wise men are divided upon +still; or that men of supposed authority have in +general estimation settled long ago. Many such +things will here be found to have been laid bare +again to the very roots, and challenged to show a +reason. This is absolute arrogance everywhere in +the estimation of the multitude, learned and unlearned, +Reader, gentle and capable, let me give you +my view on these two points: could I make it also +your view, how well rewarded should I be.</p> + +<p>As to episodes: my own view of a book is this, that +it should furnish a stimulus to thought if possible at +every page; that nothing should enter into it for the +sake of book-making; and that, so long as the subject +of the book is clearly and consecutively advanced, +anything else, that can vitally be thrown in without +interruption, is so much the more gained to the world +in the study of itself, or, in other words, in the study +of man; this Pope has, I incline to think rightly, +ruled to be his proper vocation here. Very close and +consecutive treatment of a difficult matter must +always, when long continued, weigh down the spirits, +and somewhat fatigue the attention of the reader. +At such a time an interesting episode happily introduced +will rally the spirits; and, by a momentary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</span>diversion, will renew the attention, enabling the reader +to attach himself again with vigour to the main +thread. There are episodes of course, as there are +other things, good and bad. The episode that is dull +in itself and distracts attention is bad; that which is +in itself interesting and relieves fatigue, carrying the +mind back to the main subject refreshed, is entirely +good. The episodes in the following pages the reader +will judge to be good or bad as they fall under the +rule given above or transgress it.</p> + +<p>The charge of arrogancy is a little more difficult to +deal with, and also to rebut. But even here I do not +despair of being exonerated by the capable reader, +whom alone, on this point, it is requisite to address. +Many years ago I came upon a passage in Coleridge +to the effect that he had always pursued light, believing +that it must lead to truth, and truth to happiness; +but that, let it consummate in joy or not, follow +it he would, for truth’s sake. Truth attracted, and +he, in fact, must draw to it. I shut the book up, and +said, So will I; and, with certain failures, much interruption +by necessary duties, and innumerable personal +shortcomings, so I have. The result has been an +ever-increasing solitude,⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> until at last no eremite of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxviii">[xxviii]</span>the desert is more alone than I for years have been. +Thus placed, I have thought on many questions, with +books and without them, caring but little what the +greatest said, so only I kept moving onward towards +that spot where the light of morning dawned, or +where the still rathelier twilight promised dawning. +My attention always lay between things and thoughts, +keeping clean aloof from vain opinion, which leads to +nothing, though she be, according to Pascal, <i>Regina +del mondo</i>. As no renown of genius could bring me +to respect any man’s opinion; so I strove that no self-seeking, +nor hope out of some novelty or strangeness +to win originality, might bring me to adopt any +principle soever that fell short of justness in the least, +or of sacred truth anyhow attainable by man. As I +sank others, so have I sunk myself and all personal +belongings, striving, if I might, to make myself a +trumpet of smooth passage or clear mouthpiece to +the truth that lies behind us all,—behind every man +that cometh into the world,—though haply there be +but few who can allow it free enough scope and exit +through them. As in this way I have grown nearly +dead both to myself and others, and want little of +emolument and less of glory (accurrent from without), +it seemed not unlikely that so epurated a voice-piece +might utter more of less adulterate truth, than it +falls in common to the lot of most to do. So much +am I a mere person (<i>persona</i>), mask, thing sounded +through, as that the voice at last seems scarcely to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxix">[xxix]</span>mine at all, but something larger, higher, better much, +than I pretend to be. I do not even claim a perfect +utterance, or out-put, for what remains of me,—call it +trumpet, mask, person, or what not,—must remain, I +know, always beset with some earth and earthiness +that mars a pure transmission. Yet, weak as it may +be and is, the weak things of the world are those +that most confound the mighty ones established of +authority by man. Where is any boasting, I ask, in +this; or what of arrogance is here? Will any man +spend thirty years thus to become a voice-tube +merely? None the less is it at last a voice crying in +the wilderness, “Desolate are those who in the earth +lack vision of wisdom, or call gold wealth.” Capable +and gentle reader, test this prologue, and try it, +believing, that if there be any good thing in it, solitude +and The Alone have wrought it. With them, as by +seraphic marshalling,—with tent pitched, or travelling +on, under the night-star or by day,—you may safely +thread the pages following, assured that nothing but +good can issue or accrue therefrom to you. Most +excellent reader, let <i>Vale Valete!</i> fall as the benediction +of an eremite upon your ear to-day; as also +upon your pilgrimage hereafter, till the hour vespertine +of sleep drop down, that closes all for each.</p> + +<p class="mt2 f90"><span class="smcap">Walthamstow, E., 1891.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxx">[xxx]</span></p> + +<blockquote class="f90"> + +<p>“Quelle physique corpusculaire, quels atomes déterminent ainsi leur +nature? vous n’en savez rien; la cause sera éternellement occulte pour +vous. Tout ce qui vous entoure, tout ce qui est dans vous, est une +énigme dont il n’est pas donné à l’homme de deviner le mot.”—<span class="smcap">Voltaire</span>, +<i>Dict. Phil.</i>, s.v. <i>Occultes</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxi">[xxxi]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> + +</div> + +<nav> +<table> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Life of Nostradamus</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LIFE_OF_NOSTRADAMUS">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">The Preface of Michael Nostradamus to his Prophecies</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PREFACE_A_MON_FILS">42</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Epistle To Henry II.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#EPISTLE_TO_HENRY_II">55</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Magic</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MAGIC">75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Historical Fragments</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#HISTORICAL_FRAGMENTS">89</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Henri Quatre</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#HENRI_QUATRE">128</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Louis XIII.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOUIS_XIII">142</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Louis XIV.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOUIS_XIV">150</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Louis XV.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOUIS_XV">164</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">England</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#ENGLAND">166</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">French Revolution</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FRENCH_REVOLUTION">227</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Louis XVI.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOUIS_XVI">241</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">The National Convention</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_NATIONAL_CONVENTION">272</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Pius VI.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PIUS_VI">280</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Napoleonic Rule</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#NAPOLEONIC_RULE">286</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Louis XVIII. and Louis Philippe</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#LOUIS_XVIII_AND_LOUIS_PHILIPPE">324</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Republic, 1848, and Napoleon III.</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#REPUBLIC_AND_NAPOLEON_III">337</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="smcap">Appendix</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#APPENDIX">351</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</nav> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxii">[xxxii]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="poetry-container f90"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“In Nature’s infinite book of secrecy</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A little can I read.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Anthony and Cleopatra</i>, i. 2.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<blockquote class="f90"> + +<p>“I am Isaiah,—be it spoken with all humility,—to the advancement +of God’s glory.”—<span class="smcap">Luther’s</span> <i>Table Talk</i>, Bohn, p. 12.</p> + +<p>Yes, indeed, Luther, with quite Lutheran humility!</p> + +</blockquote> + +<div class="poetry-container f90"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent10">“Canys gwn a fydd rhag llaw.”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“For I know what has been, and will be hereafter.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Taliessin.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<blockquote class="f90"> + +<p>“Prophetia est solum futurorum contingentium, quia longe distant ab +humana cognitione; sed secundario ad eam pertinent præterita et præsentia.”—<span class="smcap">St. +Tho. Aquinatis</span>, <i>Summa</i>, p. 409.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h1>ORACLES OF NOSTRADAMUS.</h1> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIFE_OF_NOSTRADAMUS">LIFE OF NOSTRADAMUS.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>Michel de Nostredame was born in +Provence, in the town of St. Remy, in the year +1503, upon a Thursday, the 14th of December, about +noon. Tycho Brahe (1546), D’Herbelot (1625) the great +Orientalist, and Bruce (1730) the Abyssinian traveller, +were all born on the same day of the month. Coincidences +such as these are, perhaps, not worth much; +yet, do they interest us less than the rainfall of a month, +or the precise pressure of the wind on Cleopatra’s +needle?—which goes by the name of Cleopatra +because Cleopatra had nothing whatever to do with +it. Robert Étienne, the great printer, was also born +in 1503. What would, however, more have affected +the family of Nostradamus is the expulsion of the +French from Naples on October 31, 1503, after the +famous battles in April, fought on two consecutive +Fridays with disaster to the French; the battles +namely, of Seminara and Cerignola. Many have +said that the evil omen attaching to Friday dates +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>from that period. If we had never heard of Good +Friday we also might have been of their opinion.</p> + +<p>His father, like Milton’s, a notary, was James +Nostradamus, a name which is equivalent to <i>de Nôtre +Dame</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> + Moreri calls his family “<i>une famille noble</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +others say that he was of Jewish descent, but of a +family that had been converted to Christianity, and +that he claimed to be of the tribe of Issachar, deriving +thence his gift of prophecy, for they were “men that +had understanding of the times, to know what Israel +ought to do” (1 Chron. xii. 32); or, as in Esther i. 13, +“the seven wise men that knew the times.” It is true +that but few of the orthodox commentators interpret +these passages as signifying astrological or prophetic +forecast; but that may be, nevertheless, the real +meaning (vid. Poole’s “Synopsis”).</p> + +<p>How could Nostradamus be of Issachar, as that +was one of the lost tribes? would be a natural +inquiry enough; and one could only answer it, as the +wit did, in a case somewhat similar, that He could +only resemble Issachar in being a great, “strong ass” +(Gen. xlix. 14).</p> + +<p>His mother’s name was Renée de Saint Remy. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>Her ancestors by the father’s and mother’s side were +men skilled in mathematics and medicine: one was +physician to René, or Renatus, titular King of Jerusalem +and Sicily, and Count of Provence; whilst the +other was physician to John, Duke of Calabria, who +was the son of King René. Our author, in his Commentaries, +says that a knowledge of mathematics had +traditionally descended (<i>de main en main</i>) to him +from his early progenitors; and, in the Preface to his +“Centuries,” he adds: “<i>Que la parole héréditaire de +l’occulte prédiction sera dans son estomac intercluse</i>.”</p> + +<p>It was his great-grandfather⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> who gave him, almost +as in sport, a first taste for the celestial sciences. +After the death of this relative he was put to school +at Avignon, to study his humanity courses, and thence +he went to the university at Montpellier, to acquire +philosophy and the theory of medicine.</p> + +<p>Montpellier, the Mons Pessulanus of antiquity, contains +the most famous school of medicine in all +France. It is ancient, and is said to have been +founded by Arabian physicians when forced to fly +from Spain—Moreri says in the year 1196, by the +disciples of Averroes and Avicenna. Its inhabitants +are reputed to be witty and most polite. It once had +numerous noble churches and many religious establishments, +but since the Huguenots became masters +of it, in 1561, they ruined all this, and made the city +the head-quarters of their party for a time. Louis XIII. +besieged it in 1622, and took it. His first act was to +rebuild the Cathedral of St. Peter and the other +churches; the desecration of all such edifices being the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>Puritan and Huguenot fashion there and everywhere. +The town seems always to have been a fief of the +Crown of France. But a number of kinglets, such as +the King of Aragon and the King of Majorca, appear +at different times to have had seignorial rights in +Montpellier; and many church councils have been +held there. All these matters are of some slight +interest, as furnishing in a filmy fashion a notion of +those influences, mental and physical, that would +have been floating around Nostradamus when studying +there. The seizure of the town by the Huguenots +would have occurred some years before his death. As +he was a true Churchman, their successes would have +embittered his mind, and may have influenced some +of the visions contained in the “Sixains” and +“Présages.”</p> + +<p>It may interest us as Englishmen to know that in +the extensive botanical garden at Montpellier lie the +remains of Miss Temple, the Narcissa, whose death +and funeral are so vividly recounted by Young in the +“Night Thoughts.” He appears to have considerably +misrepresented the transaction; but George Eliot has +made up for it by a criticism upon him and his +works, conceived, perhaps, in the grossest and worst +taste that criticism from a woman’s pen has ever fallen +into. She grows so angry that she can hardly even +see that Young is a poet in any sense of the word. +She might easily have found out that he was, by +comparing some of her own verses with his.</p> + +<p>Another point of interest to us in regard to +Montpellier is the reversal of public opinion touching +the climate of the place. Brompton, sixty or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>eighty years ago, was, from the mildness and salubrity +of its air, coupled with its then semi-rural aspect, +called “the Montpellier of London.” The analogy +could never have been very remarkable, as Brompton +is about on a level with the River Thames, whereas +Montpellier’s splendid promenade of the Place de +Peyron is 168 feet above the sea-level, whilst the whole +town runs up the hillside, as its name expresses. +Still, the phrase testifies to the opinion then prevalent. +Owing to the brightness of its atmosphere +and the beauty of its suburbs, the town was long +recommended by British physicians as a health-resort +to patients suffering from pulmonary complaints; +but the weather-vane of science has now reversed +that opinion entirely. Its climate is found to be +changeable, its sunshine is blazing, its atmosphere +is charged with dust that is impalpable, all the +while that it seems to be clear; and its cold mistral +blasts do but portend a spot most singularly hurtful +to the lungs. The fashion varies in localities, drugs, +theories, and treatment, and as a health resort for +English people the reputation of Montpellier has +passed away; but the “École de Médecine” still +retains its ancient renown as the central seminary of +medical instruction in France.</p> + +<p>Learned and medical as it was in the days of +Nostradamus, it could not escape visitation by a great +plague,⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and Michael Nostradamus had to retreat to +Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux. In these towns +he commenced practice, when about twenty-two years +of age, and four years later he bethought him of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>returning to Montpellier for refreshment, and to take +his Doctor’s degree. This he got through very +quickly, and in a manner that won him the admiration +and applause of the whole College. In returning +to Toulouse he passed through Agen, a town on the +Garonne, where he met with no less a person than +the learned Jules César Scaliger,⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> with whom he +entered at once into the most intimate familiarity. +This induced him to take up his permanent residence +in the town. But after a while their cordiality grew +less, till rivalry and pique sprang up between them, +and they thenceforth stood aloof from one another. +Here he married a lady “<i>une fort honorable demoiselle</i>,” +though history has not divulged her name. By +her he had two children, who died young; she also +died. Finding himself again companionless, he returned +to his natal soil of Provence. When he reached +Marseilles, he was invited by the Parliament of Provence +to come to Aix, where he stayed three years, +receiving a salary from the city from the time the +plague broke out, in 1546. It seems to have raged +fiercely, and it is said that he furnished to the +Seigneur de Launay the reports which he has given +in his book, “Le Théâtre du Monde.”</p> + +<p>After the contagion passed away, the town, Moreri +records, voted him for several years following a considerable +pension. His services must consequently +have been recognized as valuable. He has left us the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>formula of his plague powder in Chapter VIII. of his +treatise “Des Fards.” As a curious instance of the +modesty of the women of Aix, he records that +they began to sew themselves up in their winding +sheets, as soon as they were attacked by the contagion, +that their bodies might not be exposed naked +after death (“Penny Cyclopædia”). I suppose we +may judge from this that the system of burial during +the contagion was as gross and indecent as in the +famous plague of London; or is this only a fanciful +imitation of the story of the women of Marseilles in +classical times?</p> + +<p>He went thence to Salon de Craux, which lies +midway between Avignon and Marseilles. Here he +married for the second time. The lady’s name is +given by Garencières as Anna Ponce Genelle; Anne +Poussart, says Moreri; others say Pons Jumel. (See +the epitaph further on.) There is the same incertitude +as to his family. Jean Aimes de Chavigny, whom we +are following, makes it to consist of six children, three +boys and three girls; while Garencières says three +sons and one daughter.</p> + +<p>It was here, relates our memoir, that, foreseeing +great mutations were about to affect all Europe, and +that civil wars and troubles were so soon to come +upon the kingdom of France, he felt an unaccountable +and new enthusiasm springing up uncontrollably +in his mind, which at last amounted almost to a +maddening fever, till he sat down to write his +“Centuries” and other “Presages,” The first of these +“Presages” is dated 1555, and runs as follows:—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“D’Esprit divin l’ame presage atteinte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trouble, famine, peste, guerre courir;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Eaux, siccitez, terre et mer de sang teinte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Paix, tresac à naistre, Prelats, Princes mourir!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He kept them by him for a long time, half afraid to +risk the publication; he foresaw there was danger, and +that it would lead to infinite detraction, calumny, and +backbiting, as indeed it finally fell out. A thing like +this is like the fox stolen by the Spartan youth, that +eats the heart out, and is sure to get vent sooner or +later. His memorialist says, that at last, overcome +by a desire to be useful to the public, he produced +them. No sooner had he done so than the rumour +ran from mouth to mouth, at home and abroad, that +something marvellous and admirable had appeared. +One cannot see of what use they could be to the +public, as they could not possibly be understood till +they were interpreted after the event and by it. In +some of the quatrains he says as much himself. He +no doubt published them because he felt an intense +longing so to do; and, when the mind of a man reaches +this stage of desire, it will not take him long to find +some excellent reason for carrying out the impulsion. +Public good, the advancement of religion, the sustentation +of faith, the psychological inference as to +the immortality of the human soul, or any other good +phrase, will serve a man as a sufficient reason for +doing what he wants to do. That man must be a +great searcher into his own consciousness, if he cannot +readily assume that the motive assigned in such a +case is the <i>causa causativa</i> of the act of putting forth.</p> + +<p>Moreri’s account is not exactly the same as that of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>our memoir. Moreri describes him as being invited +to Lyons in 1547, but as returning very quickly to +Salon, only to find that his popularity at the latter +place had greatly abated. The disappointment he +experienced from this treatment made him withdraw +a good deal from society, and commit himself the +more to hard study. He tells us that he had for a +long time previously practised divination; now he +began to think himself to be directly inspired as to +the future. From this time, as the lights occurred to +his mind, he began committing them to writing at the +moment. He set them down at first in plain prose, +if you can call enigmatical sentences plain prose; at +any rate, they were not written in verse.</p> + +<p>Garencières’ version varies again. With him it is, +that Nostradamus found by experience that the +perfect knowledge of medicine is unattainable without +the aid of astrology, to which he now addicted himself. +It is an alluring science, and one towards the +pursuit of which his natural genius strongly disposed +him, so that he made very rapid progress in it. His +first publications in this line consisted of almanacs, +according to the custom of the time, for profit and +recreation’s sake; and in these he so happily hit off +the conjuncture of events that both he and his publications +became greatly sought after. It is somewhat +curious that so few of these almanacs appear to be +now extant. One would have expected that documents +of such interest, once in type, would not perish +entirely from all households and libraries. It may, +however, be taken as a proof of the maelstrom of +time that engulfs everything, so that by the period +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>when posterity grows interested in any event, all its +belated questionings are presented with a universal +blank. The spirit of literary piracy, too, seems to have +been rife in those early days. The success of his +work soon became a cause of discredit to him, as it +led enterprising printers and booksellers to vend, +under his name, almanacs destitute of everything that +had constituted the merit of his.</p> + +<p>When the work made its appearance, it divided the +public. Some called the prophet a simple visionary, +or, in coarser phrase, a fool; others accused him of +magic, and of being in too close treaty with the Devil +to be honest. A few held their judgment in suspense, +and would pronounce no opinion on the subject. A +vast number of the grandees and of the learned, both +at home and abroad, thought that he was endowed +with a gift supernatural; and amongst these were +Henri II. and Catherine de Medici. It remained to +the <i>esprits forts</i> and the ignorant public, who knew +nothing of him but his name, to pronounce him a +charlatan and impostor. There is one thing certain, +he felt much hesitation as to publishing at all; and, +when he took that step at last, he addressed the book +to his infant son, and not to any public character, in +the year 1555. At this period he would be fifty-two. +This is not a time of life at which men usually commence +a course of imposture. When he is summoned +to the Court at Paris, loaded with honours and consulted +on high matters (<i>de choses importantes</i>), he displays +nothing but moderation and good sense, and +returns contentedly to his modest home at Salon. +Upon all ordinary lines of human judgment, such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>conduct seems to indicate genuineness; and this is +strengthened, if not established, by his genuine +gravity of deportment and serious religious sentiments. +Nobody has denied the purity of his life. +Still, a certain Lord Pavillon, of his own day, wrote +against him, or perhaps against this publishers’ figment +of a name, rather than his. Further, we find the book +led to the bitter epigrammatic distich of the poet +Jodele, or as others say, of Beza,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Nostradamus cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Et cum falsa damus, nil nisi nostra damus.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">This can very easily be turned against the piratical +almanac makers, thus:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Vera damus cum verba damus quæ Nostradamus dat;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sed cum nostra damus, nil nisi falsa damus.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In spite of piracy and obloquy, the repute of +Nostradamus grew, as we have said, in influential +quarters, until it came to the ears of Queen Catherine +de Medici and Henri II., on the publication, in March, +1555, of the first seven Centuries of his “Prophecies.” +The remaining Centuries, the Sixains, and Presages, +were not published till long after. In the following +year, 1556, they sent for him to attend the Court in +Paris: though Garencières says he left Salon on +July 14, 1555, and reached Paris on August 15th, a +particularity which seems to indicate special knowledge.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +The Lord Constable Montmorency attended +him at his inn, and presented him to the king in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>person. The king showed him high favour, and +ordered him to be lodged at the palace of the +Cardinal de Bourbon, Archbishop of Sens, during his +stay in the capital.</p> + +<p>When there a severe attack of gout seized him, that +lasted ten or twelve days. His majesty sent him two +hundred crowns in gold (two hundred écus d’or; vid. +Moreri) in a velvet purse, and the queen one hundred +crowns (Le Pelletier, i. 92). They then despatched +him to Blois, to visit their children, the royal princes, +and give his astrological opinion. He repaired thither, +and seems to have acquitted himself to the satisfaction +of the king. It is quite certain that he did not +tell them precisely what he thought,⁠<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> for the princes +were Francis II., Charles IX., and Henri III., whose +tragical fates he has correctly set out, and with unmistakable +clearness, as may be seen (at pp. 84, 86, 96) +by the forecasts in his strange book. He, however, +cast their horoscopes and acquitted himself in this, as in +all other transactions, <i>en homme d’esprit</i>. He returned +to Salon so much encouraged that he set to work +and completed his “Centuries,” consisting of three +hundred more quatrains. These further quatrains he +appears to have printed in 1558, but Garencières says +that he dedicated them to the king in 1557. The +only thing that is certain is that the Texte-type dates +the epistle June 27, 1558. This “Luminary Epistle” +to the king, Garencières tells us, discovers future +events “from the birth of Louis XIV., now reigning, +till the coming of antichrist.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p> + +<p>Henri II. was killed the following year, 1559, at +the tournament of St. Quentin, as we shall see it fully +set forth at Quatrain 35 in Century I.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> + +<p>He had now become quite a court favourite, for +Emanuel, the Duke of Savoy, visited him at his house +at Salon about this period, in the month of October; +and, in the December following, the Princesse Marguerite +de France, sister of Henri II, who by the +treaty of peace at Cambresis was to marry the duke, +came also to Nostradamus, entertaining him very +familiarly (Garencières and Moreri).</p> + +<p>Charles IX. made a progress through the kingdom +in 1564, to quiet the cities that had mutinied; and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>when he came to Provence, on arriving at Salon, +November 17th, he asked first of all for Nostradamus. +Nostradamus was in the suite of magistrates around +the king, so that he was presented on the instant, +upon which the king made him his Physician in +Ordinary, and honoured him with the title of Counsellor. +He complained rather bitterly of the neglect +with which his fellow-townsmen treated him. César +Nostradamus reports this, saying, “<i>Et de ce, me +souviens fort bien, car je fus de la partie</i>” (Moreri). +On the return journey he again inquired for Nostradamus, +and gave him two hundred écus. He was at +this time over sixty, and with his health fast breaking +under severe attacks of gout. He died within about +sixteen months of this period, and the salary and +profits of Physician in Ordinary must have greatly +comforted the old man in his latter days. He enjoyed +now the further satisfaction of being flocked to by +learned men, grandees, and others, who resorted to +him far and near, as to an oracle. “As St. Jerome +remarks of Livy, so may we remark of him,” says his +biographer, Jean Aimes, “that those who came to +France sought Nostradamus as the only thing to be +seen there.”</p> + +<p>The closing scene is now drawing very near, and +we find him much afflicted with his maladies, notably +arthritic gout, as distinguished from podagra, which +Dr. Cullen considers as the seat of idiopathic gout. +He awaited with firmness his climacteric, as they +used to designate a man’s sixty-third year. He died +on the 2nd of July, 1566, a little before sunrise, +having all his senses yet about him, for the arthritis +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>turned to dropsy about eight days previously, and +early on the second day of the month suffocated him. +Jean Aimes says that Nostradamus was well advised +of the time, even of the very day and hour, when his +death must take place. The prophet reminded him +frequently towards the close of the previous June that +he had written with his own hand, in the Ephemerides +of Jean Stadius, these words in Latin, <i>Hic prope mors +est</i> (“Here is death at hand”). “The day,” continues +this friend, “before he exchanged this life for a better, +after I had spent many hours with him, and late at +night was taking leave of him until the following morning, +he said, ‘You will not see me alive at sunrise.’” +M. le Pelletier gives (i. 91) Presage 141 as a stanza +pointing to his own death; but, as the “Presages” +were not printed till 1568, their authenticity may or +may not be accepted as the reader feels inclined. +The lines run thus, and are remarkable enough, if we +admit that they were a genuine forecast; for, although +they assign no specific date, yet they sum up the +principal facts rather fully:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“De retour d’Ambassade, don de Roy mis au lieu;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus n’en fera; sera allé à Dieu:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Parans plus proches, amis, freres du sang,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trouvé tout mort près du lict et du banc.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The meaning given to this is, that on his return +from Arles, whence he was sent for, in 1564, by +Charles IX., to see him a second time, after he had +safely put away the three hundred crowns given him +by the king and queen, his last transaction would be +concluded, and he would then render his soul to God. +His nearest relatives, brothers, and friends would find +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>him dead near his bed, seated, as was customary with +him, on the bench at its foot, as he could there +breathe more freely.</p> + +<p>This is the interpretation put upon it by M. le +Pelletier. As I understand César Nostradamus, the +king did not send for him to Arles, but asked again +for him on his majesty’s return to Salon; and I +should think the word “ambassade” must refer to +some private mission the king had sent him upon +entirely apart from this, and for which he paid him. +Be this as it may, the fact that Nostradamus assigns +no date for his death, in this presage, goes to establish +its authenticity, one would incline to say. For supposing +it to have been foisted in, after his death, +surely a fabricator of the marvellous would first of all +have made it to show <i>trois vingts et trois bis</i>, and +twisted that into some colourable shape. He would +have been little likely to add as a prophetical feature +that the king’s present had been put away in a safe +place, as to do so seems anything rather than a +supernatural instinct. It is a touch of prose more +than of the Python. On the whole, I should incline +to take the verse for a genuine emanation from the +pen of Nostradamus. Certainly he would recognize, +even medically, that, as he found himself to be +growing “<i>fort caduc et débile</i>” towards his climacterical +year, he would know that his dissolution was +at hand. A man’s grand climacteric is generally +considered to arrive at 63, though some place it at +81, that number being composed of 9 times 9. In +either of these periods, if sickness occur, it is considered +as especially likely to prove fatal.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<p>There seems to be a diversity of opinion about +this, for some say that the <i>annus climactericus</i> is 84, +or 12 times 7. Aulus Gellius thinks the opinion +to be of immense antiquity, running back to the +Chaldeans; and no doubt Pythagoras derived it +from the East. Ficinus explains it by saying that +the body of man is ruled over by each planet in turn +for the space of one year, and, Saturn being the most +maleficent, every seventh year falling to his presidency +becomes extremely dangerous. This explanation +would shut out the nines, except in the sixty-third +and eighty-first year, but it would also vitiate the +whole scheme of astrology, for the planet under which +a man was born (say he were born under Saturn) +would dominate his body at birth, and be, one must +suppose, the ruling planet that year, and, if it were +Saturn, would recur only on his eighth year. Eighty-four +would not be in favour generally, as it consists +entirely of even numbers, though divisible by seven. +Many held that only a number produced by the +multiplication of an odd number could be climacterical. +Augustus thought it a subject of great +rejoicing when he had passed over his sixty-third +year.⁠<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Moreri will have eighty-one to be properly +speaking the climacteric, and he notes that at this age +died Plato, Diogenes, Eratosthenes the geometer, and +many other illustrious personages. Some went so +far as to say that political bodies had their climacterical +periods; and they certainly, judging from our +own country, have periods of fatal folly, whether or no +the nines and sevens collide, or the stars fight against +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>Sisera. But amongst other oddities of history may be +chronicled the fact that Henri Quatre was the sixty-third +King of France, which made Malherbe talk of—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“La vaine étude s’applique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A trouver la climatérique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De l’éternelle fleur-de-lis”—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">that <i>fleur-de-lis</i> whose terrible withering up in the +fatal year of ’93 Nostradamus so powerfully forecasts.</p> + +<p>Suffice it to say that in this climacterical crisis +Nostradamus succumbed in his sixty-third year to +gout, which turned to dropsy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Nostradamus was interred at the church of the +Franciscan Friars (Les Cordéliers) at Salon, as it is +noted, on the left-hand side of the church door +(Garencières). His widow erected to him a marble +tablet, “representing his figure to the life, and his +arms above it.” The epitaph is as follows, made, they +say, in imitation of that great Livy aforenamed, the +Roman historian:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="center">D. M.<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">CLARISSIMI OSSA</span><br> +<br> +MICHAELIS NOSTRADAMI,<br> +<br> +<span class="allsmcap">UNIUS OMNIUM MORTALIUM JUDICIO DIGNI,<br> +CUJUS PENE DIVINO CALAMO TOTIUS ORBIS,<br> +EX ASTRORUM INFLUXU, FUTURI EVENTUS<br> +CONSCRIBERENTUR.<br> +VIXIT ANNOS LXII. MENSES VI. DIES XVII.<br> +OBIIT SALONE AN. CIↃIↃLXVI.<br> +QUIETEM POSTERI NE INVIDETE. ANNA PONTIA GEMELLA<br> +CONJUGI OPT. V. FELICIT.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p> + +<p class="center mt2"><span class="smcap">Translation.</span></p> + +<p>“Here lie the bones of the illustrious Michael Nostradamus, +whose almost divine pen alone, in the judgment of all mortals, +was worthy to record, under the influx of the stars, the future +events of the whole world. He lived 62 years, 6 months, 17 +days. He died at Salon in the year 1566. Posterity, disturb +not his sweet rest! Anne Ponce Gemelle hopes for her husband +true felicity.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The text of this epitaph is that given by Benoist +Rigaud in the edition of Nostradamus published by +him in 1568.</p> + +<p>In stature he was somewhat undersized, of a robust +body, sprightly, and vigorous. He had a broad and +open forehead, a straight even nose, grey eyes, of +kindly expression, but in anger capable of flashing +fire. The general expression was severe, though +pleasant, so that a grand humanity shone through +the seriousness. Even in age his cheeks were rosy. +He had a long thick beard, and excellent health till +nearly the close of life; he had his senses, being alert +and keen, up to the very last moment. He had a +good and lively wit, seizing with quick comprehension +everything that he wished to acquire. His judgment +was very penetrating, his memory happy and retentive. +He was taciturn by nature, thought much and +spoke little; but at the right time and occasion he +could discourse extremely well. He was quick, and +sudden even to irascibility; but very patient where +work had to be done. He slept four or five hours +only out of the twenty-four. He practised freedom +of speech himself and commended it in others. He +was cheerful and facetious in conversation, though +in jesting a little given to bitterness. He was attached, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>so says De Chavigny, to the Roman Church, and held +fixedly the Catholic faith; out of its pale there was +for him no salvation. Though pursuing a line of +thought entirely his own, he had no sympathy with +the Lutheran heretics of so-called Freethought. He +was given to prayer, fasting, and charity. As far as +outward observance was concerned, he might be +classed with the highly respectable and decent. Le +Pelletier says, “Sa fin fut Chrétienne;” but he adds a +little further on that his style is very much more like +that of the Pagan oracles of Greece and Rome than +of the canonical prophets of Hebrew inspiration. He +was very generous to the poor, and held it as a +sort of maxim that in this sense it was legitimate +to make friends with “the mammon of unrighteousness.”</p> + +<p>Jean Aimes de Chavigny, who seems to have come +over from Beaune to play the part of a Boswell to +Nostradamus, and, after his friend’s death, is said to +have devoted twenty-eight years of his life to editing +the “Centuries” with notes,⁠<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> says that he collected +twelve books of the “Centuries,” of which vols. vii., +xi., and xii. are imperfect. These are in quatrains, +and are classified as <i>Prophéties</i>, and they extend +to very remote ages. The <i>Presages</i>, we are told, +were written between 1550 and 1567,⁠<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> and were +collected by Aimes and reduced into twelve books +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>in prose, as he thinks them worthy of the attention +of posterity. The few <i>Presages</i> that are in print run +to only one hundred and forty-three quatrains in +verse; so we must suppose that those written in prose +have perished entirely.</p> + +<p>Nostradamus left two brothers behind him: one +named Bertrand; the other, Jean, who was his junior, +and proctor to the Parliament at Aix, composed a +History of Provence, and also wrote the lives of the +Poets of Provence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Moreri states that by his second wife he had six +children, three boys and three girls. Of his sons, +César, the eldest, was a person of demonstratively +gay and kindly spirit. It was to him, when quite a +child, that Nostradamus dedicated the first seven of the +“Centuries” published by him. These are the most +authentic of all, and Moreri remarks that, if you wish +the quatrains to be without interpolation, you should +secure early editions. The reader will understand that +to be now unnecessary, inasmuch as we have all along +been dealing with the <i>Texte-type</i>. César was born at +Salon, 1555, and died 1629. He, like his uncle Jean, +was an author, and wrote upon the same topics, +leaving in manuscript a collection of the most remarkable +things happening in Provence from the +year 1080 to 1494. In this he included the lives of +the poets of Provence. Many years after his death, +his nephew and namesake, César Nostradamus, who +was Governor of Provence and gentleman in waiting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>upon the Duc de Guise, found them, and himself +worked at them, till, in 1603, the Parliament of the +province voted him three thousand livres to encourage +him to complete the work, which he did; and they +were finally printed in Lyons in 1614, under the title +of “Chroniques de l’Histoire de Provence.” He commences +with the Celtic Gauls at the early date of the +Deluge. This is worthy of a true scion of the tribe +of Issachar. A very strange story is told of César by +La Motte le Vayer in his “Instruction pour Monseigneur +le Dauphin.” He, like his father, Michel, +had a taste for forecasting the future, and had +ventured to predict that Pouzin, which was besieged, +would perish by fire; but it was taken by <i>coup de +main</i>. Whilst the pillage was going forward, the +foolish prophet was, it is said, seen, match in hand, +endeavouring to set it on fire. He was caught; and +Saint-Luc, the commander, asked him if he had +prophesied anything for himself that day. He replied, +“No!” on which the general rode at him with his +lance, and killed him on the spot. Moreri relates +this story somewhat differently. If either version +were true, it would be clear that César did not understand +“<i>la parole héréditaire de l’occulte prédiction</i>,” +and that the lancehead instead was “<i>dans son +estomac intercluse</i>.” From other authorities, however, +it would seem that he was busy about his history +long after the date thus assigned for his death. +Charles, his brother, was very excellent in Provençal +poetry, and several pieces of his are still extant. +Michel’s third son, whose name is not given us by +Moreri, became a Capuchin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>An anecdote is related by Garencières, which he +throws out as “a merry passage” to re-create his +reader. Nostradamus was with Lord Florinville in +Lorraine, at the Castle of Faim. He was attending +medically his lordship’s mother. In the yard where +they strolled there were two little pigs, one white and +the other black. His lordship inquired of Nostradamus +jestingly what would be the fate of those pigs. +“We shall eat the black one, and the wolf shall eat the +white,” said he. Lord Florinville secretly ordered the +cook to get ready the white one for supper. When +it was spitted ready for roasting, the cook left the +kitchen for something, and in his absence a young +tame wolf came in and ate a part of it, so that it +could not appear at table. The cook immediately +killed the black one, and sent it up at the time +appointed. His lordship, not knowing what had +happened, said to Nostradamus, “Well, sir, we are +now eating the white pig; how shall the wolf get +it?” “I do not believe it,” rejoined the prophet; “it +is the black one that is upon the table.” The cook +was sent for, and by his confession the truth came out, +much to the surprise of everybody present. Another +story follows this, that Nostradamus had said that +treasure was hidden in a little hill near Faim, that it +would not be found if sought for, but that, if the +ground was dug for any other reason, it would. +Garencières adds that there is great probability about +this, as it is the site of an ancient temple, and many +times since antiquities have been unearthed here. +He completes his cock-and-bull story by saying that +many such tales are told of Nostradamus all over +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>France, but that he passes them by as being “unwilling +to write anything without good warrant.”</p> + +<p>Amongst other nonsensical reports spread was one +that he caused himself to be buried alive, and that he +continued to write prophecies. This, no doubt, was +set afloat by those honest publishers who in life had +done him the honour to pirate his almanacs; at any +rate, it made for their interest. It has also been +pretended that so many in Salon regarded him as an +impostor, that for security’s sake he was buried in the +Franciscan Church.</p> + +<p>Those who desire the Bibliography of the editions +of Nostradamus up to the year 1840 will consult that +which has been admirably drawn up by Eugène +Bareste, Paris, 1840, in his work upon “Nostradamus.” +Or they may find it copied textually, with +all due acknowledgment of its excellence, in the first +volume of Le Pelletier’s edition of the “Oracles.”</p> + +<p>The works of Nostradamus, besides the “Prophecies,” +seem to have been—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Several Almanacs, two of which were translated at once +into English, and are given by Watt, “Bib. Brit.”</p> + +<p>“Almanacke for 1559.” London: 1559. 8vo.</p> + +<p>“Almanacke et Prognostications.” London: 1559. 8vo.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Moreri gives further an—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Almanac for country labourers, to mark the seasons favourable +for their work. A true predecessor, this, of Moore’s <i>Vox +Stellarum</i>.</p> + +<p>“Predictions before 1558.” London: 1691. 4to. This is +named by Watt, and may be a translation of the genuine first +edition of the “Seven Centuries,” but I have not met with it.</p> + +<p>“Prophecies of the Kings and Queens of England.” 1715. +This is the work by D. D. that we have largely quoted from.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p> + +<p>“An excellent Treatise on Contagious Infirmities in 1559-60.” +Translated into English. London: 1559.</p> + +<p>“Traité des Fardements.” Lyon: 1552.</p> + +<p>“Des Confiteurs,” etc. Anvers: 1557.</p> + +<p>“Opuscule de plusieurs exquises Receptes, divisé en deux +parties.” Lyon: 1572. 16mo. This contains both the above.</p> + +<p>“La Remède très utile contre la Peste et toutes Fièvres +pestilentielles.” Paris: 1651. 8vo.</p> + +<p>“Paraphrase de Galien sur exhortation de Menodote aux +Études des Beaux Arts.” Lyon: 1558. 8vo.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Touching the prophecies of Nostradamus, Théophile +de Garencières gives us an interesting fact, that, after +the primer, it was the first book at school in which +he learnt to read. It was the custom in France then +(<i>i.e.</i> 1618) to initiate children by that book. They +thought the crabbed and obsolete words, such as long +survived in the English law, would give the scholars +some idea of the old French language; so that the +book got republished from year to year like an +almanac. He chronicles that many have run mad from +overstudying the prophecies. He dissuades readers +from doing this, because interpretation must always +be a little uncertain where, like an ancient oracle, the +author indulges in a double sense, which he thinks +Nostradamus often does. Without a peculiar genius, +he does not suppose it possible to get at a right +understanding of the quatrain. Even when the +prophecy is quite plain, as that the Parliament should +put King Charles to death, no reader, until it had +happened, could tell when, or how, it would be +brought about. Even his astrological signs will not +fix things, because the planets go and return again +to the same bearings. Some of his reasons are very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>peculiar, one being that it is not profitable for the +<i>vulgar</i> to have knowledge of the future, that God +reserves the knowledge of the times to Himself, and +that it might trespass upon “business of State” to +discover and lay open things which the prudent wish +to conceal; and he concludes, oddly enough, that +“for these reasons (dear Reader) I would not have +thee entangle thyself in the pretentions of knowing +future things.”</p> + +<p>He conceives that there are many concurrent +causes tending to diminish the prophetic reputation +of Nostradamus. The very ordinary manner in +which he conformed to the rules and ritual of the +Roman Catholic Church, would lead no one to infer +that he enjoyed any extraordinary favour from the +Almighty; his proficiency in judicial astrology would +furnish matter of prejudice against him in the minds +of many learned men; the very devout suspected +him of necromancy, and familiarity with the Angel +of Darkness; finally, the inherent obscurity of his +style, has been rendered still more difficult by the +interminable faults introduced by the copyists and +the carelessness of printers. Now, it is admitted, +he says, and by its ablest defenders, that judicial +astrology cannot enable its professor to foretell such +particularities as proper names and other circumstances +that hang upon the freewill of men; and, as +our author does foretell such things as these, he must +have had recourse to the black art to obtain his results. +Accordingly Lord Florimond de Raimond, in his +“Birth of Heresies,” makes this charge against him; +also Lord Spond, in the third volume of his “Annals,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>in 1566, devised this epitaph for him. “Mortuus est +hoc anno nugax ille toto orbe famosus <i>Michel Nostradamus</i>, +qui se præscium et presagum eventuum +futurorum per astrorum influxum venditavit, sub cujus +deinceps nomine quivis homines ingeniosi suas hujus +modi cogitationes protendere consueverent, in quem +valde apposite lusit qui dixit: <i>Nostra damus</i> cum +falsa damus,” etc.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Provoked thus, Garencières endeavours to prove +Nostradamus to have been enlightened by the Holy +Spirit. We shall not follow him in this matter any +further than to avail ourselves of the facts we may +light upon in the course of his arguments, and to +record a few of the eulogies upon him that Garencières +gathers from eminent authors in times past. To +these we may add some authorities who in modern +times have named him; but these mostly sum up his +forecastings as springing from venality, vanity, and +imposture.</p> + +<p>Of proper names, that Nostradamus has anticipated, +the list is considerable. He names the Lord of +Monluc; Captain Charry; Lord de la Mole, Admiral +of the Galleys to Henri II.; Entragues, beheaded by +Louis XIII.; Clarepegne, the headsman; Sinan, the +Pasha who destroyed Hungary; Clément, who +murdered Henri III.; the Attorney David and +Captain Ampus; Rousseau, the Mayor of Puy; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>Louis, Prince of Condé; Sixtus V., calling him son +of Hamont; Gabrielle d’Estrée; Lord Mutonis; +Anthony de Sourdis, Lord Chancellor of France; +the Queen Louise; Antony of Portugal. Since +Garencières’ time other names have been identified: +Narbon, the Minister of War; Saulce; Lethuille, for +the Tuilleries; Lonole, for Old Noll, or Cromwell; +Montmorency; Le Grand Chiren, anagram of Henri +le Grand; Mendosus, anagram of Vendosme; Norlaris, +anagram for Lorrains; Robin, anagram of +Biron; Rapis, anagram for Paris; Esleu Cap, for +Capet, or Louis XVI.; Varennes, the place where +Louis was arrested; the play upon <i>bour</i> and <i>bon</i>, +for Bourbon (Cent. vii. 44); Ergaste, anagram of +Estrange for Marie Antoinette the Austrian; Mont +Gaulfier, for Montgolfier, the æronaut; the island of +Elba, mentioned as Æthalia, the ancient name of +Elba; Sainct Memire, anagram for Sainct Meri; and +the play on “dort leans” for Louis Philippe. This is +a goodly list of names to guess at haphazard. Such +chance as could so result would rival any prophecy +in the miraculous nature of its elements.</p> + +<p>Again, as regards the curious things he mentions, +one might make out a long list. The date of the +Fire of London. The five hundred Marseillais that +led the attack upon the Tuilleries. The naming of +the very year 1792 for the French Revolution; the +22nd of September in that year being the date +from which the Republicans began to reckon anew +their era. Many more might so easily be gathered +as to even weary the reader with their enumeration.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span></p> + +<p>He mentions the birth of persons that were born +after his death. Now, judicial astrology could give +no help in such cases, since to commence casting a +nativity presupposes birth. In his epistle to his son +César we shall see what he says of himself and the +gifts he possessed; but even there he was obliged to +be somewhat obscure, to protect himself from the +ridicule of the world on the one side, and from the +severities of the Church on the other. He tells his +son to eschew the study of the future astrologically, +to avoid magic, as prohibited by the Church and +Scripture, and that he himself had burnt some books +that taught the art of prophesying, although it is +pretty evident that he had first read them through +very carefully himself. He relates that a mighty +flame burst forth from them to the danger of his +house, and this he interpreted to be the consequence +of their falsity. But yet he seems to have gone +through a good many of the magical forms when he +was about to devote the night to prophetical studies. +He holds that inspired Revelation is “<i>a participation +of the Eternal Divinity</i>,” though he scarcely lays claim +to being a prophet in this sense of the word; in fact, +he denies himself to be such a prophet. But, failing +to claim inspiration, and denouncing the practice of +astrology and the pursuit of magic, one is left somewhat +in the dark as to what he really did profess to +be the source of fatidical utterance possessed by him. +That he had the gift in a marvellous potency this +book will show; and that he openly claimed to +possess it his whole life proves. It is, in fact, from +this I should desire to establish that at least he was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>no impostor, for he only told others what he began +by implicitly believing himself.</p> + +<p>As to his obscurity, he himself admits it as a thing to +be cultivated both in the times he lived in and in those +that were to follow. No one can truthfully deny +that obscurity and prophecy seem to be almost interchangeable +and convertible terms. The prophecies +in Scripture are of such ambiguity that Whitby was +commended by many for concluding his Commentary +on the Bible with the General Epistle of Jude, without +a word bestowed upon the Revelations of St. John. +There are those who will hold that prophecies are +useless, as they cannot generally be understood until +they have been fulfilled. It is obvious that many +prophecies are of such a nature as that, if they were +clearly understood previous to the event, they would +prevent their own fulfilment, and so cease to have +been prophecies. What they foretold would never +have occurred. The philosophy of history is supposed +to show that Providence shapes the course of +human events, how much soever humanity may seem +at every instant to be following out its own collective +will. This theory is most in favour amongst erudite +modern thinkers, who incline very little towards +acquiescence in the old Church doctrine of Predestination. +Yet inspired prophecy is a collateral proof of the +same principle as that which underlies the philosophy +of history. Both of them depend on the finger of +God shaping—first shaping chaos into things, and then +things into their continuous courses. The shaping +is not needed more at the first creation than it is +at every successive stage, whether for preservation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>or for progression. Again, the interest of uninspired +prophecy is for mortal man not much less vivid; +for, if we have interpreted Nostradamus rightly, we +find in him a man living three hundred years ago +talking intelligibly, if not clearly, of things that are +happening to-day. If there be a power in human +nature,—latent in the generality, but in a few alert and +quick,—to link far centuries together in anticipatory +thought, I take it to be quite clear, that that one +fact must revolutionize the whole scheme of human +philosophy as accepted now, whether it relates to life, +to death, or to futurity. The fatidical capacity implies +a spirit of immortality in man. With that once +established, we re-enter upon the domain of faith; +we recognize that the earth is drossy and the body +sin; we re-create the soul, and laugh at the fool (or the +philosopher) who doubts, denies, and ridicules it. It +gives new ground to teach the immortality of man; +it lifts us above the dirt-doctrine of gold; it renders +poetry once again possible to lips hallowed with +Apollo’s fire; it brings back a possibility of worship +upon earth, and, with that, prayer, praise, and peace. +Bates, the silver-tongued, says well, that for man “it +is as natural to pray as to breathe.”</p> + +<p>Garencières is of opinion that the writings of our +prophet were for a century allowed to “be in darkness,” +but we have seen that in his own day Nostradamus +attracted the notice of the learned, of the +nobility, and of the king himself. Garencières says +that the first book they gave <i>him</i> at school after the +primer was “The Centuries,” so it was not neglected +then; and M. le Pelletier remarks that Nostradamus’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>fame has now been before the world for three hundred +years, with an always growing reception. Of course, +as time wanes, and as fresh quatrains become interpreted +after accomplishment, the series must shine +with an ever augmenting brilliancy and splendour. +The kings of France have never been quite indifferent +to the Oracles, or at least to such of them as could be +shown to refer to them individually. It is reported +of Charles Edward Stuart, the Pretender, that he to +the last conned⁠<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> over the volume, anxiously hoping +to find in it some stanza promising to his royal line +restoration to the throne of England, but in vain +(Chambers’ “Book of Days,” ii. 13).</p> + +<p>In modern times prophecy is derided, and our seer, +obscurely hinting his strange forecasts, is voted incoherent, +rhapsodial, or an impostor. Almost every +one has heard his name mentioned, but that is all. +Few who come across his work accidentally on a +bookshelf can make head or tail of his Provençal and +half obsolete terms. Without special study you +cannot understand him; and to study a work that lies +under a general ban of imposture, in a time when +only lucrative study is pursued, is a thing not to be +thought of by a <i>littérateur</i> of any intelligence. Consequently +in England it is a name, floating far and +wide it may be, that nevertheless remains but +a name and nothing more. I hope, however, when +this book comes to be read by the competent few, it +will be seen that there exists far more than a mere +name to be dealt with here; that in Nostradamus we +have the greatest fatidical seer, not divinely accredited, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>that the world has ever beheld; that if accepted as +being endowed with a rare and curious foresight,—after +the severest inquiry into what he has done +has been instituted by grammarians, historians, and +philosophic critics,—it will next become necessary to +try to look into the causes, and so ascertain how he +operated. If we cannot succeed in that, and yet +cannot deny his work, we must add the faculty, so +remarkably developed in him, to the perceptive +powers of the human race, as a sixth sense,—generally +latent but sometimes developed,—the faculty of anticipating +the future. Science, so called, must enlarge +its narrow categories, and admit, though never so +grudgingly, that a new faculty of vast import must +henceforth be accredited to humanity; a faculty which +the superstitious and the profoundly religious alike +have immemorially admitted, but which philosophers, +as such, have as persistently ignored, denied, or even +ridiculed. It has often been said by troubled thinkers, +with a pretentious flourish of baffled profundity, that +“true philosophy begins in doubt.” I would whisper +it down the wind, but not in Gath, that for the most +part there it also ends. Anatomy cuts up a dead +man to find life. Analysis reduces final investigation +to a <i>caput mortuum</i>. Philosophy begins in doubt, +and travels a wide circle to close in doubt again. +Perhaps, after all, the best basis might be faith. +Beginning with faith, haply a man might find God +accompanying investigation with him step by step +through life, even in this world and its miraculous +garden, till the hour come for him to step, through +the six-foot wicket, into the Paradise of that glorious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>world that is adjacent to us but not seen, where sighs +are not heaved, and whose glories are incorruptible.</p> + +<p>When we come to enumerate some few of the +opinions that have been expressed on the writings +and character of Nostradamus, it will be seen that a +vast number of them condemn him for charlatanry +and imposture, especially as we approach our own +day. For now what is denominated science accepts +nothing for true but what is deducible from the reason; +it takes for granted that nothing can be known +respecting the future, beyond what cultivated prudence +can gather from a politic acquaintance with the +past, coupled perhaps with a sagacious estimate of +the principles now at work, and the fruit they are +likely to engender. In fact, what the knowledge of a +wise man can enable him to foresee, covers for such +theorists the whole extent and province of all prophecy +possible to man,—the sagacity of Mazarin, which +detected the revolutionary element in the Cardinal +de Retz whilst still a youth; or the prediction of +Bishop Butler, in 1741, that the <i>levelling spirit</i> then +visible, under the direction of principles that were +atheistic, threatened dangers that might menace +Europe. But to call this prophecy is to be ignorant +of what the word prophecy means. To state it thus, +or so to limit it, is to deny the existence of the +prophetic faculty altogether. A direct denial of the +thing is better than a sceptical definition of it. +Scepticism, then, in our day, not believing there can +be such a thing as a true presage, concludes that +Mother Shipton and Nostradamus stand on precisely +the same footing. They read a quatrain of Nostradamus, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>only understand one line out of four, and say +that, although that one may be intelligible, the Sphinx +itself could make nothing of the others, and that out +of a number of such verses it would be marvellous if +something curious were not occasionally let fall. The +next inference is that the author set up for a gift that +he did not possess, and soon found the imposture was +far more lucrative than the dull routine of medical +practice, as in those times the superstition of the +public was unlimited. The ignorance of the Middle +Ages is pointedly contrasted for us now with the +wisdom and knowledge of our own day. What, +prejudice apart, does this mean, if briefly summed +up in an aphorism? Only this: that the wisdom of +to-day gives us the Nihilist of <i>no faith</i>, in place of +the Astrologer of <i>too much</i>.</p> + +<p>We ought to remember in all this that our author +had reached the mature age of fifty-two before he +printed one word of the work that we are spending +time over. He tells us that for generations the family +of Nostradamus had inherited and transmitted some +share of the prophetic gift (Garencières’ Preface, p. 16), +that it came to him as a natural genius; in which it +seems that his sons partially shared. He had cultivated +it long for his private pleasure, and the request +in which his almanacs stood seems to have first led +him to think he might more largely utilize the faculty. +He never appears to have made any large sum of +money through it. He supported himself and brought +up his family by steady work in his professional +calling. On the very brink of publicity, anticipating +malign influences, he still hesitated to take the final +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>plunge; and, when he did take it, he was in his +fifty-third year. Men seldom pass though life performing +all its duties with credit and decorum, earn a +competency, and at fifty-two enter upon a career of +contemptible imposture. No; this is not according +to human nature. We must acquit him of imposture.</p> + +<p>Michel Nostradamus was one of the most learned +men of his day, the friend of Jules César Scaliger. +He knew many modern languages, and the Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin. He had followed medicine from +the age of twenty-two, took his Doctor’s degree at +twenty-six, filled a professorial chair at Montpellier, +and late in life devoted himself to judicial astrology; +in which, and in an intuitive forecast beyond what +that can bestow, he has distanced by far all other +competitors in the same line. Let a reader thoroughly +acquaint himself with all that is here set before him +as to Charles I. in England, and its bloody re-enactment +in the French Revolution, letting all the rest stand +aside; and, if he can rise from the perusal, feeling that +there is any kind of imposture discoverable throughout +those strange and wonderful revelations, then he +himself possesses so miraculous a form of judgment, as +to leave me without a word further to advance upon +the subject.</p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier conceives that the <i>Commun Advénement</i>, +or <i>l’avénement au règne des gens du commun</i>, +which I have rendered “The Vulgar Advent,” extending +from the death of Louis XVI. to the reign of +Antichrist, is the grand object of Nostradamus. It +is to paint this lurid epopee that he devotes three-quarters +at least of his quatrains, according to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>le Pelletier. Myself, I think this proportion to be +overstated. But our prophet returns to it again and +again, elaborates the most minute details, and concentres +upon it as in a focus the brightest rays of +his mystical genius. Some think that Catharine de +Medici was largely influenced in her firm and far-seeing +policy by the counsels of Nostradamus, whom +she visited expressly at Salon de Craux, in 1564, with +her son, Charles IX. This may have been so, but it +is a great question whether Nostradamus, for all his +visions, curiously as they realize themselves in time, +could advise the queen or anybody else at all better +than any other wise man of elaborate culture could. +His visions would come to him as verses to a great +poet, and when written down and the afflatus fled, he +would drop back to the ordinary condition of humanity. +He would drop back to the level of reason and the +discourse of science, with nothing to specially distinguish +him from other men well placed to learn +such wisdom and knowledge as this world has to +bestow upon them. To expect more of him is to +expect with the commonalty that if you met Milton in +Bread Street he would address you in blank verse, and +strain “Good morning” into metre. Great men cut +very plain figures in common broadcloth. It is the +impostor who is magisterial, and puts on the airs of a +Cagliostro.</p> + +<p>Nostradamus is sometimes a pillar of fire, but +oftener is he a pillar of cloud. He is a past master in +words, and depicts events with a terseness that almost +baffles parallel; but still his employment of these +same words is more practical than artistic, for he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>never rises to poetry. As an accepted visionary he +is perhaps less swayed by the imagination than any +man of at all kindred type that one can mention. +With him words are as often used to veil as to +unfold his meaning. His contempt for simple persons, +the ignorant, is very broadly marked. Men of knowledge +are to constitute his audience; the heaven of +prophecy is in his opinion a region unfit for children. +He, clean contrary to the example set forth in St. +Mark (x. 14), will suffer none such to approach him.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +He chiefly predicts the <i>evil</i> to come; what is good +only figures in his pages incidentally, and at long +intervals. But here it is to be observed that the +staple of true prophecy must always run parallel with +that of history; whilst, as to the latter, it has grown +into an axiom, “Happy is the country that has no +history.” He fatigues while he fascinates us amid +the variety of his combinations; yet a deeper examination +will often end in clothing these riddling and vext +allusions in a magical and floating investment that +lifts them up into a calm sublimity.</p> + +<p>Still he is clearly no prophet in the old and Hebrew +sense of the word—like Isaiah, Daniel, David, John,—a +man who neither respects his own person as regards +its safety, nor the person of other men as regards +their position. You cannot say of him: “<i>Scimus quia +verax es, non enim respicis personam hominum</i>” (St. +Matt. xxii. 16), which is the test-touch all the world +over of a true prophet. Le Pelletier’s summing-up is: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span><i>c’est un artiste en pronostics</i>. There is a Pythic ring in +all he writes and says; a sub-flavour, too, of cabalistic +lore far gathered from those ancient compromising +books which he saw fit to burn. The outward signs +of his procedure and methods are palpably magical, +as set forth in the stanzas that open his first Century +to the reader. If we know that he professed Christian +orthodoxy, equally we know that he practiced judicial +astrology, and made unquestionable use of the Pagan +ritual of incantation. These rites, uncomprehended +by all the erudite in books who wrote about them, +were by the divines and fathers of the early Church +ignorantly attributed to prestidigitation, Toledan art, +and fraudulent compact with the sable fiend. Perhaps +they may turn out to have been merely natural +excitations, empirically discovered, tending to enable +the subject of them more fully to reach a state of +semi-conscious ecstasy; to place the cerebral light in +the current of latent light that pervades all space (if +such an expression be permissible), and so elicit results +that are ordinarily unattainable by man. Bouys, who +wrote in 1806, plainly considers him to have been +a clairvoyant. The animal magnetizers call him a +<i>crisiaque</i>. Possibly all these processes only served to +place him in a position favourable to clairvoyance; but +on all this, respected and gentle reader, construct your +own opinion. Let the man be to you prophet, sorcerer, +or clairvoyant. Call him what you will, so you free +him from the stigma of impostor. M. le Pelletier’s +judgment as to that ought to be regarded as final: +“<i>L’ampleur de son génie, et la sureté inimaginable de +son coup d’œil, ne permettent guère de la croire.</i>”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p> + +<p>It has been well said that the man and his works +are an enigma. Everything in our author is +ambiguous: the man, the thought, the style. We +stumble at every step in the rough paths of his +labyrinth. Once we enter, jeering voices seem to +deride us from behind each stanza, strophe, word. +We try to interrogate, but grow silent before a man +of emotionless nerve and of impenetrable mask. +What are these “Centuries”? What is Nostradamus? +In them and him all may find something; but no man +born of woman can find <i>all</i>. The Sphinx of France +is here before us; a riddler, riddling of the fate of +men: a man at once bold and timid; simple, yet +who can plumb his depth? A superficial Christian, a +Pagan perhaps at heart; a man rewarded of kings: +and yet, so far as we can see, furnishing no one +profitable hint to them that could make their life run +smoother, or remove a single peril from their path. +He leaves a book of things malign, written by one +who, albeit, never spoke a word that <i>à tous ne seroit +agréable</i>. Behold this Janus of a double face; his +very breath is double; the essence of ambiguity lies +wrapped incarnate in him, and it moulds the man, the +thought, the style.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE_A_MON_FILS">PRÉFACE À MON FILS.<br> +<span class="smaller">THE PREFACE OF MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS TO HIS PROPHECIES.</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p>To Cæsar Nostradamus his son, life and felicity. +Thy late arrival,⁠<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Cæsar Nostradamus my son, +has made me bestow much time, through nightly vigils, +to leave you in writing a memorial to refer to, after +the corporal extinction of your progenitor, that might +serve for the common profit of mankind, out of what +the Divine Being has permitted me to learn from the +revolution of the stars. And since it has pleased the +immortal God that thou shouldst come into the +natural light of this terrene abode, and shouldst say +that thy years are not yet calculated astronomically, +and thy March months are incapable to receive in +their weak understanding what I must necessarily +record [as to happen] after my time:—seeing also +that it is not possible to leave thee in writing what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>might suffer injury and be obliterated by time; for +the inherited gift of occult prediction will remain +confined to my own bowels:—considering that events +of human proposal are uncertain, whilst all is governed +and directed by the incalculable power of Heaven, +guiding us, not by Bacchic fury, nor yet by Lymphatic⁠<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +motion, but by astronomical assertion—“<i>Soli +numine divino afflati præsagiunt et spirito prophetico +particularia.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Although for years past I have predicted, a long +time in advance, what has afterwards come to pass, +and in particular regions attributing the whole accomplishment +to divine power and inspiration, also +other unfortunate and fortunate occurrences have +been pronounced with accelerated promptitude which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>have since happened in other parts of the world,—for +I was willing to maintain silence and to pass +over matters that might prove injurious [if published] +not only as relates to the present time, but also for +the most part of future time, if committed to writing, +since kingdoms, sects, and religions will pass through +stages so very contrary, and, as regards the present +time, diametrically opposed,—that if I were to relate +what will happen in the future, governors, sectaries, +and ecclesiastics would find it so ill-accordant with +[<i>si</i>] their auricular fancy, that they would go near to +condemn what future ages will know and perceive to +be true. Considering also the sentence of the true +Saviour, “<i>Nolite sanctum dare canibus neque mittatis +margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte conculcent eas +pedibus suis, et conversi dirumpant vos</i>” [Matt. vii. 6].</p> + +<p>This it is which has led me to withhold my tongue +from the vulgar, and my pen from paper. But, later +on, I thought I would enlarge a little, and declare in +dark and abstruse sayings in consideration of [<i>pour</i>] +the vulgar advent [vid. Le Pelletier, i. 163] the most +urgent of its future causes, as perceived by me, be the +revolutionary changes what they may, so only as not +to scandalize the auricular frigidity (of my hearers), +and write all down under a cloudy figure that shall +essentially and above all things be prophetical. +Although “<i>Abscondidisti hæc a sapientibus, et prudentibus, +id est, potentibus et regibus, et enucleasti ea exiguis +et tenuibus.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> By the grace of God and the good +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>angels, the Prophets have had committed to them the +spirit of vaticination, by which they see things at a +distance, and are enabled to forecast future events. +For there is nothing that can be accomplished without +Him, whose power and goodness are so great to +all His creatures as long as they put their trust in +Him, much as they may be [exposed] or subject to +other influences, [yet] on account of their likeness to +the nature of their good guardian angel [or genius] +that heat and prophetic power draweth nigh to us, as +do the rays of the sun which cast their influence alike +upon bodies that are elementary and non-elementary. +As for ourselves personally who are but human, we +can attain to nothing by our own unaided natural +knowledge, nor the bent of our intelligence, in the +way of deciphering the recondite secrets of God the +Creator. “<i>Quia non est nostrum noscere tempora, nec +momenta</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> etc. Although, indeed, now or hereafter +some persons may arrive to whom God Almighty +may be pleased to reveal by imaginative impression +some secrets of the future, as accorded in time past to +judicial astrology, when [<i>que</i> for <i>quand</i>] a certain +power and volitional faculty came upon them, as a +flame of fire appears.⁠<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> They grew inspired, and were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>able to judge of all inspiration, human and divine, +alike. For the divine works, which are absolutely +universal, God will complete; those which are contingent, +or medial, the good angels direct; and the +third sort come under the evil angels.⁠<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>Perhaps, my son, I speak to thee here a little too +occultly. But as to the hidden vaticinations which +come to one by the subtle spirit of fire, or sometimes +by the understanding disturbed, [it may even +be, by] contemplating the remotest stars, as being +intelligences on the watch, even to giving utterance +to declarations [that] being taken down in +writing declare, without favour, and without any +taint of improper loquacity, that all things whatsoever +proceed from the divine power of the great +eternal Deity from whom all goodness emanates. +Further, my son, although I have inserted the name +of prophet, I do not desire to assume a title of so +high sublimity at the present moment. For he +who “<i>Propheta dicitur hodie, olim vocabatur videns</i>;”⁠<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>for, strictly speaking, my son, a prophet is one who +sees things remote from the knowledge of all mankind. +Or, to put the case; to the prophet, by means +of the perfect light of prophecy, there lie opened up +very manifestly divine things as well as human; +which cannot come about, seeing that the effects of +future prediction extend to such remote periods. +Now, the secrets of God are incomprehensible, and +their efficient virtue belongs to a sphere far remote +from natural knowledge; for, deriving their immediate +origin from the free will, things set in motion causes +that of themselves could never attract such attention +as could make them recognized, either by human +augury, or by any other knowledge of occult power; +it is a thing comprised only within the concavity of +heaven itself, from the present fact of all eternity, +which comes in itself to embrace all time.</p> + +<p>Still, by the means of some eternal power, by an epileptic +Herculean agitation, the causes by the celestial +movement become known. I do not say, my son, in +order that you may fully understand me, that the +knowledge of this matter cannot yet impress itself +upon thy feeble brain, that very remote future causes +may not come within the cognizance of a reasonable +being; if they are, notwithstanding, purely the creation +of the intellectual soul of things present, future things +are not by any means too hidden or concealed. But +the perfect knowledge of causes cannot be acquired +without divine inspiration; since all prophetic inspiration +derives its first motive principle from God the +Creator, next from good fortune, and then from +nature. Wherefore the independent causes being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>independently produced, or not produced, the presage +partially happens, where it was predicted. For the +human understanding, being intellectually created, +cannot penetrate occult causes, otherwise than by the +voice of a genius by means of the thin flame (vid. +page 76) [showing] to what direction future causes +incline to develop themselves. And further, my +son, I implore you never to apply your understanding +on such reveries and vanities as dry up +the body and bring perdition to the soul and disturb +all the senses. In like manner, I caution you +against the seduction of a more than execrable +magic, that has been denounced already by the sacred +Scriptures, by the divine canons of the Church—although +we have to exempt from this judgment +Judicial Astrology. By the aid of this it is, and by +divine revelation and inspiration, united with deep +calculations, we have reduced our prophecies to +writing. And, notwithstanding that this occult +philosophy was <i>not</i> reproved by the Church, I have +felt no desire to divulge their unbridled promptings. +Although many volumes have come before me, which +had laid hidden for many ages. But dreading what +might happen in the future, after reading them, I +presented them to Vulcan, and as the fire kindled +them, the flame, licking the air, shot forth an unaccustomed +brightness, clearer than the light is of natural +flame, resembling more the explosion of powder, casting +a subtle illumination over the house as if the whole +were wrapped in sudden conflagration.—So that at +last you might not in the future be abused by searching +for the perfect transformation, lunar or solar, or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>incorruptible metals hidden under the earth, or the +sea, I reduced them to ashes.—But as to the judgment +which perfects itself by means of the celestial judgment, +that I am desirous to manifest to you: by that +method you may have cognizance of things future, +avoiding all fantastic imaginations that may arise, and +limiting the particularity of the topics by divine +and supernatural inspiration; harmonizing with the +celestial figures these topics, and that part of time, +which the occult property has relation to, by the +potential virtue and faculty divine, in whose presence +the three aspects of time are clasped in one by eternity—an +evolution that connects in one causes past, +present, and future—“<i>quia omnia sunt nuda et aperta</i>, +etc.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>⁠—</p> + +<p>From all which, my son, you can easily comprehend, +notwithstanding your tender brain, the things that +are to happen can be foretold by nocturnal and celestial +lights, which are natural, coupled to a spirit of +prophecy,—not that I would assume the name or +efficacy of a prophet, but, by revealed inspiration, as +a mortal man the senses place me no farther from +heaven than the feet are from the earth. “<i>Possum non +errare, falli, decipi</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> (albeit) I am the greatest sinner +in this world, and heir to every human affliction. But +being surprised sometimes in the ecstatic work, amid +prolonged calculation, and engaged in nocturnal +studies of sweet odour, I have composed books of +prophecies, containing each one hundred astronomic +quatrains of forecasts, which I have tried to polish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>through obscurely, and which are perpetual vaticinations, +from now to the year 3797. It is possible that +this figure will make some lift up their forehead, at +such a vast extent of time, and variety of things to +take place under the concave journey of the moon; +and this universal treatment of causes, my son, +throughout the earth, which, if you reach the natural +age of man, you will see in your climate, under the +heaven of your proper nativity, as things that have +been foreseen.</p> + +<p>Although the everlasting God alone knows the +eternity of the light proceeding from Himself, I say +frankly to all to whom He has decreed in long +and melancholy inspiration to reveal His limitless +magnitude, which is beyond both mensuration and +comprehension, that by means of this occult cause +divinely manifested, principally by two chief causes, +comprised in the understanding of the inspired one +who prophesies. One is that which comes by infusion, +which clarifies the supernatural light, in him who predicts +by astral process, or forecasts by inspired revelation, +which is practically a participation in the divine +eternity, by which means the prophet comes to judge +of that which his share of divine spirit has given him, +by means of communication with God the Creator, +and the natural endowment accorded him. It is to +know that what is predicted is true, and has had a +heavenly origin; that such light and the thin flame +is altogether efficacious; that it descends from above, +no less than does natural clearness; and natural light +renders philosophers quite sure of their principles, so +that by means of the principles of a first cause they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>have penetrated the profoundest abysses and attained +the loftiest doctrines.</p> + +<p>But to this end, my son, that I may not wander +too profoundly for the future capacity of thy senses, +and also because I find that letters shall suffer +great and incomparable loss, and that I find the +world before the universal conflagration, such deluges +and deep submersion, that there will remain scarcely +any land not covered with water, and that for so +long a period, that everything will perish except +Ethnographies and Topographies. Further, after and +before these inundations, in many districts the rains +will have been so slight, and there will fall from +heaven such an abundance of fire and incandescent +stones, that scarcely anything will remain unconsumed, +and this will occur a short time before the +last conflagration. Further, when the planet Mars +completes its cycle, at the end of his second period, he +will recommence his course. But some will gather in +Aquarius through several years, and others in Cancer, +which will be of still longer duration. Now that we +are conducted by the moon, under the direction of +the Creator, and before she has finished her entire +circuit the sun will come, and then Saturn. Now, +according to the celestial signs, the reign of Saturn +shall come back again, so that, all calculated, the +world is drawing on towards its anaragonic revolution.</p> + +<p>From the time I am writing this, before 177 years +3 months and 11 days, by pestilence, long famine, +and wars, and more still by inundations, the world +between this day and that, before and after, shall be +diminished, and its population so reduced that there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>will hardly be hands enough to attend to agriculture, +and the lands will be left as long without culture as +they have been under tillage. This, so far as celestial +judgment manifests, that we are now in the seventh +millenary, which completes all and introduces us to +the eighth, where is the upper firmament of the eighth +sphere, which, in a latitudinary dimension, is where +the Almighty will come to complete the revolution, +where the celestial figures will return to their courses, +and the upper motion which renders the earth stable for +us and fixed, “<i>non inclinabitur in seculum seculorum</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> +unless His will be accomplished, and no otherwise.</p> + +<p>Although by ambiguous opinions exceeding all +natural reason by Mahometical dreams, also sometimes +God the Creator by the ministry of angels of fire, and +missive flame, presents to the external senses, even of +our eyes, the causes of future predictions, that indicate +the future event which must manifest itself to him +who presages anything. For the presage which is +made by the exterior light comes infallibly to judge +partly with and by means of the exterior flame; +although truly the part which seems to come by the +eye of the understanding springs only from the lesion +of the imaginative sense. The reason is too evident, +the whole is predicted by the afflatus of divinity, and +by means of the angelic spirit inspired to the man +prophesying, rendering him [as it were] anointed with +vaticinations, visiting him to illuminate him, and, +stirring the forefront of his phantasy by divers nightly +apparitions no less than daily certitude, he prophesies +by astronomic administration conjoined with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>holiest future prediction, taking nothing into his consideration +but the hardihood of his free courage.</p> + +<p>Come at this hour to understand, my son, that I find +by my revelations [astral], and which are in accordance +with revealed inspiration, that the sword of death is +on its way to us now, in the shape of pestilence, war +(more horrible than has been known for three generations +of men), and famine, that shall fall upon the +earth, and return upon it at frequent intervals. For +the stars accord with such a revolution, and with the +written word, “<i>Visitabo in virgâ ferrea iniquitates +eorum, et in verberibus percutiam eos.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> For the mercy +of God, my son, will not be spread abroad for a time, +till the major part of my prophecies shall have been +accomplished, and have become by accomplishment +resolved. Thus oftentimes in the course of these +sinister storms the Lord will say, “<i>Conteram ego, et +confringam, et non miserebor.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> And a thousand other +accidents will come by waters and continual rain, as +I have more fully and at large set forth in my other +Prophecies, which are drawn out at length, <i>in solutâ +oratione</i>;⁠<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> (in these I) designate the localities, times, +and terms prefixed, that all men who come after may +see, recognizing the circumstances that come about +by infallible indications. As we have marked by the +others where we speak more clearly, for although +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>they are covered with a veil of cloud, they are clear +enough to be comprehended by men of good intelligence: +“<i>Sed quando submoventa erit ignorantia</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +the total will stand out with greater clearance still. +Making an end here, my son, take now this gift of +thy father, Michael Nostradamus, hoping to expound +to thee each several prophecy of these quatrains here +given, beseeching the immortal Father that He will +endue thee with a long life of happy and prospering +felicity.</p> + +<p class="mt2 f90">From Salon, this 1st of March, 1555.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="EPISTLE_TO_HENRY_II">EPISTLE TO HENRY II.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>To the most invincible, very puissant, and most +Christian Henry King of France the Second: +Michael Nostradamus, his most humble, most obedient +servant and subject, wishes victory and happiness.</p> + +<p>For that sovereign observation that I had, O most +Christian and very victorious King, since that my face, +long obscured with cloud, presented itself before the +deity of your measureless Majesty, since that in that +I have been perpetually dazzled, never failing to +honour and worthily revere that day, when first +before it, as before a singularly humane majesty, I +presented myself. I searched for some occasion by +which to manifest good heart and frank courage, by +the means of which I might grow into greater knowledge +of your serene Majesty. I soon found in effect +it was impossible for me to declare it, considering the +contrast of the solitariness of my long obnubilation +and obscurity, and my being suddenly thrust into +brilliancy, and transported into the presence of the +sovereign eye of the first monarch of the universe. +Likewise I have long hung in doubt as to whom I +ought to dedicate these three Centuries to, the remainder +of my Prophecies amounting now to a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>thousand. I have long meditated on an act of such +audacity. I have at last ventured to address your +Majesty, and was not daunted from it as Plutarch, +that grave author, relates in the life of Lycurgus, that, +seeing the gifts and presents that were made in the +way of sacrifice at the temples of the immortal gods +in that age, many were staggered at the expense, and +dared not approach the temple to present anything.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this, I saw your royal splendour to +be accompanied with an incomparable humanity, and +paid my addresses to it, not as to those Kings of +Persia whom it was not permissible to approach. But +to a very prudent and very wise Prince I have dedicated +my nocturnal and prophetic calculations, composed +out of a natural instinct, and accompanied by +a poetic fervour, rather than according to the strict +rules of poetry. Most part, indeed, has been composed +and adjusted by astronomical calculation corresponding +to the years, months, and weeks, of the +regions, countries, and for the most part towns and +cities, throughout Europe, Africa, and a part of Asia, +which nearest approach [or resemble] each other in +all these climates, and this is composed in a natural +manner. Possibly some may answer—who, if so, had +better blow his nose [that he may see the clearer by +it]—that the rhythm is as easy to be understood, as +the sense is hard to get at. Therefore, O most +gracious King, the bulk of the prophetic quatrains +are so rude, that there is no making way through +them, nor is there any interpreter of them. Nevertheless, +being always anxious to set down the years, +towns, and regions cited, where the events are to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>occur, even from the year 1585, and the year 1606, +dating from the present time, which is the 14th of +March, 1557.</p> + +<p>Then passing far beyond to things which shall +happen at the commencement of the seventh millenary, +deeply calculated, so far as my astronomic +calculus, and other knowledge, has been able to +reach, to the time when the adversaries of Jesus +Christ and of His Church shall begin to multiply +in great force. The whole has been composed and +calculated on days and hours of best election and +disposition, and with all the accuracy I could attain +to. At a moment [blessed] “<i>Minerva libera et non +invita</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> my calculations looking forward to events +through a space of time to come that nearly equals +that of the past even up to the present, and by this +they will know in the lapse of time and in all regions +what is to happen, all written down thus particularly, +immingled with nothing superfluous.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding that some say, “<i>Quod de futuris +non est determinata omnino veritas</i>,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> I will confess, +Sire, that I believed myself capable of presage from +the natural instinct I inherit of my ancestors, adjusted +and regulated by elaborate calculation, and +the endeavour to free the soul, mind, and heart from +all care, solicitude, and anxiety, by resting and +tranquilizing the spirit, which finally has all to be +completed and perfected in one respect <i>tripode æneo</i> +[by the brazen tripod]. With all this there will be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>many to attribute to me as mine, things no more +mine than nothing. The Almighty alone, who +strictly searches the human heart, pious, just, and +pitiful, is the true Judge; to Him I pray to defend +me from the calumny of wicked men. Such persons, +with equal calumny, will bring into question how +all your ancient progenitors the Kings of France +have cured the evil; how those of other nations have +cured the bite of serpents; others have had a certain +instinct in the art of divination, and other faculties +that would be too long to recount here. Notwithstanding +such as cannot be restrained from the exercise +of the malignancy of the evil spirit, [there is hope +that] by the lapse of time, and after my extinction +here on earth, my writings will be more valued than +during my lifetime.</p> + +<p>However, if I err in calculation of ages, or find +myself unable to please all the world, may it please +your Imperial Majesty to forgive me, for I protest +before God and His saints, that I purpose to insert +nothing whatever in writing this present Epistle +that shall militate against the true Catholic Faith, +whilst consulting the astronomical calculations to +the very best of my knowledge. For the stretch of +time of our forefathers [<i>i.e.</i> the age of the world] +which has gone before is such, submitting myself to +the direction of the soundest chronologists, that the +first man, Adam, was about one thousand two hundred +and forty years before Noah, not computing time by +Gentile records, such as Varro has committed to +writing, but taking simply the Sacred Scriptures for +the guide in my astronomic reckonings, to the best +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>of my feeble understanding. After Noah, from him +and the universal deluge, about one thousand and +fourscore years, came Abraham, who was a sovereign +astrologer according to some; he first invented the +Chaldæan alphabet. Then came Moses, about five +hundred and fifteen or sixteen years later. Between +the time of David and Moses five hundred and +seventy years elapsed. Then after the time of David +and the time of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus +Christ, born of a pure Virgin, there elapsed (according +to some chronographers) one thousand three hundred +and fifty years.</p> + +<p>Some, indeed, may object to this supputation +as not true, because it varies from that of Eusebius. +Since the time of the human redemption to the +hateful apostacy of the Saracens, there have been +six hundred and twenty-one years, or thereabouts. +Now, from this it is easy to gather what time has +elapsed if my supputation be not good and available +for all nations, for that all is calculated by the +celestial courses, associated in my case with an +emotion that steals over me at certain subsecival +hours from an emotional tendency handed down to +me from a line of ancestors. But the injuriousness +of our time, O most serene Sovereign, requires that +such secret events should not transpire, except in +enigmatic sentences, having but one sense and one +only meaning, and quite unmingled with calculation +that is of ambiguity or amphibology. Say, rather, +under a veiled obscurity from some natural emotional +effusion, that resembles the sentential delivery of the +thousand and two Prophets, that have been from the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>Creation of the world, according to the calculation +and Punic Chronicle of Joel: “<i>Effundum spiritum +meum super omnem carnem, et prophetabunt filii vestri, +et filiæ vestræ.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> But this prophecy proceeded from +the mouth of the Holy Spirit, which was the sovereign +power eternal, in conjunction with the celestial bodies, +has caused some of the number to predict great and +marvellous events.</p> + +<p>As to myself in this place, I set up no claim to +such a title—never, please God. I fully confess +that all proceeds from God, and for that I return +Him thanks, honour, and immortal praise, and have +mingled nothing with it of the divination which +proceeds <i>à fato</i>, but <i>à Deo, à naturâ</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and for +the most part accompanied with the movement of the +celestial courses. Much as, if looking into a burning +mirror [we see], as with darkened vision, the great +events, sad or portentous, and calamitous occurrences +that are about to fall upon the principal worshippers. +First upon the temples of God, secondly upon such as +have their support from the earth [<i>i.e.</i> by the kings], +this decadence draweth nigh, with a thousand other +calamitous incidents that in the course of time will +be known to happen.</p> + +<p>For God will take notice of the long barrenness +of the great Dame, who afterwards will conceive two +principal children. But, she being in great danger, +the girl she will give birth to with risk at her age +of death in the eighteenth year, and not possible +to outlive the thirty-sixth, will leave three males and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>one female, and he will have two who never had any +of the same father. The three brothers will be so +different, though united and agreed, that the three +and four parts of Europe will tremble. By the +youngest in years will the Christian monarchy be +sustained and augmented; heresies spring up and +suddenly cast down, the Arabs driven back, kingdoms +united, and new laws promulgated. Of the other +children the first shall possess the furious crowned +Lions, holding their paws upon the bold escutcheon. +The second, accompanied by the Latins, shall penetrate +so far that a second trembling and furious +descent shall be made, descending Mons Jovis [at +Barcelona] to mount the Pyrenees, shall not be translated +to the antique monarchy, and a third inundation +of human blood shall arise, and March for a long +while will not be found in Lent. The daughter shall +be given for the preservation of the Christian Church, +the dominator falling into the Pagan sect of new +infidels, and she will have two children, the one +fidelity, the other infidelity, by the confirmation of +the Catholic Church. The other, who to his great +confusion and tardy repentance wished to ruin her, +will have three regions over a wide extent of leagues, +that is to say, Roumania, Germany, and Spain, which +will entail great intricacy of military handling, stretching +from the 50th to the 52nd degree of latitude. +And they will have to respect the more distant +religions of Europe and the north above the 48th +degree of latitude, which at first in a vain timidity +will tremble, and then the more western, southern, +and eastern will tremble. Their power will become +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>such, that what is brought about by union and +concord will prove insuperable by warlike conquest. +By nature they will be equal, but exceedingly different +in faith.</p> + +<p>After this the sterile Dame, of greater power than +the second, shall be received by two nations, by the +first made obstinate by him who had power over +all, by the second, and third, that shall extend his +forces towards the circuit of the east of Europe; +[arrived] there his standards will stop and succumb, +but by sea he will run on to Trinacria and the Adriatic +with his mirmidons. The Germans will succumb +wholly and the Barbaric sect will be disquieted and +driven back by the whole of the Latin race. Then +shall begin the grand Empire of Antichrist in the Atila +and Xerxes, [who is] to descend with innumerable +multitudes, so that the coming of the Holy Spirit, +issuing from the 48th degree, shall make a transmigration, +chasing away the abomination of Antichrist, +that made war upon the royal person of the +great vicar of Jesus Christ, and against His Church, +and reign <i>per tempus, et in occasione temporis</i> [for a +time, and to the end of time]. This will be preceded +by an eclipse of the sun, more obscure and tenebrose +than has ever been since the creation of the world, up +to the death and passion of Jesus Christ, and from +thence till now. There will be in the month of +October a grand revolution [translation] made, such +that one would think that the librating body of the +earth had lost its natural movement in the abyss of +perpetual darkness. There will be seen precursive +signs in the spring-time, and after extreme changes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>ensuing, reversal of kingdoms, and great earthquakes +[<i>i.e.</i> wars]. All this accompanied with the procreations +of the New Babylon [Paris], a miserable prostitute +big with the abomination of the first holocaust +[death of Louis XVI]. It will only continue for +seventy-three years seven months.</p> + +<p>Then there will issue from the stock so long time +barren, proceeding from the 50th degree, [one] who will +renovate the whole Christian Church. A great peace, +union, and concord will then spring up between some +of the children of races [long] opposed to each other +and separated by diverse kingdoms. Such a peace shall +be set up, that the instigator and promoter of military +faction by means of the diversity of religions, shall +dwell attached to the bottom of the abyss, and united +to the kingdom of the furious, who shall counterfeit +the wise. The countries, towns, cities, and provinces +that had forsaken their old customs to free themselves, +enthralling themselves more deeply, shall +become secretly weary of their liberty, and, true +religion lost, shall commence by striking off to the +left, to return more than ever to the right.</p> + +<p>Then replacing holiness, so long desecrated by their +former writings [circulating slanders], afterwards the +result will be that the great dog will issue as an irresistible +mastiff [Napoleon?] who will destroy everything, +even to all that may have been prepared in time +past, till the churches will be restored as at first, and +the clergy reinstated in their pristine condition; till it +lapses again into whoredom and luxury, to commit +and perpetrate a thousand crimes. And, drawing +near to another desolation, then, when she shall be at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>her highest and sublimest point of dignity, the kings +and generals [<i>mains militaires</i>] will come up [against +her], and her two swords will be taken from her, and +nothing will be left her but the semblance of them. +[The following paragraph I can make nothing of, so +I give it in the words of Garencières and in inverted +commas.] “From which by the means of the crookedness +that draweth them, the people causing it to go +straight, and not willing to submit unto them by the +end opposite to the sharp hand that toucheth the +ground they shall provoke.” Until there shall be +born unto the branch a long time sterile, one who +shall deliver the French people from the benign +slavery that they voluntarily submitted to, putting +himself under the protection of Mars, and stripping +Jupiter [Napoleon I.] of all his honours and dignities, +for the city constituted free and seated in another +narrow Mesopotamia. The chief and governor shall +be cast from the midst, and set in a place of the air, +ignorant of the conspiracy of the conspirators [Fouché, +Duc d’Otranto, etc.] with the second Thrasibulus, who +for a long time had prepared all this. Then shall +the impurities and abominations be with great shame +set forth and manifested to the darkness of the veiled +light, shall cease towards the end of his reign, and +the chiefs of the Church shall evince but little of the +love of God, whilst many of them shall apostatize +from the true faith.</p> + +<p>Of the three sects [Lutheran, Catholic, and Mahometan], +that which is in the middle, by the action +of its own worshippers, will be thrown a little into +decadence. The first totally throughout Europe, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>the chief part of Africa exterminated by the third, +by means of the poor in spirit, who by the madness +engendered of libidinous luxury, will commit adultery +[<i>i.e.</i> apostatize]. The people will pull down the pillar, +and chase away the adherents of the legislators, and +it shall seem, from the kingdoms weakened by the +Orientals, that God the Creator has loosed Satan +from the infernal prisons, to make room for the great +Dog and Dohan [Gog and Magog], which will make +so great and injurious a breach in the Churches, that +neither the reds nor the whites, who are without +eyes and without hands [meaning the latter Bourbons, +“who learn nothing and forget nothing”], cannot +judge of the situation, and their power will be taken +from them. Then shall commence a persecution of +the Church such as never was before. Whilst this is +enacting, such a pestilence shall spring up that out +of three parts of mankind two shall be removed. To +such a length will this proceed that one will neither +know nor recognize the fields or houses, and grass will +grow in the streets of the cities as high as a man’s knees. +To the clergy there shall be a total desolation, and the +martial men shall usurp what shall come back from +the City of the Sun [Rome], and from Malta, and the +Islands of Hières [off Marseilles], and the great chain +of the port shall be opened that takes its name from +the marine ox [Bosphorus].</p> + +<p>A new incursion shall be made from the maritime +shores, eager to give the leap of liberty since the +first taking by the Mahometans. Their assaults +shall not be at all in vain, and in the place where +the habitation of Abraham was, it shall be assailed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>by those who hold the Jovialists [followers of Jupiter +(Napoleon I.?)] in reverence. The city of Achem +[in the Island of Sumatra] shall be encompassed +and assaulted on all sides by a great force of armed +men. Their maritime forces shall be weakened by +the Westerns. Upon this kingdom a great desolation +shall come, and the great cities shall be depopulated, +and such as enter in shall come under the vengeance +of the wrath of God. The Holy Sepulchre, for so +long a period an object of great veneration, shall +remain exposed to the blighting dew of evening under +the stars of heaven, and of the sun and moon. The +holy place shall be converted into a stable for cattle +small and large, and applied to other base purposes. +Oh, what a calamitous time will that be for women +with child! for then the Sultan of the East will be +vanquished, driven for the most part by the Northern +and Western men, who will kill him, overthrow him, +and put the rest to flight, and his children, the offspring +of many women, imprisoned. Then will come +to its fulfilment the prophecy of the Royal Prophet, +“<i>Ut audiret gemitus compeditorum, et solveret filios +interemptorum.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>What great oppression shall then fall upon the +princes and rulers of kingdoms, even on those who +are maritime and Oriental, their tongues intermingled +from all nations of the earth! Tongues of +the Latin nations, mingled with Arabic and North-African +communication. All the Eastern kings will +be driven away, overthrown, and exterminated, not at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>all by means of the kings of the North and the drawing +near of our age, but by means of the three secretly +united who seek out death and snares by ambush +sprung upon one another. The renewal of this +Triumvirate shall endure for seven years, while its +renown shall spread all over the world, and the sacrifice +of the holy and immaculate wafer shall be upheld. +Then shall two lords of the North conquer the +Orientals, and so great report and tumultuary warfare +shall issue from these that all the East shall tremble +at the noise of these two brothers of the North, who +are yet not brothers. And because, Sire, by this discourse +I almost introduce confusion into these predictions +as to the time when the event of each shall +fall out; for the detailed account of the time that +follows is very little conformable, if at all, to what +I gave above, that indeed could not err, being by +astronomic rule and consonant with the Holy Scriptures +themselves.</p> + +<p>Had I wished to give to every quatrain its +detailed date, it could easily have been done, but +it would not have been agreeable to all, and still +less to interpret them, Sire, until your Majesty +should have fully sanctioned me to do this, in +order not to furnish calumniators with an opportunity +to injure me. Always reckoning the years +since the creation of the world to the birth of Noah +as being 1506 years, and from that to the completion +of the building of the ark at the period of the +universal deluge 600 years elapsed (let them be solar +years, or lunar, or mixed), I hold that the Scripture +takes them to be solar. At the conclusion of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>600 years, Noah entered the ark to escape the +deluge. The deluge was universal over the earth, +and lasted one year and two months. From the conclusion +of the deluge to the birth of Abraham there +elapsed 295 years, and 100 years from that to +the birth of Isaac. From Isaac to Jacob 60 years. +From the time he went into Egypt until his coming +out of it was 130 years; and from the entry of Jacob +into Egypt to his exit was 430 years; and from that +to the building of the Temple by Solomon in the +fortieth year of his reign, makes 480 years. From +the building of the Temple to Jesus Christ, according +to the supputation of the Hierographs, there passed +490 years. Thus by this calculation that I have +made, collecting it out of the sacred writings, there +are about 4173 years and eight months less or more. +Now, from Jesus Christ, in that there is such a +diversity of opinion, I pass it by, and having calculated +the present prophecies in accordance with the +order of the chain which contains the revolution, and +the whole by astronomical rule, together with my +own hereditary instinct. After some time, and including +in it the period Saturn takes to turn between +the 7th of April up to the 25th of August; Jupiter +from the 14th of June to the 7th of October; Mars +from the 17th of April to the 22nd of June; Venus +from the 9th of April to the 22nd of May; Mercury +from the 3rd of February to the 24th of the same; +afterwards from the 1st of June to the 24th of the +same; and from the 25th of September to the 16th +of October, Saturn in Capricorn, Jupiter in Aquarius, +Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Pisces, Mercury within a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>month in Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces; the moon +in Aquarius, the Dragon’s head in Libra, the tail in +her sign opposite. Following the conjunction of +Jupiter to Mercury, with a quadrin aspect of Mars to +Mercury, and the head of the Dragon shall be with +a conjunction of Sol with Jupiter, the year shall be +peaceful without eclipse.</p> + +<p>Then will be the commencement [of a period] +that will comprehend in itself what will long endure +[<i>i.e.</i> the vulgar advent of the French Revolution], +and in its first year there shall be a great persecution +of the Christian Church, fiercer than that in +Africa [by the Vandals from 1439 to 1534], and +this will burst out [<i>durera</i>] the year one thousand +seven hundred and ninety-two; they will think it +to be a renovation of time. After this the people +of Rome will begin to reconstitute themselves [in +1804, when Napoleon is emperor], and to chase +away the obscurity of darkness, recovering some share +of their ancient brightness, but not without much +division and continual changes. Venice after that, in +great force and power, shall raise her wings very high, +not much short of the force of ancient Rome. At +that time great Byzantine sails, associated with the +Piedmontese by the help and power of the North, will +so restrain them that the two Cretans will not be able +to maintain their faith. The arks built by the ancient +warriors will accompany them to the waves of +Neptune. In the Adriatic there will be such permutations, +that what was united will be separated, +and that will be reduced to a house which before was +a great city, including the Pampotan and Mesopotamia +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>of Europe, to 45, and others to 41, 42, and 47. And +in that time and those countries the infernal power +will set the power of the adversaries of its law against +the Church of Jesus Christ. This will constitute the +second Antichrist, which will persecute that Church +and its true vicar, by means of the power of the +temporal kings, who in their ignorance will be reduced +by tongues that will cut more than any sword in the +hands of a madman.</p> + +<p>The said reign of Antichrist will only last to the +death of him who was born near the [commencement] +of the century, and of the other in the city +of Plancus [Lyons], accompanied by him the elect +of Modena, Fulcy by Ferara, upheld by the Adriatic +Piedmontese, and the proximity of the great Trinacria +[Sicily]. Afterwards the Gallic Ogmion shall pass the +Mount Jovis [Barcelona], accompanied by so great a +number that from afar the Empire shall be presented +with its grand law, and then and for some time +after shall be profusely shed the blood of the innocent +by the guilty recently elevated to power. Then by +great deluges the memory of things contained in +such instruments shall suffer incalculable loss, even +to the Alphabet itself. This will happen among the +Northerns. By the Divine Will once again Satan will +be bound, and universal peace established amongst +mankind, and the Church of Jesus Christ delivered +from all tribulation, although the Azostains [debauched +voluptuaries] would desire to mix with the honey the +gall of their pestilent seduction. This will be near +the seventh millenary, when the sanctuary of Jesus +Christ will no longer be trodden down by the infidels +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>who come from the North; the world [will be then] +approaching its great conflagration, although by my +supputation in my prophecies, the course of time runs +much farther on.</p> + +<p>In the epistle that some years since I dedicated +to my son Cæsar Nostradamus, I have openly +enough declared some points without presage. But +here, Sire, are comprised many great and marvellous +events to come, which those who follow after us +shall see. And during the said astrological supputation, +harmonized with the sacred Scriptures, the +persecution of the Ecclesiastics shall take its rise in +the power of the kings of the North, united with the +Easterns. And this persecution shall last eleven +years, or somewhat less, by which time the chief +Northern king shall pass away, which years being +run, a united Southern king shall succeed, which shall +still more fiercely persecute the clergy of the Church +for the space of three years by the Apostolical seduction +of one who will take away all the absolute power +from the Church Militant, and holy people of God +who observe its ritual, and the whole order of religion +shall be greatly persecuted and so afflicted that the +blood of true ecclesiastics shall float everywhere. To +one of those horrible temporal kings such praise shall +be given by his adherents that he will have shed +more human blood of innocent ecclesiastics, than any +could do of wine. This king will commit crimes +against the Church that are incredible. Human blood +will flow in the public streets and churches, like water +after impetuous rain, and will crimson with blood the +neighbouring rivers, and by another naval war redden +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>the sea to such a degree that one king shall say to +another, “<i>Bellis rubuit navalibus æquor.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> Then in +the same year and those following there will ensue the +most horrible pestilence and the most astonishing +on account of the famine that will precede, and +such tribulation that nothing approaching it ever +happened since the first foundation of the Christian +Church; this also throughout all the Latin regions, +leaving traces in all the countries under the rule of +Spain.</p> + +<p>Then the third King of the North [Russia?], hearing +the complaint of the people from [whom he derives] +his principal title, will raise up a mighty army, and +pass through the limits [<i>destroits</i>] of his last progenitors +and great-grandfathers, to him who will [<i>qui</i> +for <i>lui qui</i>] replace almost everything in its old condition. +The great Vicar of the Cope shall be put +back to his pristine state; but, desolated and abandoned +by all, will return to the sanctuary [that was] +destroyed by Paganism, when the Old and New +Testament will be thrust out and burnt. After that +Antichrist will be the infernal prince. Then at this +last epoch, all the kingdoms of Christianity, as well as +of the infidel world, will be shaken during the space +of twenty-five years, and the wars and battles will be +more grievous, and the towns, cities, castles, and all +other edifices will be burnt, desolated, and destroyed +with much effusion of vestal blood, married women +and widows violated, sucking children dashed and +broken against the walls of towns; and so many evils +will be committed by means of Satan, the prince +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>infernal, that nearly all the world will become undone +and desolated. Before the events occur certain +strange birds [imperial eagles] will cry in the air, +“<i>To-day! to-day!</i>” and after a given time will disappear +[June, 1815]. After this has endured for a +certain length of time [twenty-five years he has said +before, 1790 to 1815], there will be almost renewed +another reign of Saturn, the age of gold [this might +be the discovery of California, but for what follows]. +God the Creator shall say, hearing the affliction of His +people, Satan shall be precipitated and bound in the +bottomless abyss, and then shall commence between +God and men a universal peace. There he shall +abide for the space of a thousand years, and shall turn +his greatest force against the power of the Church, +and shall then be bound again.</p> + +<p>How justly are all these figures adapted by the +divine letters to visible celestial things, that is to say, +by Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and others in conjunction +with them, as may be seen more at large by +some of the quatrains! I would have calculated it +more deeply, and adapted the one to the other; but, +seeing, O most serene King, that some who are given +to censure will raise a difficulty, I shall take the +opportunity to retire my pen and seek my nocturnal +repose. “<i>Multa etiam, O Rex potentissime præclara, et +sane in brevi ventura, sed omnia in hâc tuâ Epistola, +innectere non possumus, nec volumus, sed ad intellegenda +quædam facta, horrida fata pauca libanda sunt, quamvis +tanta sit in omnes tua amplitudo et humanitas homines, +deosque pietas, ut solos amplissimo et Christianissimo +Regis nomine, et ad quem summa totius religionis +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>auctoritas deferatur dignus esse videare.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> But I shall +only beseech you, O most clement King, by this your +singular and most prudent goodness, to understand +rather the desire of my heart, and the sovereign wish +I have to obey your most excellent Majesty, ever +since my eyes approached so nearly to your solar +splendour, than the grandeur of my work can attain +to or acquire.</p> + +<p class="right"><i>Faciebat</i> <span class="smcap">Michael Nostradamus</span>.<br> +<i>Solonæ Petræ Provincæ.</i></p> + +<p class="mt2 f90">From Salon this 27th June, 1558.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="MAGIC">MAGIC.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>Before we enter upon the historical application +of those quatrains which admit of interpretation, +it will be well to devote a little attention to the views +of magic entertained by Nostradamus, to learn from +his own mouth what class of readers he proposed to +address, and to gather, as far as we may be able, in +what manner he proceeded to cultivate the spirit of +prophecy and the divine gift with which he thought +himself to be endowed. Were he even as certainly +an impostor as Cagliostro, this inquiry would have +an interest of its own attaching to it; but if we can +for a moment suppose that he genuinely believed +himself to be endowed with a faculty of divination, +the investigation of that assumption on his part +would present a considerable psychological interest +merely as a human phenomenon. On the other hand, +if he were a man truly gifted with forecast, I do not +know that, in this age of scepticism as to things +spiritual, anything more wholesome could be proposed +to our contemplation than a prophetic record fulfilling +itself before the eyes of disbelievers and gainsayers; +who, wishing to scoff and desiring to suppress such +things, find themselves utterly powerless to annul the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>harmony between the vision recorded three hundred +years ago and the event of yesterday. Whether such +things are or not, it will be for the reader, when he +has gone through the book, to say. At present we +will only busy ourselves with what Nostradamus says +of himself. He is a notability and worthy of criticism, +be the final verdict for or against him.</p> + +<p>At the end of Century VI. occur four Latin lines +headed—</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Legis cantio Contra ineptos Criticos.</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 51.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui legent hosce versus maturè censunto,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Profanum vulgus et inscium ne attrectato,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Omnesque Astrologi, Blenni, Barbari procul sunto.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui aliter facit, is ritè sacer esto.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The sense of these lines is much clearer than the +prosody, but that matters little.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">An Incantation in arrest of Inept Critics.</span></p> + +<p>Let those who read these verses meditate them seriously! +Let the profane and ignorant vulgar not handle them! Let +astrologers, fools, and savages stand off! Who acts contrary to +this, let him be cursed according to the rites of magic.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We now come to the magic formula.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 1.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 52.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Estant assis de nuict secret estude,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seul, reposé sur la sele⁠<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> d’airain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Flambe exigue sortant de solitude,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fait prospèrer⁠<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> + qui⁠<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> n’est à croire vain.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Gathered at night in study deep I sate,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Alone, upon the tripod stool of brass,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Exiguous flame came out of solitude,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Promise of magic that may be believed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Being seated at night and wrapt in secret study, entirely +alone, I placed myself on the brazen tripod of prophecy. A +still small flame came forth of solitude, helping me to realize +successfully what it will not prove vain to have believed.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The reader will here refer to the “Préface à mon +fils,” <a href="#Page_48">p. 48</a>.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“L’entendement créé intellectuellement ne peut voir occultement, +sinon par la voix faicte au lymbe moyennant la exigue +flame, en laquelle partie les causes futures se viendront à +incliner.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This passage conveys in prose what the last and +the following quatrain conveys in verse.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Magical Call by Water.</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 53.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 1.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La verge⁠<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> en main mise au milieu de <span class="smcap">Branches</span>,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De l’Onde il mouille et le limbe,⁠<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> et le pied:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un peur et voix fremissent par⁠<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> les manches;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Splendeur divine, Le Divin prés s’assied.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The rod in hand set in the midst of the Branches,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He moistens with water both the fringe and foot;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fear and a voice make me quake in my sleeves;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Splendour divine, the God is seated near.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>To make this entirely clear is almost impossible. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>But what we <i>can</i> get at is very curious, showing as it +does, if nothing else, that the border-land of the +unseen world was actually contiguous with that of +the world of Nostradamus. They even overlapped, +in his estimation, so as to form an intermediate +neutral territory like the marches in the North, where +the inhabitants of each district could meet and communicate. +We are positive that this is all illusive, +superstitious, demoniacal. It may be so. But one +effect it undeniably produces. It unites man more +to the universe, and less to the world; it makes +death less strange and less cold, and furnishes to the +soul, and the things of the soul, more nutriment than +it can extract from modern life and culture.</p> + +<p>The general meaning seems to be that he sat with +a wand, branch, or divining-rod of laurel, probably +forked like the winchel rod of the water-finders, one +fork being held in each hand. This in some way +had power to evoke his Genius (or <i>génie familier</i>, as Le +Pelletier styles it). When he appeared, he moistened +in the brazier that held water, himself, the fringe of +his robe (<i>limbe</i>), and his foot. The rod, held as I have +suggested, then becoming electrical, caused fear with +the sound of a voice and a shuddering up to the +elbows. Then shone forth the fatidical splendour of +a divine light, and the Deity is present, seated near +to him.</p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier tells us that there was a pagan rite +of the god Branchus that corresponded with this +fatidical ceremony practised by Nostradamus. He +even suggests that this very Branchus might have +been the familiar spirit of our prophet. It must be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>admitted that in the <i>texte-type</i>, in the words “<i>au milieu +de</i> <span class="smcap">Branches</span>,” <i>Branches</i> is printed in capital letters, +so that the probable reason for that peculiarity is that +the God <i>Branchus</i>, as well as the <i>branches d’un laurier</i>, +is shadowed forth. But to suppose that a pagan deity +could ever be either the familiar or the guardian +angel of a son of the Church of Rome makes such a +Renaissance-jumble of the two religions that I think +we had better not meddle with it.</p> + +<p>As to the assertion that there was a pagan rite of +Branchus, I doubt it much; and, if there were, certain +it is that Nostradamus speaks here far too covertly +for us to assume from his writing that he was discharging +any rite special to Branchus. He seems to +be following out the usual magical forms employed +for establishing vaticinatory connection with the other +world, or setting up the counter analogy between +mind and spirit, according to that beautiful esoteric +verse in Ecclesiasticus (xlvii. 24), “All things are +double, one against another; He hath made nothing +imperfect.” Were such things never to interlink, +men might well say, as they do now in the wisdom +of science, that spirit and intellect are not doubles, +and that no knowledge can be reached save by +physical experiment. In this case there will be a +particular link missing if science be right. The sage, +<i>Estant assis de nuict secret estude</i>, will earnestly desire +such assumption may prove to be erroneous. He +will readily formulate with St. Paul that the invisible +things from creation may be known from the visible; +but also that the visible things can never be understood +but by the invisible. Recollect that the visible +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>is not visible to the visible, but to the invisible alone. +The eye is the machine of sight, but not sight; and +who has seen the eye of the eye?</p> + +<p>The Greek myth about Branchus, so far as I can see, +is this, with sundry forms and variations. He was a +youth of Miletus. The reputed son of Smicrus +(<i>Lempriere</i>), or Macareus Varro says, but begotten +by Apollo. The mother dreamed that the sun entered +her mouth, and, passing through her, the child at birth +was named <i>Branchus</i>, or βρόγχος, the throat. Afterwards +he kissed Apollo in the woods, and became +endowed with the gift of prophecy. He had a temple +at Didyma, which Pausanias calls the Temple of +Apollo; but Varro goes on to say that after the kiss +of the god he prophesied, but quickly after disappeared, +when a grand temple was jointly dedicated +to him and to Apollo,—<i>Philesius</i>, from φιλεῖν, to kiss. +His oracles at Didyma were inferior to none but +Delphi. The name Didymean, <i>double</i> or <i>twain</i>, was +from the double light of the sun and its reflection in +the moonlight. Sun-touched and moon-struck madness +and inspiration may in Branchus be said to +meet, as out of one throat come things good and evil. +The name Didymean was changed to Branchidæ +Strabo (Book xiv.) relates that the priests of this +grand temple betrayed its treasures to Xerxes, and +accompanied him in his retreat to escape the punishment +of their sacrilege. They had settled near to +Sogdiana, when Alexander arrived there (Strabo, +Book xi.); he destroyed them and their city. This +Byronical madman, who could see no iniquity in the +slaughter of thousands to gratify the lust of a crack-brained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>ambition, thought to promote morals by +slaughtering the descendants of traitors, they, the descendants, +being innocent of everything except being +born. The Milesians had long ago rebuilt the temple +of Branchus on such a scale that in magnitude it surpassed +all others in Greece. It was, in fact, too big +to be roofed in, being four or five stadia in compass. +Those who wish to see more can consult Suidas, s. v., +βραγχίδαι.</p> + +<p>The gloss of M. le Pelletier on the quatrain is as +follows: that Nostradamus, wand in hand, touches +the branches of the tripod, like the priests of Branchus +(this I have tried to expunge), and invokes his +familiar spirit, which appears to him in the vapour +floating above a basin of water, which he had consecrated +beforehand according to prescribed magical +rites, and in which he dips the fringe of his garment, +and his feet. An involuntary shivering (<i>peur</i>) agitates +his hand when about to write from the dictation +(<i>voix</i>) of the spirit. The fatidical light shines, and +the angel is seated at his side. Le Pelletier takes +occasion here to remark that mediums at this day +write under a spirit of dictation, to which they simply +lend their arm as an instrument.</p> + +<p>Garencières’ interpretation is that of most of the +old commentators, even down to the time of M. +Bareste, 1840. The rod is a pen, in the middle of +the branches means his fingers, the water is the ink, +and wetting limb and foot is covering the paper all +but the four margins. It is hardly unfair to say that +this is both nonsensical and ignorant, although not +devoid of ingenuity. I think it will fit the circumstances +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>far better to take it, as I have done, that the +wand was a forked laurel branch that dipped forcibly, +like the winchel rod, when Nostradamus held it over +the water, that it strained, as the hazel-rod does, +almost to breaking; and that at this invitation it is to +be supposed that the spirit appears. The incantation +being completed and successful, the operator must be +supposed to set aside the winchel, and assume the pen, +quaking with a solemn sense of the spiritual presence. +This fear was, Garencières says, to prevent the puffing +up of pride, as we read in Daniel, John, and the 4th +of Esdras.</p> + +<p>Readers who take no interest in this, and are consequently +weary by this time of the length we have +run into in the investigation, will leap over what +follows to get to the next quatrain.</p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier refers to Ficinus’ translation of +Jamblicus’ “De Mysteriis Ægyptiorum,” 1607. He +gives the Latin and French. I will merely introduce +here the English translation, as the book is of easy +reference to those who wish to examine further for +themselves the sources which Nostradamus had consulted, +and from which he drew his summary exposition.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The sibyl at Delphi received the god in two forms,—either +by a subtle and fiery spirit, which burst forth upon any one +through the crevice of some cavern, or else sitting on a brazen +seat of four or three feet in the inner shrine, dedicated to the god, +and where she was exposed on two sides to the divine influx, +whence she was irradiate with a divine light” (p. 66).</p> + +<p>“Now, the prophetess of Branchus either sits upon a pillar, +or holds in her hand a rod bestowed by some deity, or moistens +her feet or the hem of her garment with water, or inhales the +vapour of water, and by these means is filled with divine illumination, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>and, having obtained the deity, she prophesies. By these +practices she adapts herself to the god, whom she receives from +without” (p. 67).</p> + +<p>“Porphyrius says that the art [or magic] is not to be despised +which, out of certain vapours due to fire under favourable stellar +influences, forms the images of gods spontaneously appearing +in the air, in a certain degree like the gods themselves, and +possessing a very similar efficacy” (p. 91).</p> + +<p>“For amongst the demons there is one who is chief, and who +exercises influence at the moment of birth, and apportions to +each his demon (or familiar). After this there is present to +each one his own guardian, that develops a <i>cultus</i> congruous +to his nature, and teaches him both his name and the most +suitable form of invocation (to bring him when required), and +this method is most congenial to the demons” (p. 171).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These forms of Jamblicus are analogous to those +employed by Nostradamus; but there the person +prophesying wets the feet and fingers, whilst according +to our version of the quatrains it is the demon or +spirit applies them to himself: <i>Le Divin près s’assied</i>. +In Jamblicus the one who prophesies becomes possessed +by entry of the spirit. Nostradamus describes +an external and visible presence which corresponds to +Porphyrius’ account of <i>deorum idola in aere</i>.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Corporeal Demons.</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 59.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 42.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La dix Calendes d’Avril de faict gotique</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Resuscité encor par gens malins:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le feu estainct, assemblée diabolique</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cherchant les os du Damant et Pselin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The 10th of the Calends of April Gothic computation have +been again put in practice by sorcerers (<i>gens malins</i>). The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>lights put out, the diabolic assembly searching for the Demon +[<i>Damant</i> for <i>Démon</i>] treated of by Michael Psellus.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The <i>texte-type</i> is most corrupt in this quatrain; for +<i>Damant et Pselin</i> read <i>Démon e or ex Pselin</i>, the +demon as treated of by Psellus.</p> + +<p>The scholium of M. le Pelletier on this is—The +magical incantations, which were successful +formerly when wrought on the night of Good Friday, +were re-introduced into practice by sorcerers of skill +on the 10th Calend of April according to the ancient +computation (<i>de faict gotique</i>). In a note added +he professes that the 10th Calend Old Style would +be the last day of March by the Gregorian, and he +thinks it probable, that Nostradamus here designates +some particular year, when Good Friday fell on the +31st of March. Garencières upon this notes that it +falls on the 23rd of March, called Gothic, because +adhered to by the northern nations long after the +Gregorian had been adopted at Rome. I do not see +how the 10th Calend could ever fall on the 31st, nor +indeed what the 31st has to do with the matter. +Those who are more familiar with such calculations +may perhaps explain. Like the witches’ sabbath, +these diabolic meetings were accompanied by the +lewdest rites, as will at once be seen by the following +passage from Psellus, which I leave untranslated. It +is from the Latin translation of Psellus by Marsilius +Ficinus, and will be found in his collected works +(ii. 884) in folio ed. 1641.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Euchetæ et gnosci, ut dæmonia toto concipiant pectore, +nefanda sacrificia perpetrant. Conveniunt die quo passus est +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>Salvator,⁠<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> vespere, statutum in locum, unà cum puellis sibi +notis, et post quædam sacra extinctis luminibus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> mistim +coëunt, sive cum sorore, sive cum filiâ, sive cum quâlibet” +(<i>Psellus</i> as above, p. 884).</p> + +<p>“There is a further kind of vaticination by a basin, by means +of which rustics frequently predict. Just as there is a mode of +predicting by means of the air and the leaves of trees, so there +is a kind of predictive power in the basin, known and practised +by the Assyrians, which has a great similarity to this incarnation +or coupling of demons with matter. Thus those about to +prophesy take a basin full of water, which attracts the spirits +moving stealthily in the depths (<i>dæmonibus congruentem in profunda +repentibus.</i>) Le Pelletier translates this, <i>approprié à +l’usage des démons cachés au fond des eaux</i>. The basin then, +full of water, seems in sort to breathe (or move) as with sounds +(<i>s’il allait émettre des sons</i>); it seems to me that the water was +agitated with circular ripples, as from some sound emitted +below. Now, this water diffused through the basin differs but +little in kind from water out of the basin, but yet it much excels +it from a virtue imparted to it by the charms [that have been +droned over it], and which have rendered it more apt to receive +the spirit of prophecy. For this description of spirit is tetchy +and terrene, and much under the influence of composite spells. +When the water begins to lend itself as the vehicle of sound, he +[the spirit] also presently gives out a thin reedy note [of satisfaction], +but devoid of meaning; and close upon that, whilst the +water is undulating, certain weak and peeping sounds whisper +forth predictions of the future. A spirit of this kind is vagrant +everywhere, for he is endowed with the solar pass [so that our +terrestrial atmosphere lies everywhere open to him], and that +order of spirits, in the work appointed to it, speaks at all times +with a subdued voice, that by its indistinct obscurity it may be +less easy to seize the falsehoods that it utters” (Psellus as above, +p. 885).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p> + +<p>From the mode in which Psellus describes the +matter in hand, it is very perceptible that he was no +great conjuror, and was merely speaking upon hearsay +and report. If lies were the business of the spirit, +he would be no prophet. Again, if he wished to circulate +lies, he must still make things clear enough to his +votaries for them to circulate them and work mischief +thereby. Are we to suppose that, like an abandoned +human being, he had some sense of shame left still, +and, like Lord John Russell, would only tell as few +lies as possible? Psellus’s demon is so foolish that he +would soon have been without any one to consult his +shrine. He could not have given a reason for his own +conduct, in the past or present, and was the last +being that any one would resort to to anticipate +intelligence of the future. Still the procedure might +have been somewhat as Psellus describes it, although +the reasons could not.</p> + +<p>An historian of the fourth century, and a man of +veracity, Marcellinus has given us curious details of +how prophetical tripods were considered by the +Romans in his day. It comes out quite naturally in +the judicial proofs investigating a conspiracy against +the life of Valens the Emperor; what we should call a +state trial. The conspirators were put to the torture, +and as an item in the indictment the figure of a little +table becomes prominent, as to which the accused +were questioned by the judges. At last one of them, +Hillarius, broken by pain, revealed the secret in these +words:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Honoured judges, we constructed this unfortunate little +table that you see here after the fashion of the tripod [or, more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>strictly, the cauldron⁠<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>⁠] at Delphi, with dark incantations, out of +branches of laurel; and with imprecations of secret song, and +numerous ceremonies repeated over daily, we consecrated it by +magic rites, till at last we put it in motion. When it reached +this capacity of movement, as often as we wished to interrogate +it by secret inquiry, we proceeded thus.</p> + +<p>“It was placed in the middle of a room (<i>in medio domûs</i>) +purified throughout by Arabian perfumes; a round dish was +simply laid upon it, formed of a composite material of many +metals. On the phlange of its outer round were skilfully engraved +the scriptile forms of the alphabet separated into as many +exactly measured spaces. Over this basin (or dish) a man stood +clothed in linen garments and shod with linen socks, his head +bound round with a turban-like tuft of hair, and bearing a rod +of vervain, the prospering plant. After we had favourably conciliated +the deity, who is the giver of all presage, with duly +formulated charms and ceremonial knowledge, he communicated +a gentle movement to a ring that hung suspended over +the basin.... This was tied up by an exceedingly fine Carpathian +thread, which had been initiated with mystical observances. +This ring, moving by little leaps or jumps, so as to alight upon the +distinct intervals with the separate letters inscribed, each in its +compartment to itself, gives out in heroic verse answers suitable +to the inquiries made, comprehended perfectly in number and +measure; such as are called Pythic, or those delivered by the +oracles of the Branchidæ.</p> + +<p>“To us inquiring who should succeed to the present empire, +because it had been already mentioned that it would be one +entirely suitable [to our aim and purpose], the leaping ring had +glanced upon the two syllables <span class="smcap">Theo</span>. With the last addition of +a letter [that is, D], a man present exclaimed, ‘<span class="smcap">Theodorum</span>,’ +the fatal necessity of the portent indicating as much. Nothing +further was sought upon this head; for it was agreed amongst us +that this was the individual we wanted” (<i>Ammianus Marcellinus</i>, +Rerum Gestarum, xxix. 1).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In this case the ambiguity of the oracle is due to +the precipitance of the inquirers. The oracle was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>true as far as they allowed it to proceed, but had +they waited to spell it out they would have learned +that the name was not <span class="smcap">Theod</span><i>orus</i>, but <span class="smcap">Theod</span><i>osius</i> +the Great, who was to be the successor to Valens.</p> + +<p>This is an authentic passage of high interest. It +shows considerable analogy with the table-turning of +the moderns; it also gives insight into singular and +elaborate processes of divination by magic as being +frequently practised at Rome in the fourth century. +Clearly the Pagans had no notion in that century +that oracles had at all finally ceased on a Good +Friday in the first century, or that Pan, the god of +rumour, was dead. The sun still shone to them as +the Apollo of prophecy, and they still sought presage +of a spirit who was made free of the solar order (<i>qui +solarem ordinem est sortitus</i>).</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="HISTORICAL_FRAGMENTS">HISTORICAL FRAGMENTS.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>I shall now give a few detached historical fragments +that relate to France, commencing with the +Peace of Cateau-Cambresis, 1559, and running down +to the death of Louis XV., 1774, in chronological order, +just as M. le Pelletier has found the counterpart to +lie embedded in the quatrains of Nostradamus, in a +fashion seemingly interpretable to him. This, for +any but French readers, will probably be sufficient to +indicate the style and value of the presages enveloped +in the strange and fatidical diction of the quatrains. +I doubt not but that, by original research instituted +and by careful re-reading of the text throughout, a +good many more of the mysterious stanzas might be +unravelled and elucidated; also by collation of all that +has been written by commentators on our author, a +good deal of light might be thrown upon what they +have done, even where their own interpretation has +fallen short of clearness. All that my book purposes +to accomplish is,—at least for England,—to establish, +without doubt, and at once, for all future time, that +Nostradamus is no impostor, but, when rightly understood +and unlocked, a very wonderful anticipator of +events to happen hereafter; and, farther than this, +that his works are, to all intents and purposes, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>most startling oracles ever put on paper by mortal +man not professing divine inspiration. From immemorial +time instances of human prescience have +occasionally been manifested. The whole human race +has an ardent and ingrain desire to search into and +anticipate futurity. Very few individuals, however, +have from time to time been able to gratify and keep +alive their passion in this respect. But no one has +done so in a degree that at all sets him on a par with +Nostradamus in the felicitous and reiterated coruscations +whereby he has anticipated the more prominent +points and epochs of time Future; and sometimes in +minuteness he even mentions by name some individual +who emerges though it be but for an instant from the +general obscurity of his life.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Peace of Cateau-Cambresis (April 3, 1559).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 71.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 52.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La paix s’approche d’un costé, et la guerre</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oncques⁠<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> ne fut la poursuitte si grande:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plaindre hômes, femmes, sang innocent par terre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et ce sera de France a⁠<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> toute bande.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Peace approaches on one side, and [as to] war</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Never was the pursuit of it so great:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Men and women [have cause] to weep innocent blood on earth;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All through France it shall be from end to end.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The peace was that concluded with Spain at +Cateau-Cambresis, whilst the war, carried on with +such hot pursuit, was the civil conflict that raged +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>between Romanist and Calvinist. This it was made +men and women lament the blood spilt upon the earth +in all parts of France, from north to south.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Death of Henri II. (July 10, 1559).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 72.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 35.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le lyon jeune le vieux surmontera</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En champ bellique par singulier duelle:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dans cage d’or⁠<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> les yeux lui crevera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deux classes⁠<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> + une,⁠<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> puis mourir, mort cruelle.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The young lion shall overcome the old</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On the field of war in single combat [duelle];</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will pierce his eyes in a cage of gold.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This is the first of two loppings, then he dies a cruel death.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Montgomery, who at the moment of the narrative +bore the name of Captain Coryes (Garencières, p. 25), +afterwards became Earl of Montgomery, overthrew +Henri II. (<i>le vieux lion</i>) in the tournay-lists or duel, +and pierced him above the eye through the gilt visor +of his helmet. This is the first of the two blows that +will destroy the dynastic tree of the house of Valois. +Henri II., wounded mortally, shall be the first to die +a violent death; whilst his son, Henri III., will be the +second, who fell by the hand of Jacques Clément.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p> + +<h3>August 1. 1589.</h3> + +<p>This is a very celebrated quatrain. It is found in +the earliest edition of the quatrains published at +Lyons in 1555, containing merely 300 quatrains. It +lifted Nostradamus into celebrity at once. He had +applied it to Henri II. several years before it happened, +and had even announced it as a prediction to the +King himself. He was well known to Henri II., to +whom he dedicated the last three Centuries, in a long +and curious epistle, which we have already given in +full. The King seems to have had infinite confidence +in Nostradamus, for he let him draw the royal horoscope, +as well as that of his two children, in 1556.</p> + +<p>The story of this is curious, as given by Guynaud +in his “Concordance des Prophéties de Nostradamus,” +1712,⁠<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> pp. 86-91. Henri II., it would seem, proclaimed +a tournament in the Rue St. Antoine, the +site of the Bastille, then in the country, for July 1, +1559, in honour of the marriage of his daughter +Elizabeth of France with Philip II. of Spain. He +listed himself as one against all comers. The joust +being nearly over and the sun setting, the Duc de +Savoie begged him to quit the running, as his side +was already victorious; but the King wanted to break +another lance over it, and commanded the young +Comte de Montgommeri, captain of his Scotch +Guard, to run a tilt in conclusion. He excused +himself, but the King insisted and grew angry. Of +course the young man then obeyed, put spurs to his +horse, and struck the King upon the throat, below +the vizor. His lance shivered, and the butt raising +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>the vizor, a splinter wounded the King above the +right eye, cutting several of the veins of the <i>pia mater</i>. +The King swooned. He lived on, however, for ten +days in terrible agony, as foretold in the prophecy, +<i>Deux classes une, puis mourir, mort cruelle</i>. Nostradamus +styles both of them lions, as they both fought +under that device. The King wore a gilt helmet, so +that the <i>cage d’or</i> was literally fulfilled.</p> + +<p>The strange part is that another astrologer, named +Luc Gauric, had once been visited by the King in +company with two other gentlemen, to whom he +feigned to give precedence; but the astrologer, perhaps +knowing him, insisted on addressing him first, and +told him he would die in a duel. He also prophesied +a violent death to the King’s companions, and +managed to displease the whole trio. The King +said of this, “We are making peace now with the +King of Spain, so it is not very likely that I shall +challenge him, and as a king I could in no other way +be challenged, whatever may be the fate of the other +gentlemen.” Guynaud quotes this story from the +Princesse de Clèves, who, in the second volume of +her writings, represents the Court as discussing +the credibility of astrologers, the prevalent opinion +apparently being rather strong against them. Still, +we know that Henri II. greatly honoured Nostradamus. +Prophetic warning is evidently futile, for the King +had two separate warnings and heeded neither.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Princesse de Clèves.</span> [<span class="allsmcap">II. 145.</span>]</h3> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Quelques jours après, le Roy étoit chez la Reine à l’heur du +Cercle; l’on parla des Horoscopes et des prédictions. Les +opinions étaient partagées sur la croyance que l’on y devoit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>donner. La Reine y ajoûtait beaucoup de foi; elle soûtint +qu’après tant de choses qui avaient été prédites, et que l’on +avait vu arriver, on ne pouvait douter qu’il n’eut quelque certitude +dans cette science. D’autres soûtenaient, que parmi ce +nombre infini de prédictions, le peu qui se trouvaient veritables, +faisait bien voir que se n’etait qu’un effet du hazard.</p> + +<p>“J’ai eu autrefois beaucoup de curiosité pour l’avenir,” dit le +Roy; “mais on m’a dit tant de choses fausses et si peu vraisemblables +que je suis demuré convaincu que l’on ne peut rien +savoir de véritable. Il y a quelques années qu’il devint ici un +homme d’une grande reputation dans l’Astrologie. Tout le +monde l’alla voir, j’y allai comme les autres, mais sans lui dire qui +j’étais, et je menai Monsieur de Guise et Descars, je les fit passer +le premier. L’Astrologue neanmoins s’addressa d’abord à moi, +comme s’il m’eut jugé le maitre des autres: Peut-être qu’il me +connaissait; cependant il me dit une chose qui ne me convenait +pas, s’il m’eut connu. Il me predit que je serai tué en duel. Il +dit ensuite à Monsieur de Guise, qu’il serait tué par derrière, et +à Descars, qu’il aurait la tête cassée d’un coup de pied de +cheval. Monsieur de Guise s’offensa quasi de cette prédiction, +comme si l’on eut accusé de devoir fuir. Descars ne fut guerre +satisfait de trouver qu’il devait finir par un accident si malheureux. +Enfin nous sortimes tous très malcontents de l’astrologue. Je +ne scais ce qui arrivera à Monsieur de Guise et à Descars, +mais il n’y a guerre d’apparence que je sois tué en duel. Nous +venons de faire la paix le Roy d’Espagne et moi, quand nous +ne l’aurions pas faite, je doute que nous nous battions, et que +je le fisse appeller comme le Roy mon père fit rappeller Charles +Quint.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The story, as told by the Princesse de Clèves, is +fuller than I have given it, but does not correspond +at all with the version given to Lord Bacon when in +France, as told to him by Dr. Penn, who said (Bacon’s +“Essay on Prophecies”) that the queen-mother, +Catherine de Medici, was given to curious arts, and +caused the King’s nativity to be cast under a false +name. The astrologer adjudged that he should be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>killed in a duel. The queen laughed, supposing her +husband to be above challenges to duel; “but he +was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the +staff of Montgomery going in at his beaver.” History, +in events large or small, hath so many variants that +any man, whose view of things is a little sinister, may +well be allowed to say all history is a variant of truth, +and all that is sure in it is that it cannot be relied +upon at all. In this case the astrologers were right, +spite of the odds against them.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Arrest of Montgomery (May 27, 1574).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 73.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 30.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Celuy qu’en⁠<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> + luitte⁠<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> et fer au faict bellique</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aura porté⁠<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> plus grand qui luy le prix,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De nuict au lict six luy feront la pique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nud, sans harnois, subit⁠<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> + sera surprins.⁠<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">To him who in strife and armour in the warlike field</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall have carried away the prize from one greater than himself.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By night in bed six men will stab him;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unprotected he will be surprised naked and unarmed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This means that Montgomery, who in joust (<i>au +faict bellique</i>,—<i>bellique</i>, we are told, means an engagement +on horseback) with lance in hand will have +carried away the prize from Henri II. (<i>plus grand que +luy</i>) will be suddenly surprised in bed at night, naked +and unarmed, by six men, who will deliver him into +the vengeful hands of Catherine de Medici.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span></p> + +<p>Some say the dying King gave him free pardon; +others report that he fled to England to save himself: +but at any rate he came to England, and there +embraced Protestantism. When he returned to +France, he placed himself at the head of the revolted +Huguenots in Normandy, and was besieged in Domfront +by the Marshal de Matignon and a large force, +to which he was obliged to surrender. The terms of +the surrender guaranteed his life, but by express +command of Catherine he was arrested in his own +castle of Domfront on the night of May 27, 1574, by +six gentlemen of the royal army, and carried to the +Château of Caen, thence to the Conciergerie at Paris, +and there immured, where the great tower still goes +by his name.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Regency of Catherine de Medici (1559-1574).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 74.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 63.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La Dame seule au regne demeurée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’unic esteint premier au lict d’honneur;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sept ans sera de douleur esplorée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis longue vie au regne par grand heur.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The lady shall remain to rule alone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her unique spouse dead, who was first in the field of honour.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She will weep for grief through seven long years,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And gifted with long life will reign long.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Catherine de Medici did not put off her weeds till +August 1, 1566, seven years and a few days from the +death of the King in July, 1559, on her return from +a progress with her son Charles IX., in the course of +which she had visited all the mutinous cities throughout +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>the kingdom, with a view to satisfy them. She survived +till the year 1589, and practically retained the +whole power during the reigns of her two eldest sons, +François II. and Charles IX., but she entirely lost it +on the succession of Henri III.</p> + +<p>The quatrain applies to no one so well as to +Catherine de Medici; and, if it be allowed to be +realized as to her person, there is no denying the +singular exactitude of the prophecy. We have no +evidence that the Queen applied the quatrain to +herself, or that her contemporaries bore it in mind; +but the second line is remarkable as assuming with +reposeful confidence the previous death of the King +as predicted. The third line is a startling example +of the precision with which our prophet can mark +out the duration of a period: seven years the Queen +is to wear mourning, and she does so all the time she +is travelling. The sceptical will say she did it to +fulfil the prophecy; but it looks rather as if that +had fallen quite out of remembrance, and as if it was +due much more to policy, and for the purpose of +creating sympathy, during her state tour, than to +motives either of superstition or any singular attachment +to her deceased husband. The quatrain is most +unobtrusively worded, and yet so confidently assured +and searching, that it seems to me, as if perfectly +unbiassed and disinterested observers might take it +as a kind of moral voucher for the simple integrity +of its author. I merely draw attention to it so far, +and every reader will form his own judgment upon +the point. I hold myself aloof from theory; but this +is how the particular fact we are upon impresses my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>mind, and probably it may affect many others in the +same way.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Extinction des Valois (1559-1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 77.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Presage 40.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De maison sept par mort mortelle suite;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gresle, tempeste, pestilent mal, fureurs:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Roi d’Orient, d’Occident tous en fuite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Subjuguera ses jadis conquereurs.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The death of the house of seven by a suite of deaths,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hail, tempest, pestilent evil, fury.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A king of the East will put all the West to flight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And will subdue his at-one-time conquerors.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The house of Valois consisted of the seven children +of Henri II. By the death of the fourth son, +Henri III., in 1589, the whole of the seven were dead +except Marguerite, who married Henri IV., so that +the family may well be said to have died out by a +suite of deaths (<i>mortelle suite</i>). Heresy was rampant +(<i>pestilent mal</i>) and civil war. Soliman II., called the +Magnificent, threatened all Christendom, and recovered +all the Holy Places that the Crusaders had +wrested from his predecessors.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Civil War (1575, 1576).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 78.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 11.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Des septs rameaux à trois seront reduicts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les plus aisnés seront surprins⁠<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> par mort,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fratricider les deux seront seduicts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les conjurés en dormans seront morts.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The seven branches when they shall be reduced to three,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the four eldest shall have been surprised by death,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The two (males) shall entertain fratricidal aims,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the conspirators sleeping shall be reduced to death.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This means that, when the seven are become but +three (<i>i.e.</i> the three youngest), Henri III. and the Duc +d’Alençon will enter upon a fratricidal war. In 1575 +Alençon escaped from the Court, where he was under +surveillance, and put himself at the head of the Malcontents, +who were in alliance with the Huguenots. +He was successful, and forced the edict of pacification, +May 14, 1576, upon his brother the King. Daniel, in +his “History of France” under Henri III., shows that +they mutually sought each other’s death by dagger +and poison. The Guise (<i>les conjurés</i>) and the Leaguers +will come by their deaths from indulging in a false +security.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Murder of Henri III. (1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 79.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century V.—Quatrain 67.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand chef Perouse n’osera sa tunique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans au couvert tout nud s’expolier.⁠<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seront prins⁠<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> sept, faict aristocratique!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le père et fils morts par poincte au colier.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When the chief of Perouse dare not risk casting off his tunic</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Without stripping himself entirely naked,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The last of the seven taken, what an event in the upper circles!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Father and son killed by a stab in the throat.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When Sixtus V. (<i>chef de Perouse</i>) will not dare +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>to excommunicate Henri III., having already lost +England in 1534, and feeling he must not be entirely +stripped by a further Gallican schism, will be rid of +the posterity of Henri II. (<i>seront prins sept</i>) by a +tremendous event in aristocratic circles. Father and +son will both perish by a thrust in the throat.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Death of the Guise (December 23, 24, 1588).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 80.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 60.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Les sept enfans en hostaine⁠<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> laissés;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le tiers⁠<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> + viendra son enfant trucider⁠<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>⁠;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deux par son fils seront d’estoc percés;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gennes Florence les viendra enconder.⁠<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Seven children will be left in his house;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The <i>tiers état</i> will come to murder his child;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Two will have been pierced by the sword of his son;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Genoa and Florence will come to disorder them.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is, Henri II. at his death will leave seven +children in his house. The <i>Conseil des Seize</i> (<i>le tiers</i>) +will incite Jacques Clément to go to St. Cloud to +assassinate Henri III., because he has caused Henri +de Guise and the Cardinal to be slain by sword +thrusts. Then Charles Emmanuel I., Duke of Savoy +(<i>le Génois</i>), and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma +(<i>le Florentin</i>), General of Philip II., will come to +make war on Henri IV., who will be compelled by +Farnese to raise the siege of Paris (1590) and Rouen +(1592) with precipitation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p> + +<p>Parma was, originally, of Etruscan foundation +(Bouillet, “Dictionnaire d’Histoire” <i>s.v.</i> Parme), and +in this respect rises above Florence, the capital of +Modern Tuscany. This justifies Nostradamus in +designating the Duke of Parma as <i>Florence</i>. Genoa, +by synecdoche, may stand for Savoy, as being its +more commercial emporium.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Burial at St. Denis of the last of the Valois +(1589-1610).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 82.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 20.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Serpens⁠<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> transmis en la cage de fer</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Où les enfans septains du Roy sont pris,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les vieux et peres sortiront bas⁠<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> + de l’enfer,⁠<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ains mourir voir de fruict mort et cris.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The coffin being lowered behind the grille of iron,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where the seven children of the King are buried,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The ancestors of the Valois will rise from the depths of the tomb,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And cry out to see their withered fruit thus die.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Henri III. was deposited, provisionally, in 1589, at +Compiègne, in the Abbey of St. Corneille; and it was +only in 1610 that his body was conveyed to the vaults +of St. Denis, at the same time with the bodies of +Henri IV. and Catherine de Medici. This quatrain +is not very remarkable, but the interpretation hangs +pretty well together. It has perhaps this value, that +it shows us one incident in a vast procession of +historical dissolving views that seem to have passed +before the eye of Nostradamus, and one would say in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>chronological sequence, which he must himself have +broken up purposely afterwards, fearing that the +chronological clue would often render the prophecy +too open to interpretation to be good for either his +own safety or the public advantage.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Marriage of François II. and Mary Stuart (April 24, +1558).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 84.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 39.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Premier fils vefve⁠<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> malheureux mariage</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans nuls enfants, deux Isles en discord,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avant dix-huict incompetant âge.⁠<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De l’autre près⁠<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> plus bas sera l’accord.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The eldest son leaves, with his wretched marriage,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Widow, no children, and two isles in strife,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And dies before eighteen, incompetent of age.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The younger son will marry earlier still.⁠<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The matter seems to stand thus. François II., +eldest son of Henri II., shall die and leave his wife, +Mary Stuart, a widow without children, after an +unhappy marriage that extends over less than two +years, before he is eighteen, or of competent age. +The particularity of this detail is wonderful, and far +more like history than prophecy, except as to the +brevity with which it is expressed. His enunciations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>amount to hints only, but they are so pregnant that, +when you fill in the indispensably connected particulars, +the statement reads like history. So here +the instant you recognize that François II. is the +subject of the lines, you refer to history for his birth +and death, January 19, 1543, December 15, 1560—that +is, 17 years, 10 months, and 15 days, or a month +and 15 days short of 18 years. <i>Avant dix-huict</i> is +Nostradamus’s phrase. Again, his death establishes +discord between Elizabeth of England and Mary of +Scotland (<i>deux Isles en discord</i>). Charles IX., his +younger brother, was affianced to Elizabeth of +Austria when still younger, at eleven years of age, +though he did not marry till twenty. This is how +M. le Pelletier harmonizes the line. But, as affiancing +is not marriage, this cannot have any affinity at all +with marrying at an incompetent age. I should propose +to read the line thus. Of the younger one +afterwards, and lower down, will the concordance, +account, or accord be given; and accordingly we +shall have now to enter upon several stanzas that +relate to Charles IX.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Charles IX.</span> (<i>Le roi farouche</i>). <span class="allsmcap">(1560-1574).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 86.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 66.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand Baillif d’Orleans mis à mort</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sera par un de sang vindicatif:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De mort mérité ne mourra ni par sort;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Des pieds et mains mal le faisoit captif.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great Bailiff of Orleans shall be put to death</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By one of vindictive blood:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not undeserved death shall he die, nor by fate;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For they will insecurely make him captive by feet and hands.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span></p> + +<p>Jérôme Groslot shall be arrested November 9, 1561, +and condemned by the Inquisition to beheadal for +delivering the city to the Calvinists. But he will not +suffer the death merited, nor undergo his fate; his +keepers being bribed, he shall escape.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Defection of Admiral Coligny (1559-1567).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 87.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 75.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand pillot⁠<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> + par Roy sera mandé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Laisser la classe⁠<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> pour plus haut lieu atteindre:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sept ans après sera contrebandé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Barbare armée viendra Venise craindre.⁠<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He who shall have been appointed admiral by the king,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall leave the fleet to take a higher post;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seven years later, shall take the opposite side to the king;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Venice shall dread an army of barbarians coming.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Gaspard de Coligny, made grand-admiral by +Henri II., in 1552, shall quit the fleet in 1559, on the +death of the King, and place himself at the head of +the Calvinist party. In 1562 he will be general of +their forces, and in 1567—that is, seven years after +withdrawal from the fleet, he will head the rebellion +in the civil war. At the same moment Venice will +dread the armies of Selim II., that will wrest Cyprus +from her in 1570. The peace between the Catholics +and Protestants was signed at St. Germain in this +very year. The Venetians, however, in this year +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>gained the naval victory of Lepanto over the Turks +in 1570.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Murder of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé +(March 13, 1569).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 88.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 41.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bossu sera esleu par le conseil:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus hideux monstre en terre n’apperceu.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le coup voulant crevera l’œil⁠<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le traistre au Roy pour fidelle receu.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Crookback shall be elected by the council:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A more hideous monster never seen on earth.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An intentional shot pierces the eye of the traitor</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who had sworn to be faithful to the king.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Prince Louis of Condé, the Humpback, shall be +elected general-in-chief by the council of notables of +the Calvinists. Such a monster of wickedness was +never seen on earth. Montesquiou killed him with a +pistol-shot in the eye, who had twice escaped from +his treasonous practices against the King. Here +Nostradamus’ forecast is miraculously clear, although +it has baffled Guynaud to find its concordance with +events. He here also exhibits his religious partisanship. +A hunchback is always considered to be +morally as well as physically deformed; and, as Louis +de Bourbon took the side of the Calvinists, he became +at once to our prophet <i>le plus hideux monstre en terre</i>. +Evidently, however, he was a grand fighting fellow, +and spent his life in camps, if we go no further than +Moreri for his history. He was condemned for a conspirator +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>in 1560 to lose his head. But the sentence +was never carried out, as King François II. died at the +moment, and none was bold enough to see to it. When +Charles IX. set him at liberty, the <i>Cour des Pairs</i> +found out that he was innocent, and declared him so. +He perished at the battle of Jarnac. He had his leg +broken by the kick of a horse, and was seated at the +foot of a bush when Montesquiou, captain of the +Duke of Anjou’s guards, saw him, and, for some old +pique, coolly, but like the veriest coward, shot the +wounded Condé in the eye with his pistol. The body +was conveyed for burial to St. George of Vendôme, +either by chance or insult, on the back of a she ass, +at Jarnac; which led to one of those impromptu +epitaphial epigrams that the French turn so prettily:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’an mil cinq cens soixante neuf,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre Jarnac et Chateauneuf,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fut porté mort sur une ânesse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand ennemi de la Messe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right">(<i>v.</i> <span class="smcap">Moreri</span>, <i>s.v.</i> <i>Louis de Bourbon</i>.)</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24, 1572).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 89.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 47.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Noir⁠<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> farouche, quand aura essayé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sa main sanguine par feu, fer, arcs tendus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trestous le peuple sera tant⁠<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> effrayé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Voir les plus grans par col et pieds pendus.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The savage king, when he shall have tried</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His blood-stained hand with fire, sword, and bows,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All the people shall be terrified</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To see the great hung by the neck and feet.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> + +<p>When Charles IX. shall exercise his sanguinary +hand with fire, the sword, and the arquebus, the +people will be horrified to see the great Calvinist +lords strung up by the neck and feet. One of the +savage amusements of Charles, in hunting, was to cut +off at a single blow the heads of any asses or pigs he +came across on the way. During the very massacre +he placed himself at a window of the Louvre and +took several shots with a long arquebus at the +Huguenots who fled from the other side of the Seine +in the Faubourg St. Germain. The body of Coligny +was dragged by the populace, at the end of a rope, +through all the mud of the kennels, and then hung +up by one foot to the gibbet at Montfauçon. This +24th of August fell on a Sunday. The King himself +died two years after, with some suspicion of poisoning. +He is said to have been a man of high courage and +of a lively, quick wit, possessing a good share of +eloquence; was given much to dissimulation; and +full of oaths, unreasonably violent, and without self-control. +He turned a verse well, and loved hunting. +His poems still remain, but I do not know they can +ever command a single reader. In speaking of poets, +he used to say they ought to be well fed, like good +horses, but not satisfied, or they become lazy. The +world in general prefers to starve them if they are +first-rate, and enrich them if they are second-rate. +We cannot expect people to reward what they cannot +understand: though inevitable, we cannot but deplore +the arrangement. With good abilities, Charles had +so little judgment that his actions would always have +been mischievous; the best thing that could have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>happened was his death at twenty-four. He is said to +have remarked, when dying, that he was glad to die +young and have no children, for he had sadly learnt, in +his own case, how miserable is the conduct of a prince +who mounts the throne a child, and so governs through +the ministry of others. This only shows a little +recovery to sober reason, but none of the remorse +that is attributed to him on his death-bed, as being +the ostensible author of the blackest act that has ever +disfigured Christianity or stained Europe. In perfidy +and crime it cannot be surpassed, nor as the outcome +of religious perversion. The crimes of an atheistic +democracy, perpetrated two hundred years later on +the same theatre precisely, have only been able to surpass +it, in the carnal lusts exhibited, in the inhuman +degradation of the body of man, and in the ubiquity +of iniquity, when the whole people are thirsting to +satiate their debased passions in sin. Nostradamus +has elsewhere called Paris the City of the Sword. It +is the wine-press of the earth, fat with the blood of +man: Lutetia of mud and blood. Haussmann rebuilt +it, but nothing can cleanse it. Their very guillotine +is an instrument contrived to publicly gratify the +populace in its tiger-taste for the reek of blood in the +streets of the City of Blood. If you wish to see +the disgrace of religion, read Sully’s description of +the endeavour of the ferocious priests on that day +to have <i>his</i> blood. Look also on the medal of +Gregory XIII.,⁠<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> struck rejoicingly to commemorate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>that awful crime. Bonanni shows it; and, as a work +of medallic art, the head of the Pope is of the very +highest order of beauty and Italian grace. But, then, +it commemorates the blood of sixty thousand victims, +he says. Ranke (ii. 69) puts it at fifty thousand. +Take this number, if you like; it is enough to satisfy +the successor to St. Peter, to whom the special +mandate was addressed, “Feed my sheep,”—as other +shepherds do for the butcher, is the Gregorian gloss. +Tradesmen, however, have the decency to shut the +shambles on the Sunday morning; but the <i>servus +servorum</i> is at home in <i>his</i> ministrations on the +Dominical day. That Sunday in August is indeed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>a Saints’ rubric! For that day there is no need of +a calendar. Time, till the world ruptures, can never +forget it,—nor forgive.</p> + +<p><i>Le noir farouche</i> of this quatrain is, by Guynaud, +p. 113, said to stand for Admiral Coligny, who is +designated, according to him, very variously in the +quatrains. The <i>noir farouche</i> alludes to his rough +and forbidding exterior. <i>Le grand Pillot</i> (VI. 75) +is another epithet; <i>le tiran</i> (Présage III.) another. +The conclusion of the quatrain is admitted, both by +Le Pelletier and Guynaud, to stand for Coligny. In +the earlier portion, most will, I think, prefer to take +<i>noir</i> as the anagram of <i>Roi</i>.</p> + +<p>Guynaud gives a surprising account from the +historians of Provence and France, of what happened +to Coligny when he was at Angoulême in 1568. He +set up a gibbet there, and on his own authority +hanged upon it Michel Grêlet, Guardian of the Cordéliers, +and a most zealous preacher against the +heretics. In his dying speech on the scaffold, the latter +said, “Admiral, you put me to death very unjustly. +I am going to God now to give account to Him of +my actions; but remember, you and all the people +present here to-day, I predict that in a short time +you will yourself be thrown from an upper window, +and your body will be cut to pieces.” The histories +go on to say that an Italian cut off Coligny’s head to +send it to Cardinal de Lorraine at Rome, whilst other +men cut off his hands and other parts of his body; +also that at about six in the morning the mob found +his body on a dunghill in a stable, dragged it to the +Seine, and threw it in. It was again fished out, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>hung by the foot to the gibbet of Montfauçon, where +it became blackened in the smoke of the fires that +were lighted below it. (Guynaud, “Concord. Nostra.,” +p. 113.)</p> + +<h4><i>Sixain 52.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 90.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La grand’ Cité qui n’a pain à demy</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Encor un coup la Sainct Barthelemy</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Engravera au profond de son ame:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nismes, Rochelle, Geneve et Montpellier,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Castres, Lyon, Mars entrant au Belier,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’entrebattront; le tout pour une Dame.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great city that has bread at only half rations</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will have the further blow of Saint Bartholomew</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cut deep into its soul:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nismes, Rochelle, Geneva, and Montpellier,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Castres, Lyons, with Mars entering the Ram,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will fight one another; and all for the Queen mother.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The great city is, of course, Paris, and <i>une Dame</i> is +the Queen, Catherine de Medici. It has to be borne in +mind that these sixains were not published till thirty-three +years after the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s. +Naturally, the prediction loses all special authority +in this case. It raises, however, a singular question: +Why, if it was written after the event, it was not +rendered more explicit, if those who published it had +an interest in augmenting the fame of the prophet? +It looks very much as if the testamentary duties were +performed in perfect good faith, mechanically, and +without even understanding the purport or meaning +of the words.</p> + +<p>Another passage relating to St. Bartholomew’s +massacre occurs in the text of 1605, and its authority +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>is no greater than that of the sixain just quoted, as it +was not published till after the event. It goes, however, +to strengthen the remark I above made. Those +who caused the work to be printed seem to have been +perfectly unconscious of the meaning of the stanzas; +they regarded the whole procedure as a mere form of +respect to the memory of a celebrated relative. Their +duty was clear to them, and they performed it; but +the writings were to them perfectly unintelligible.</p> + +<p>Presage III. (ii. 252) is dated as if written January, +1555, and for anything that I can see there is nothing +whatever to make one doubt but that it was so. +Having made this point as clear as I can, the reader +will take it or reject it as he pleases.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le gros airain qui les heures ordonne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur le trespas du Tyran cassera:⁠<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pleurs, plaintes et cris, eaux, glace pain ne dône</div> + <div class="verse indent0">V. S. C.⁠<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> paix l’arme passera.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The brazen bell that rings the daily hours</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will play full volley at the tyrant’s death:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tears, cries, and groans; the waters freeze up bread,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With son of Charles the Fifth a peace is made.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The tyrant here is interpreted by Guynaud (p. 107) +as Coligny, and he appends some interesting remarks +from Favin’s “Histoire de Navarre,” touching St. +Bartholomew’s Day in Paris. He says they marked +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>the lodgings of the Huguenots that they might +know where to find them in the hurry, and it was +arranged that at the tocsin of the great bell at +the palace, as well as that of the church of St. Germain +de l’Auxerrois, they were to lay violent hands +(<i>main-baisse</i>) on all the heretics. Two p.m. was +the hour appointed. The Catholics who went into +the street were to distinguish themselves by a white +cross upon their hats. The bodies of the slain were +for the most part thrown into the river. Mezerai +records that the queen-mother hastened the signal by +a full hour, and that it was, contrary to arrangement, +started by the bell of St. Germain de l’Auxerrois, +although that was immediately followed up by the +big bell of the palace.</p> + +<p>Coligny was slain in bed, and flung out of window +in his shirt only. His face, being covered with blood, +the Duc de Guise coolly wiped it with his handkerchief, +to assure himself that it actually was Coligny. +We shall shortly see this bloodthirsty villain himself +murdered at Blois.</p> + +<p>The massacre continued the whole week through, +for seven days that is, but the chief fury had spent +itself by Tuesday night. The Janus Gallicus professes, +though how Aimé could have any certainty of it I +cannot tell, that Nostradamus, by <i>tyran</i>, alludes to +Coligny, and says that the bell tolled so long that it +broke. The quatrain does not necessitate the supposal +of any such thing, and I believe the fact is not +elsewhere recorded. Of course, if it be, it would be +so literal a fulfilment that all the sceptical world +would immediately take advantage of what I have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>pointed out, that this is a prophecy <i>après coup</i>. If so +doing should rejoice anybody, I can only say that he +has my consent. My business is to put the facts, +without a shred of disguise, before the reader; he can +weave them into theories for himself. If I at any +time manifest what I think, he will be pleased to +accept it merely as a contribution towards the same +end.</p> + +<p>In January, 1572, the river Seine was frozen over +for a long time, and the roads became almost impassable. +This <i>may</i> perhaps be thought to interpret +<i>eaux glace pain ne dône</i>, with such hieroglyphic +symbolism of scarcity as oracular utterance delights +in. It is pretty certain that provisions did not enter +Paris that winter with their usual flow. In allusion +to the army mentioned, Guynaud says that the Duc +d’Anjou marched with fifty thousand men to the +siege of Rochelle, where, after firing thirteen thousand +shots, they at last effected a breach. What they +battered down, oddly enough, was the Boulevard of +the Gospel (<i>Boulevard de l’Évangile</i>), but they could +not storm it, and lost twenty thousand men without +taking the place.</p> + +<p>In that eulogium on Catherine de Medici which +de Brantôme (“Panthéon Littéraire,” ii. 116) calls +her Life, he relates that she died of a broken heart, +from grief at having consented to the massacre on +this ill-starred day, and that without intending it she +(p. 133) had invited the nobles and lords of the land +to gather to it. The Cardinal de Bourbon said to +her, “Madam, you have brought us all to the butchery +without intending it.” This touched her to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>quick; she took to her bed and never left it again. +One can only say this does not quite accord with +Mezerai and her sounding the tocsin an hour earlier +by anticipation. Further, as the massacre took place +in 1572, and the queen-mother did not die at Blois +till 1589, seventeen years after, her heart resisted +grief much as granite does vinegar. The lady must +originally have possessed a very good heart. De +Brantôme says poison was talked of; but he considers +the broken heart more likely.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Civil War under Henri III. (1559-1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 93.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 55.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">En l’an qu’un œil en France regnera</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La Cour sera en un bien fascheux trouble:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Grand de Blois son amy tuera;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le regne mis en mal et doute double.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In the year when a one-eyed man shall reign in France</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Court shall be in very vexatious trouble:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The great one of Blois shall kill his friend;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Kingdom, plunged into evil and doubt, shall divide in two.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>M. le Pelletier’s version here seems to be a little +forced. The one-eyed man he makes to be Henri II., +whose eye was destroyed by Montgomery’s lance. +The Court is to be in great embarrassment. Henri III. +(<i>le Grand de Blois</i>) will convoke at that place the +States-General, and will there assassinate the Duc de +Guise, first taking with him, in Italian fashion, the +Holy Communion, as a sign of entire reconciliation. +Then the desolated kingdom will divide into two +camps—the Royalists on one side, and the Leaguers +on the other.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Regency of Catherine de Medici (1537-1574).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 94.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 29.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La vefve⁠<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> saincte entendent les nouvelles</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De ses rameaux mis en perplex et trouble:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui⁠<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> + sera duict⁠<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> appaiser⁠<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> + les querelles</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par son pourchas⁠<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> + des razes⁠<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> fera comble.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The holy widow shall receive news</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the difficulties that perplex and trouble her children;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He whom she calls home to quiet disturbances</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall bring them to a crisis by his pursuit of shaven heads.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There is a little difficulty in applying the epithet +<i>saincte</i> to the queen-mother, and Garencières supposes +it to signify <i>Roma la Santa</i>; but, if so, the rest will +have no meaning. Nostradamus is so entirely for +Henri II., his wife, and the Romish Church, that in +spite of his designating her son <i>le roi farouche</i>, he +might think the term <i>saincte</i> not inappropriate to +her. She sent a private despatch to her son, Henri III., +to hurry back from Poland, as we shall see him doing +in the next quatrain cited, that he may take the +direction of the French Government. He enters into +an alliance with Henri IV. and the Huguenots to +counterbalance the Catholic League. Thence follows +the murder of the Cardinal, brother of the Duc de +Guise, who was murdered by the King’s order on December +24, 1588, one day after his brother. This is the +prosecution of the Church (<i>pourchas des razes</i>), coupled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>with the repression of the League, which culminates +the crisis. The only jarring word in this concordance, +when once it is comprehended, lies in the +word <i>saincte</i>, to which I have already drawn attention, +and which may be explained by the devotion felt by +Nostradamus to the crown of France and to Rome. +It is evident that Brantôme was able to regard her as +a most admirable and lovable lady. The tocsin and +the blood spoil our appreciation.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Henri III. renounces Poland (June 26, 1574).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 96.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VII.—Quatrain 35.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La grande Pesche⁠<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> + viendra plaindre,⁠<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> plorer</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’avoir esleu: trompés seront en l’âge:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Guiere⁠<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> avec eux ne voudra demourer:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deceu⁠<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> sera par ceux de son langage.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great gambler⁠<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> shall complain and weep</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To have elected him: deceived in his age:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The duke had no desire to stay with them:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will be slain by men of his own tongue.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span></p> + +<p>Poland, then, will deplore having elected the Duc +d’Anjou in 1573, for he stayed only one year with +them, and absconded on the 26th of June at night, +at his mother’s summons, to France. The Comte de +Fanchin, the Grand Chamberlain, was sent after him, +and overtook him at Piesna, a frontier town in Austria, +but the duke was deaf to all intercession (Guynaud, +p. 119). He never took the Polish throne because he +wished it, but because he was pressed by the Court of +France; and now French affairs called him back. +Guynaud thinks that the last line means that his +friends deceived him into taking it; but this is because +he did not discover the Latin meaning in <i>deceu</i>. For +certainly Nostradamus meant that he would go home +to die by Clement’s hand, as he shows in as many +words a little later on. Guynaud says that Poland +had been deceived as to the prince’s age, and that he +was represented to be much older than he really was.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Edict of Poitiers (October 3, 1577).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 97.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century V.—Quatrain 72.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour le plaisir d’edict voluptueux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On mestera le poison dans la foy:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Venus sera en cours si vertueux,⁠<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’obfusquera du soleil tout aloy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">To pass an edict of a sugared sort,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They’ll mingle poison with our holy faith:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Venus darken, in her course robust,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All law and light from out the sacred Sun.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Sun, in Nostradamus, often stands for the +Church or Christianity, by him believed to be within +the palisade of Popery. It might also mean France, +whose King’s name was <i>Rex Christianissimus</i>. +Louis XIV. assumed the device of the sun, with the +motto <i>nec pluribus impar</i>. Venus stands for sensual +pleasure—the world triumphant over the Church. The +edict of Poitiers, October 8, 1577, so far favoured the +Protestants that they were authorized to hold public +services on the reformed footing. Calvinist ministers +might marry, and auricular confession was suppressed. +Thus did Henri III. mingle the poison of unchastity, +etc., with the Catholic faith. The licence of morals +(<i>Vénus</i>) became unbridled and tarnished the law of +Christendom (<i>Soleil</i>).</p> + +<p>Guynaud interprets with Le Pelletier in this, and considers +the poison to consist particularly in freeing the +Huguenots from the Sacrifice of Penance; in condemning +the monastic orders; in encouraging unchastity, by +allowing the Calvinist ministers to marry; in abandoning +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>confession. <i>Vénus sera</i> is a line showing that many +monks will quit the cloisters to indulge in marriage +and <i>other</i> debauchery. The last line may be understood, +that the glory of the King will be tarnished, +and make him to be ill thought of by the Catholics; +or that it will obscure faith in the Church (p. 122).</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Journée des Barricades (May 12, 1588).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 98.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 50.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La république de la grande cité</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A grand rigueur ne voudra consentir:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Roy sortir hors par trompette cité,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’eschelle au mur la cité repentir.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Republic of the great city (Paris)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Would not submit itself to the very rigorous treatment;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The King summoned by trumpet to quit the city,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which is called to repent by the ladder at the wall.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This quatrain and the event it prefigures are alike +wonderful. Garencières is much puzzled over it. +What city has a commonwealth? Is it Venice, +Genoa, Geneva, Luca? He cannot tell. However, the +“great city” in Nostradamus almost always stands +for Paris. The League, mistress in Paris, would not +submit to the coercive measures of Henri III., and +by a call to arms—perhaps the old tocsin of St. +Germain de l’Auxerrois sounding the while—told +him, as <i>par trompette</i>, he had better quit the city with +all speed. Trial and sentence in one word, “Take +yourself off,”—for the first time uttered to a king of +the race Capetian, in some eight hundred years of +history. Later on, the drumming and trumpeting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>crack-brained citizens, with nothing about them to be +called sane but their river, will feel themselves called +to repentance when the escalading ladders are laid +by Henri III. to the wall.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Let it be noted now that this <i>Day of the Barricades</i> +is very remarkable, and, as such, is not to be found at +all in Bohn’s “Index of Dates.” It was, however, +repeated in the civil war of the Fronde, August 26, +1648; in the three days’ war, July 27, 28, 29, 1830, that +set Philippe Citoyen on his rickety perch; and again +in June 23, 1848. But close on two hundred years +after, in 1789, when the philosophic Republic was at +hand and the Bastille was taken; when another Capet +was to be handled by the mob; offering <i>cul pour tête</i> to +the admiration of a wise world, then was to be best +discerned the result of this first reaction from St. +Bartholomew’s Day; pretty well that tocsin of treason +has rung alarum to a world on fire. A further curious +analogy demands attention here. The Popes of Rome +were the earliest patrons of the principle of regicide, +and Clément the monk, whom we shall soon introduce, +was the first to practise it; here we see the Catholic +League to be the first organized body to repudiate +kingship, to set up a republican form, and consecrate +a day to revolt and insurrection, which has become +memorable in history for ever, though forgotten by +Bohn, as <i>la Journée des Barricades</i>. But what shall +we say of this forecast by Nostradamus, fifty-three +years before the event happened? He is, I think, the +first who ever put in type the word <i>Republic</i>, as +representative of rebellion and revolt, throughout the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>modern world. But here we have it,—the dough of +prophecy made out of the ground wheat-seed of +time, and baked by the oven of events into the +bread of history; not Walpole’s lies, nor the principles, +mostly false, that philosopher Hume finds so cleverly +for us, but the facts divested of motive,—like a +petrified coral reef of insect humanities concreted +into permanence and solidity by the death of myriads. +For those who can see, it lies all contained in that +linear rune, <i>La république de la grande cité</i>.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Murder of the Duc de Guise (December 23, 1588).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 99.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 51.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Paris conjure un grand meutre commetre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Blois le fera sortir en plein effect:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ceux d’Orleans voudront leur chef remettre;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Angers, Troye, Langres leur feront un meffait.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Paris conspires to commit a great murder;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Blois will carry it into full effect:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Orléanois will try to place a Leaguer at their head;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Angers, Troye, Langres will try and undo this.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Henri III. at Paris contrived the murder of the +Duc de Guise, who had incited and led the Parisians +on the day of the Barricades, when Henri was compelled +to fly to Chartres. Henri de Lorraine, Duc de +Guise, was murdered the day after the Cardinal, his +brother, had been, at the Convention of the Estates +at Blois. The murder took place at the Château de +Blois. The Orléanois, on learning this, rose against +Balzac d’Entragues, the governor of the town, and +set Charles de Lorraine, Chevalier d’Aumale, at their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>head,—he was one of the chiefs of the League,—whilst +Angers, Troyes, and Langres took the side of +Henri III. It is not very easy, says Le Pelletier, to +distinctly prove the exact position taken up by these +three towns, but Nostradamus habitually puts a part +to stand for the whole. In the divided interests +various cities took differing sides. At the time he +wrote there was nothing to show that such internecine +separations would take place. He clearly anticipated +them, and, so far, is absolutely right. We cannot, it +seems, prove him to be right in all the details; but +equally, there is nothing to show him wrong.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Le Duc de Mayenne (1589-1593).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 100.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 85.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par la response de dame Roy troublé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ambassadeurs mespriseront leur vie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Grand ses freres contrefera doublé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par deux mourront ire,⁠<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> + haine, et envie.⁠<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The King shall be troubled by the Queen-mother,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The deputies at risk of life remonstrate:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Guise will act for both his brothers dead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The two whom envy, hatred, malice slew.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Henri III. will be troubled by the response of +Catherine de Medici, who disapproves of the murder +of the Guise; the deputies (<i>ambassadeurs</i>) from both +Paris and Blois make lively remonstrance at the peril +of their lives. The Duc de Mayenne (<i>le Grand</i>), +when proclaimed chief of the League, will take the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, and, as +if doubled in authority, will represent his two brothers, +Henri de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine, whom +the envy, hatred, and malice of Henri III. and his +Court had assassinated. We seem to have here a +republic tempered by daggers, in place of what +followed, a tyranny tempered with epigrams. This +active forging of daggers, knives, and sword-cutlery in +France, to carve out an idol of a republic, with its +blood-stained heathen Phrygian cap; taken together +with its repetition sixty years later, in the Barricades +of the Fronde, August, 1648, was clearly generating +the poison and concentrating its venom for the most +startling act of death known to mankind, but one, in all +history,—at Whitehall, on that wintry 30th of January, +1649,—the venom, that by the subtle inoculation of a +Raleigh could, for a time, strike silly such a soul as +Milton’s—“Psalmist of Paradise,”—who, but for this +damned virus in the world, might have taught men +how to realize a paradise on earth.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Crime of Jacques Clément (August 1, 1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 102.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 36.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un grand Roy prins⁠<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> + entre les mains d’un Joyne⁠<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Non loin de Pasque, confusion, coup cultre.⁠<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Perpet,⁠<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> + captifs temps que foudre en la husne,⁠<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors que trois freres se blesseront et murtre.⁠<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A great King taken by a young man’s hand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Close upon Easter, confusion, and a knife:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There’s powder on the tower for captives then,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Three brothers perish; this death takes the last.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Henri III., in his camp at St. Cloud, will be struck +by the hand of a young monk,—<i>Joyne</i> might easily be +a misprint for <i>Moyne</i>. Jacques Clément was twenty-five. +He came straight from receiving the Communion +(<i>non loin de Pasque</i>). He thought he did +God service (<i>confusion</i>); he struck him in the lower +bowel with a knife. The crime will be committed +when the Parisians are cut off (<i>captifs</i>) by the King +beleaguering, and his vengeance is ready to fall upon +their ramparts. This murder completes the violent +deaths of the three sons, the issue of Henri II. and +Catherine de Medici.</p> + +<p>There is no occasion to call attention to the remarkable +lucidity of this forecast, when once the linguistic +difficulties of its conveyance have been studiously +solved. The demilune towers projecting at intervals +from the wall, as at the Haute Ville, Boulogne, well +enough represent the <i>husne</i>, or tower of vantage, in +the quatrain, they need but a shield or belvidere +added.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Death of Henri III. (August 2, 1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 103.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Présage 58.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Roy-Roy n’estre, du Doux la pernicie,⁠<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’an pestilent, les esmues⁠<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> nubileux.</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Tien⁠<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> + qui tiendra, les grands non letitie,⁠<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et passera terme de cavilleux.⁠<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The twice King dies, by Clement hand is slain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">War and revolt make the year pestilent.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hold who hold can, the great oppose not well,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Live laughter down and teach the cavillers.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a most singular prophecy. Henri III., King, +first of Poland then of France is quaintly called <i>Roy-Roy</i>. +<i>Le Doux</i> is an excellent synonym for <i>Clément</i>, +all must admit. The year was harassed by civil and +religious war, and the Leaguers (<i>les esmues</i>) begin to +grow anxious about the consequences. Let Henri IV. +hold hard his own, the lilied sceptre: “Let Curzon +holde what Curzon helde” be his motto. The time +is passed for the Catholic grandees (<i>les grands</i>) to +woo Lætitia. The King can laugh now at the +laughers of the Guise; he laughs best who laughs +last.</p> + +<p>The murder by Clément of the anti-papal king, +Henri III., followed very close upon the setting up of +Jesuit Clubs in Paris under papal sanction (Elliot’s +<i>Horæ Apoc.</i>, iii. 321). The pulpits also had been +filled by clerical preachers of sedition and bloodshed. +Precisely two hundred years later the Bastille was +taken, and in the Jacobin Clubs of that day were hung, +says Alison, the pictures of Clément and Ravaillac, +in the gloomy rooms of the old convent, in which +they met like night-birds of ill-omen, and within little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>wreaths beneath each picture might be seen inscribed +the words, “He was fortunate; he killed a king.” +This is so sentimental, petty, and petulant, that it +would move to laughter any large good-natured +mind, were it not for the slaver of malignity that +accompanies everything that drops from the tongues +of that sack of reptiles gathered out of the Jacobin +dunghill, as they crawled forth one by one poisoning +and to poison.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="HENRI_QUATRE">HENRI QUATRE.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Coming of Henri IV. (August 2, 1589).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 105.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 50.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Mendosus⁠<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> tost viendra à son haut regne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mettant arriere un peu les Norlaris:⁠<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le rouge blesme, la masle à l’interregne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le jeune crainte, et frayeur Barbaris.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Mendosus shall soon come to his high dominion,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Setting back those of Lorraine a little.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The old cardinal pale, the male of the interregnum,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The young man timid, and the barbarian alarmed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Henri IV. the heretic Vendôme, changed his +religion thrice. Jeanne d’Albert, his mother, +brought him up a Protestant. To escape St. Bartholomew’s +Day, he professed Catholicism, in 1572. +In 1576, he turned to Protestantism, to head the +Calvinist party. He declared himself Catholic to +take the throne of France. Through the Salic law +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>he ascended, to the exclusion of the Lorraine princes +(<i>Norlaris</i>). In this way, he shut out the old Cardinal +de Bourbon, pale (<i>blesme</i>,) with age, the Duc de +Mayenne, Lieutenant General of the kingdom during +the interregnum, the young Duc de Guise, and the +barbarously savage Philip II. of Spain, who had pretensions +to the crown through Elizabeth his wife, the +daughter of Henri II.</p> + +<p>The Cardinal is <i>rouge</i> because of the dress of all +cardinals. Philip allied himself with the Guises, and +supported the Catholic League.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Depression of the De Guise Family (1589-1593).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 107.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 18.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le rang Lorrain fera place à Vendosme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le haut mis bas, et le bas mis en haut,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le fils de Mamon sera esleu⁠<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> en Rome,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et les deux Grands seront mis en defant.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The house of Lorraine yields to the Vendôme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The high put low, the low put high instead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The son of Mamon they elect at Rome,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the Pretenders both are in default.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The house of Lorraine is now eclipsed by that of +Vendôme. Mayenne, the chief, is put down, and <i>le +petit Béarnais</i>, Henri IV., rises to respect and power. +This heretic son of mammon is accepted by choice at +Rome for King of France, and neither of the Pretenders +will ever be king.</p> + +<p>The Cardinal de Bourbon had been actually proclaimed +King by the League, as Charles X., but he was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>dead in 1590. Isabella, the daughter of Philip II., was +incapable by the Salic law. So that the only two +remaining were the Duc de Mayenne and the young +Duc de Guise. They were shut out by Henri IV. +and never reached the throne.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Henri IV. Abjures Protestantism (July 21, 1593).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 108.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Presage 76.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par le legat du terrestre et marin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Grande Cape⁠<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> à tout s’accommoder;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Estre à l’escoute tacite⁠<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> + Norlarin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’à⁠<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> son advis ne voudra accorder.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Before the legate of the earth and sea,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Henry the Great will yield to all required:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mayenne to all will listen and not speak a word,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And will grant nothing of his own free will.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Sixtus V. had boldly fulminated an excommunication +against Henri Quatre, the Great Capet, but the +latter subscribes to all required by the legate of him +who can bind and loose all on the earth and sea. He +abjures Protestantism at St. Denis, on July 25, 1593, +the Archbishop of Bourges officiating. The Duc de +Mayenne (the <i>Lorraine</i>), Lieutenant-General of France +and Master of Paris for the League, will look on in +silence, and as far as he can will prevent Paris from +receiving the King. The city did not open its gates +to him till March 22, 1594, eight months after the +abjuration.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Marseilles taken by the Spaniards (February 17, 1696).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 109.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 88.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De Barselonne par mer si⁠<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> grand’ armée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Toute Marseille de frayeur tremblera:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Isles saisies, de mer ayde fermée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ton traditeur⁠<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> + en terre nagera.⁠<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">From Barcelona a great fleet shall come,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And terror strike into the town Marseilles:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The isles are seized, and help by sea cut off,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But the betrayer is made swim on land.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>A Spanish fleet of a dozen galleys, commanded by +Charles Doria, was sent by Philip II. to help +the Leaguers. He took possession of the islands +Château d’If and Ratonneau, and thus cut off all +help to seaward. Charles de Casau (<i>le traditeur</i>) was +consul, and proposed to place the city in the hands of +the Spaniards; Pierre Libertat, however, ran him +through with a sword, and the populace dragged the +dead body through the muddy channels of the streets.</p> + +<p>Guynaud refers to the same event as fulfilling this +quatrain in the time of Henri IV., but by a misprint +gives 1536 instead of 1596. The islands he mentions +are those of St. Honnorat and of St. Marguerite. +Black’s pretentious <i>Imperial Gazetteer</i> professes to +give a plan of the town, and you see a number of +nameless vermicelli streets running all about, but not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>a single island off the coast is visible. One may +suppose, however, that the islands are there, and that +all the four were occupied by the Spaniards.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Biron’s Punishment (December 2, 1602).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 110.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Sixain 6.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand de Robin⁠<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> la traisteruse enterprise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mettra Seigneurs et en peine un grand Prince,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sceu⁠<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> + par la Fin⁠<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> chef on lui tranchera.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La plume au vent, amye dans Espagne,⁠<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Poste⁠<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> attrappé estant dans la campagne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et l’escrivain dans l’eaüe se jettera.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When Biron’s treason and disastrous act,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall put King Henry and his Lords in fear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lafin betrays him, and the King beheads.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Treason dispatched to Spain in amity,⁠<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The carrier caught when he has entered France,⁠<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the scriv’ner will throw himself into the water.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>One thing has carefully to be borne in mind in +relation to the Sixains, that they were presented to +Henri Quatre, and printed for the first time in 1605. +That is to say, they first appeared three years after +this had happened. To the sceptically disposed +they can furnish no authority, but to ordinary men, +who only look for ordinary evidence, it will appear +that there is very little as to style that would not appropriately +spring from the pen of Nostradamus; and +further, that if they are forgeries, the forgers have not +taken advantage of their knowledge of the events to +make the prophecies any clearer or more striking. +These are quite as enigmatical as if our author had +written them, and I think that common sense will +generally be content to take them for what they are +worth, and will regard them as probably genuine +“chips of the old block” and as such very curious.</p> + +<p>Guynaud in his <i>Concordance</i>, p. 137, gives a full and +interesting account of Biron; chiefly extracted from +Davila, Montluc, De Thou, Mezeray, Le Père Anselm, +and so forth, where the reader can refer for further +details, if interested. I may just note that I have +copied the date of December 2, 1602, from Le +Pelletier, but that Moreri gives the date of Biron’s +decapitation as July 31, 1602, in the Court of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>Bastille. The name of the messenger (<i>poste</i>) was +Picoté, a native of Orleans, sold, as they say, to the +King of Spain (Guynaud, p. 140).</p> + +<p>Garencières has (p. 464) a very elaborate annotation +upon this stanza, giving the whole history of Biron +and Lafin in twenty-eight folio pages. Biron appears +to have been a vain, a violent, and foolish man, +though of great courage and audacity in war, which +made him highly valued by Henri IV. After Amiens +he refused to go to quiet the towns of Picardy, unless +his statue were erected in brass before the Louvre. +His sudden prosperity had turned his head. The +treasonous proposals with Spain were, that he was to +have a daughter of the Duke of Savoy in marriage, +500,000 crowns, and sovereign rights in Burgundy. +These were negotiated through Lafin; and Lafin told +the King. The whole trial is given, with Biron’s defence +in reply, which is audacious and eloquent, but much of +it is highly contradictory. He was condemned and +executed in the court of the Bastille, on July 31, 1602, +which coincides with Moreri. The superstitious, ignorant, +violent, but able soldier comes out most characteristically. +He shows in emergency great rapidity +of thought, decision, and presence of mind; but a +deficient judgment, very little principle, and an overwhelming +conceit, that, encouraged by success, almost +merged into madness. A man of this sort is always +a compound of inconsistencies; accordingly he said to +the Chancellor, in speaking of death, “I have not +been afraid of it these twenty years.” And that was +true, when in war, a duel, or hot blood; but in the +court of the Bastille he was thought to show great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>fear of dying. In earlier life he had wondered at +himself for fearing nothing from the thrust of a +sword, though very nervous over the prick of a lancet, +when he had occasion to “be let blood,” as they used to +phrase it. The fear of death is most in apprehension; +but the apprehension is most, perhaps it may be said, +of the wicked in cold blood, and of the good in +violence, and when the blood is hot, if but the least +pause give time for reflection to enter. Garencières +notes that the greatest courage and stoutness of a +man is nothing in comparison of the weakness of +human nature.</p> + +<p>Two of Biron’s adventures with astrologers are so +characteristic of the manners of the time, as recounted +by Guynaud [p. 137, etc.], that I think the reader +should not be deprived of them. Whatever is strange +and rivets the attention must have something of +humanity in it, and repay the record, though a few +superior people may look down upon such trifling. +I shall give them at the risk of running this annotation +to too great length.</p> + +<p>When at Court with his father, at the age of +eighteen or twenty, he had a duel, and killed his man. +He had to hide for this, till his father could sue out +his pardon, through the Duc d’Espernon, to whom +fortunately the father was known. He took the +disguise of a letter-carrier, and in this garb consulted +an astrologer called La Brosse, who lived in a garret +at the top of a house near the Luxembourg. He +told the man that it was his master’s horoscope he +had need of. La Brosse told him that one day he +would be a very great man, in fact, might almost +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>be king, but for a <i>caput algol</i> that stood in the way. +What this was the man would not explain. Biron, +however, continuing to press very hard, got him to +say at last that he would be beheaded on a scaffold. +Upon this, he burst out with the want of judgment he +showed all through his life (forty years in all) and +beat the old man mercilessly, leaving him nearly +dead. He locked him maliciously into his room, +took away the key with him, and kicked down the +little ladder that gave access to the loft. But still +he believed what had been communicated.</p> + +<p>On another occasion he consulted César, who was +thought at the time to be the most able astrologer in +France. This man also affirmed that he would have +good fortune in almost everything. Except for a blow +from a Burgundian from behind, he might even be +king. But he could not get from him a word +more.</p> + +<p>When he was confined in the Bastille, a friend called +on him, and Biron asked him to ascertain for him +from what part of the country the executioner of Paris +was; and when he came back and told him that he +was a Burgundian, Biron changed colour and said—“There +will be no reprieve then; I am as good as +dead.”</p> + +<p>Now as to the fulfilment of the last two lines. It +will appear that my rendering is right, and that the +scrivener will throw himself into the water. The +scrivener turns out to be a man named Nicholas +l’Oste, born at Orleans, secretary to Lord Villeroy, +Chief Secretary of State, who, finding him a most +capable person, confided much in him, and the more so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>that Oste’s father had spent the greater part of his +life in his service. When Lord Rochepot was starting +as ambassador for Spain, Oste begged to accompany +him as secretary. Villeroy immediately recommended +him, and he was engaged. In a few months’ time +he mastered the language to such perfection, and +so thoroughly accommodated himself to Spanish +manners, that he might well pass for a true-born +Spaniard. When Rochepot had got the treaty at +Vervins ratified, the King of Spain gave him rich +presents—a chain of jewels, and six gold chains valued +at a hundred and fifty crowns apiece—to distribute +amongst his suite, as he thought fit. Oste was so full of +himself that he thought he ought to have one of them, +but his master thought otherwise; on which, says +Garencières, “the Devil crept into his soul,” and, as +he wanted money to supply his debaucheries, he +determined to betray the State secrets which passed +through his hands.</p> + +<p>With this in view, he applied to Don Fanchese, a +Secretary of State, and made his proposals, but the +dignified Spaniard, for some reason or other, received +him coolly. “The Catholic King was in good amity +with the most Christian one, and required to know +no more than the French Ambassador should communicate +to him.” Nothing discouraged, our traitor +hurries off to Don Ydiaques, another secretary, and +there meets with excellent reception. He was presented +to the Duke of Lerma, to whom he betrayed +the Alphabet of Ciphers. He received twelve +hundred crowns upon the spot, and was promised the +like amount as a yearly pension. By his means the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>Spanish Council knew the contents of all French instructions +as soon as the ambassador himself. When +La Rochepot’s mission ended, Oste got back into +Villeroy’s service, and so was able to maintain correspondence +with Spain. Tuxis was ambassador from +Spain in Paris, and after him Don Baltazar de Caniga. +With these men he established a close intimacy, so +that finally the Council in Spain got his letters before +Des Barreaux at Madrid could receive those from +Henri IV.</p> + +<p>Des Barreaux told the King that he was always +now forestalled. Oste had let a certain reprobate +Raffis into his secret, and this fellow, who had been +banished, in order to obtain a reprieve of sentence, +betrayed Oste to Des Barreaux. When he got +his pardon, he gave up the name of Oste. Raffis +came to Paris to communicate with Villeroy, and +orders were given to detain the two Spanish couriers +that had reached the post-office. They then kept a +watch upon Oste, who was “doing his devotions at +the Charter-house of Paris,”—excellent Catholic, +plotter as he was. On reaching the post-office, he +soon found he was betrayed; and Descardes, who was +to watch him, did not let him out of his sight +until he brought him to Villeroy’s. When there, +he thought his man was safe, and went to announce +his capture to Villeroy. Oste instantly ran down to +the stable, where his horse stood, still saddled, and +galloped away. A hue and cry was soon raised. +Oste got a Spanish disguise at De Cuniga’s, and made +off post-haste for Luxembourg. Postmasters were +forbidden to let out horses to any one; but at Meaux +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>the postmaster had received the order too late, for Oste +was already on horseback, but no sooner did he begin +to gallop than his horse fell under him. His look of +dismay impressed the postillion who accompanied +him, and he told his master on his return. The postmaster +told the sheriff, who came up with him at the +second ferry of <i>la Ferte sous Jouare</i>; but he was already +on the boat, and threatening the ferryman’s life, the +man put him ashore, in spite of the sheriff’s commands, +shouted to him from the bank. He rushed into +the bushes and brambles near the Marne, hoping +to escape in the darkness of the night, the sheriff +scattered his men everywhere, raised the whole +country side, and caused bonfires to be lighted in all +directions. Oste crept from bush to bush, but, either +accidentally or with intention, fell into the river +Marne and was drowned. His hat was found next +day, stopped between two posts, and his body two +days later. So befitting a close to the career of a +gifted dastard is a wholesome exemplar of retributive +justice, and should not easily be suffered to fall out +of men’s recollection. Horace thinks that lame-foot +Justice always trips the sinner. No doubt, if we could +see both worlds; but, as we cannot, I wish that here the +lame foot were considerably less lame. In England +law and the lawyers, her two crutches, seem to reduce +Justice to a gouty incapable. With our new Palace of +Justice the morals of a Court seem to have dawned +upon us.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Popularity of Henri IV. (after his Death).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 112.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 70.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Au chef du monde le grand Chyren⁠<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> sera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus outre après aymé, craint, redouté;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son bruit et los⁠<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> les cieux surpassera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et du seul titre victeur⁠<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> fort contenté.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Chief of the world <i>Henri le Grand</i> shall be,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">More loved in death than life, more honoured he:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His name and praise shall rise above the skies,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And men will call him victor when he dies.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>French self-esteem has always appropriated to +France a throne of pre-eminence beyond all other +thrones. If it were possible, they would set theirs +above that of Jupiter. They pretend a most manly contempt +for kings. But the throne, you are to remember, +is the work of <i>sans cullottes</i>, French cabinet-makers, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>and therefore the best thing of its kind in the universe, +and so <i>chef du monde</i>. If Nostradamus is no prophet +for you, you shall at least admit that he was a +Frenchman. The Frenchman whips the old world, +and the American whips creation. The rest of us +may look forward to an eternity of corporal punishment +in spite of the nominal abolition of slavery. +Condillac will furnish the logical distinction, that +establishes the honour of the throne, when a manly +contempt has been duly engendered for the sanctity +of the king’s majesty. Honest Democrat! Do you +read Condillac?</p> + +<p>One of Voltaire’s rhetorical squibs in the <i>Henriade</i>, +which the French are so indulgent as to call not only +verse, but poetry, runs—</p> + +<p class="center">“Il fut de ses sujets le vainqueur et le père.”</p> + +<p class="center">“He was the papa and conquestor of his people.”</p> + +<p class="noindent">When our Charles II. was addressed as “the father +of his people,” he said he thought that he might be +of a good many of them. But Henri Quatre is too +noble a creature for any good and wise man to wish +to dwell long upon his foibles. What a contrast +between him and the Napoleons!</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOUIS_XIII">LOUIS XIII.<br> +(1610-1643.)</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Punishment of the Great Montmorency +(October 30, 1632.)</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 113.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 18.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le lys Dauffois⁠<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> + portera⁠<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> dans Nanci</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jusques en Flandres electeur de l’Empire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Neufve obturée⁠<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> au grand Montmorency,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hors lieux prouvés⁠<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> + delivré⁠<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> + á clere peyne.⁠<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The Dauphin shall carry his lily standards into Nancy, just +as in Flanders the Elector of Trèves shall be carried prisoner +of the Spaniards into Brussels. A new prison will be given to +the great Montmorency, who will be delivered for execution +into the hands of Clerepeyne. This man will behead him in +a spot not devoted to executions.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I have given this in prose, as it could only yield +ingenious doggerel in verse.</p> + +<p>Louis XIII., of whom it may be remarked that he +was the first who bore the title of Dauphin de France +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>since the publication of Century IX., in 1566, entered +Nancy on September 25, 1633, a day after his army. +In 1635 he enters Flanders on behalf of the Elector, +whom the Spaniards had, on the 26th of March of that +year, carried prisoner to Brussels. Nostradamus then +reverts to October 30, 1632, when the great Montmorency +was executed for rebellion, being first confined +in the newly built (<i>neufve obturée</i>) Hotel de +Ville at Toulouse. In the courtyard of this building +Clerepeyne, a soldier, shall cut off his head, and not, +as ought to have been the case, at the place appointed +for public executions, such as was <i>La Grève</i> at Paris.</p> + +<p>It so happens that Clerepeyne’s name is fully +attested by Étienne Joubert and by the Chevalier de +Jant, both contemporary with the event. Further +than this, M. Motret has brought to light, after minute +historic research, that the family, by solicitation of +the King, could obtain only two concessions of mere +formality—that the execution should be with closed +doors, and by a soldier in lieu of the common headsman. +The <i>place publique</i> or <i>marché</i> would be the +place mentioned in the official order.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + +<p>If the reader will carefully give his attention to the +full drift of this quatrain, when the mere difficulty of +verbal contortion has been resolved, he must feel that +the prognostication has to be reckoned as one of the +most astounding of oracles ever set forth in history. A +French King takes Nancy. The Elector of Trèves is +bandied about between France and Spain, like a +shuttlecock of State; and then, by name, comes the +execution of the great Montmorency, detailed with, it +is true, the brevity of Tacitus, but, when understood, +with a singular felicity of detail implied in the +pregnant words <i>neufve obturée</i>, of the newly built +town hall. Not in the market-place is he executed, +but in the central courtyard. Let <i>clere peyne</i> (<i>clara +pœna</i>) stand merely for celebrated attainder, the +thing is still prodigious beyond all precedent. But +when you know, in addition, that a part of Nostradamus’s +prophetic method consists in using every +possible play of words, including paronomasia and +anagram, and you find that the soldier who acted as +headsman—a man called upon by chance to gratify +the almost absurd sensibilities of the family—was +<i>Clerepeyne</i>, a name that corresponds to a tittle with +the two words employed by the prophet, then, indeed, +the marvel mounts into the stupendous. It cannot +be paralleled out of the works of the individual we +are busy with. It is incredible, and yet you must +believe it. It is not to be understood, but it must be +accepted. Joubert, de Jant, the Curé de Louvicamp, +and Motret, have all contributed to its historical +confirmation on independent lines. It was in print, +beyond possibility of gainsaying, more than fifty years +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>before any of the events occurred. Clerepeyne could +not have been even born at the time his name was +being put through the printing press at Lyons. The +mind that can realize all these details, and then be +content to fall back upon chance to explain them, or +upon the verbal fact that visions must be visionary—an +axiom quite as philosophic, by-the-bye, as Hume’s +“Essay on Miracles” is built upon—is a mind not at +all to be envied. Such incredulity is more astounding +than the prophecy itself. It is easier to believe the +prophecy than the philosopher who says he does not +believe it. The Tower is below London Bridge. Has +anybody ever asked “why?” This 18th quatrain of +Century IX. of Nostradamus is just as much a fact +as the Tower of London is, and vastly more impregnable. +Intelligent people will be amused by an +explanation; but the substantive fact can stand +without any, till the day of Doom if necessary. It is +only some human popinjay, Plato Pry, the philosopher, +who would like to gossip to us the <i>How</i>, and so +sport another borrowed feather in his feather-brain,—or +hum us with another bee from his bonnet; that +hive of mad insects.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Conspiracy of Cinq Mars (March 13, 1642.)</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 115.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 68.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Vieux Cardinal par la jeusne deceu,⁠<a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hors de sa charge sa verra desarmé,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Arles ne monstres⁠<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> + double⁠<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> soit apperceu;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et Liqueduct⁠<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> et le Prince embausmé.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The old cardinal is supplanted by a young man, and will +see himself deprived of his charge, and disarmed. [Le Pelletier +renders]: If Arles you do not show, in a manner that shall be +visible, a counterpart of the treaty, then the man who will +cause himself to be conveyed by water will be embalmed, and +the Prince also.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The above is the contortion to which Le Pelletier +resorts to force out of it the sense it undoubtedly +contains. My proposed reading reduces the difficulty.</p> + +<p>The old Cardinal Richelieu shall find himself supplanted +by the young Cinq Mars. He was but +twenty-two when he achieved this bit of dexterous +Court intrigue against Richelieu,⁠<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> the most <i>rusé</i> fox +in Europe, as rumour ran.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span></p> + +<p>Cinq Mars was his own <i>protégé</i>, and no doubt +threw him with a trick learned from his master. A +sprightly youngster of the apt breed can learn such +things quickly. But when the cardinal was at Arles +he learnt that a certain treasonable treaty was +negotiated with Spain by his rival in the name of +the King’s brother, and this made known brought +Richelieu back to power straight. Now, if we read +the line</p> + +<p class="center">Arles, le monstre double soit apperceu:</p> + +<p class="center">At Arles, let the monster diploma (treacherous treaty) +be discovered,—</p> + +<p class="noindent">or Cinq Mars himself might be the double monster,—it +would be but a gentle emendation in a classic +line, and it makes the sense run well. Richelieu +returned by water (<i>Liqueduct</i>) from Tarascon to Lyons, +by the Rhone, with his bed upon the boat, but sick +unto death, carrying Cinq Mars and De Thou +prisoners along with him. In the same style he +descended the Seine from Fontainbleau to Paris, +where he died, two months later, on December 4, +1642. Louis XIII. died on the 14th of the following +May. Both were embalmed, which was the practice +then customary. The King when dead becomes a +Prince again, when the breath was out of the body +that 4th of December. Le roi est mort, vive le Roy +Louis XIV.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Improvement in Firearms (1630-1671.)</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 116.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 44.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand l’animal à l’homme domestique,⁠<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Après grands peines et sauts viendra parler,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le foudre à vierge⁠<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> + sera si⁠<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> malefique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De terre prinse⁠<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> et suspendue en l’air.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>When the dog,⁠<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> after many trials, shall begin to leap and +speak, the powder loaded by ram-rod shall spread destruction +round (<i>sera très malefique</i>.) Powder taken from the earth and +exploded in the air.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>When the firelock shall have been invented after +many trials, and shall speak through the mouth of +the gun, with recoil [<i>sauts</i>, or kick], after the powder-charge +is well driven home with the ram-rod, it will +be most murderous by explosion in the air. The +invention of the musket dates 1630. Troops, Le +Pelletier says, were first armed with it in 1671. Nostradamus, +it is to be observed, anticipates by an ingenious +amplification and periphrasis the very name <i>chien</i>, by +which the French designate this portion of the lock. +It would not have served its purpose for the name of +the same thing in English. This anticipation of the +slang term of manufacture, a hundred years before +the thing itself was used or named, seems to show an +intimacy with what would be called matters of chance, +that is inconceivable and beyond all comprehensibility.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p> + +<p>I cannot but append here a translation of Guynaud’s +remarks upon this quatrain. They are, I think, the +funniest that occur in the whole book. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Nostradamus warns us here that two prodigious things are +to occur at last: one, that the industry and care of man will +arrive at such a point that a domestic animal, such as dogs are, +will be got to speak. For to imagine that this can be intended +of birds is out of the question quite, as they are excluded from the +list of domestic animals created by God for the service of man, +as quadrupeds are. The words of the two first lines of the +prophecy are <i>Quand après grande peine l’animal domestique +viendra parler à l’homme et qu’il sautera</i>,—just as dogs do in +approaching their master. A further thing is to happen that is +no less astonishing: a demon is to mingle himself with powder, +and suddenly transport a girl into the air, when she will remain +suspended for possibly a whole day long, according to these +words: ‘<i>La foudre à vierge sera si malefique; de terre prinse +et suspendue en l’air</i>.’ The critics may suppose that to mean +that the girl will be hanged; but this is not so, in my opinion, +because the word <i>malefique</i> is derived from the Latin <i>maleficus</i>, +which in itself indicates a maleficent spirit delighting to work +evil, as the devil always is.”—<span class="smcap">Guynaud</span>, “Concordances,” p. 271.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOUIS_XIV">LOUIS XIV.<br> +(1643-1715.)</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Commencement of his Personal Reign (March 10, +1661).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 118.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Quatrain added to the Xth Century.</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a>⁠</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand le fourchu sera soustenu de deux paux,⁠<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avec six demy-corps⁠<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> et six sizeaux ouverts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le très puissant Seigneur, heritier des crapaux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Alors subjugera sous soy tout l’univers.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>When a fork sustained by two stakes (<i>i.e.</i> V, <i>fourchu</i>, sustained +by two stakes upright, II. = M, a thousand,) and six half horns +and six scissors open (CCCCCC, XXXXXX). (Half horn is the +<i>cor de chasse</i>, or French horn cut in half, like a C, making +altogether 1600).</p> + +<p>The very mighty King, inheritor of the toads, shall subjugate +to his power the whole universe.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These two first lines are clumsily employed in +giving the date, but still were in print fifty-five +years before the date named.</p> + +<p>Mazarin died on March 9, 1661. The following +day Louis XIV. became full inheritor of the lilies, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>took the reins of government, and subjected everything +to his will.</p> + +<p>Upon this Le Pelletier remarks that the toads, as +emblematic of France, were standards borne under the +early kings of the Merovingian race. The <i>fleurs-de-lys</i> +were of later introduction, under Clovis, son of +Childeric I., the founder of the Christian monarchy of +the Franks.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Treaty of Westphalia, etc. (1648-1661).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 119.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 7.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand conflit qu’on appreste à Nancy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’Æmathien⁠<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> dira, tout je soubmets;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’isle Britanne par⁠<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> vin sel en soucy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hem-mi⁠<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> + deux Phi⁠<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> longtemps ne tiendra Metz.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A great conflict will approach Nancy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Æmathion will say, I submit all to me;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The isle of Britain will be agitated for lack of force and wisdom;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Metz will not hold out long against the two Philips.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Nancy was taken in 1660 by the French, when they +razed the fortifications and united it with France. It +appears to me that the first two lines of this quatrain +should have formed the last two, but how any such +error as that could have crept in is quite inexplicable. +The reader will discern that a difference +of about twelve years exists between the dates involved +in the two distichs, that, as they are given, they +are contrary to chronology, and that for such disarrangement +no reason is assignable. If this is the +way in which visions presented themselves to our +seer, there is no reason to suppose, as I do, that he +shook up the separate quatrains purposely to destroy +a sequence that would have rendered them too easy +of interpretation. It might have been a printer’s +error.</p> + +<p>We have already seen what is the classical meaning +to be attributed to Æmathion—that it relates to the +sun and to Alexander the Great. In Nostradamus it +refers to Louis XIV. (<i>Louis le Grand</i>). Of him it is +to be remembered that he assumed as his emblem +and that of France, the sun, with the motto <i>Nec +pluribus impar</i>. Now, the sun, in the language of +alchemists, stands for gold, and, in the metaphorical +language of the Church, for Christianity. Gold is all +the Christianity that many Christians possess. <i>Les +Solaires</i>, in Nostradamus, is used for Christians. It is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>especially connected with France, inasmuch as her +King is held at Rome, that centre of titles and of prelatical +humility, to be <i>Christianissimus</i>. But this stout +Capetian glorious King meant it of sovereignty. It +was to signify, as Nostradamus has it, <i>tout je soubmets</i>. +What is this man’s own choice of a posy, to be cut +around his signet? <i>Nec pluribus impar.</i> What is the +axiom his blind self-pride invents when the death of +Mazarin emancipates him from tutelage, and he grips +the reins of France in his sole left hand (in 1661)? +<i>L’État, c’est Moi.</i> Can insolence rise higher? Wait +an odd century or so and see a scaffold spring before +your Tuilleries windows, see an Æmathion, but twice +removed in blood, roll his head, red, gushing, spurting, +and bounding on the sawdust-sprinkled planks there; +its motto, could it speak, would be your axiom recast +fatally, <i>L’État du Capet!</i> (<i>Caput!</i>)</p> + +<p>We have not quite concluded yet. When the treaty +of Westphalia shall be agreed to between France and +Philip IV. of Spain in 1648, and before the war of +Succession to seat Philip V., grandson of Louis XIV., +on the throne, Metz shall be ceded to France, and +lose for ever its title of Imperial City, between the +two Philips—Philip IV. and Philip V., <i>protégé</i> of +France.</p> + +<p>England about the same time, in revolution kindled +by that imp of malevolence, Richelieu, shall behead +its king, 1649, and be in anxiety because of the +want of force and wisdom (<i>vin et sel</i>). This symbol +Le Pelletier interprets thus: Wine is the symbol of +force, because of its <i>heat</i>; and salt, because of its +incorruptibility, is the symbol of <i>wisdom</i>. I think it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>clear that this is not to be the interpretation here. +He does not allude to <i>want</i> of force and wisdom; +but anxiety (<i>soucy</i>) is caused by force and wisdom +(<i>à l’envers</i>, as he puts again in reference to England, +Century IX. 49; vol. i. 141) applied in the wrong +direction.</p> + +<p>This, though a highly unsatisfactory quatrain, as +I have shown above, is, nevertheless, one of the most +remarkable of the whole series. The time of the +Westphalian treaty synchronises with the revolt in +England—a revolt which we have seen to be fostered +out of mere pique by the vulpine Richelieu; a +Churchman plotting royal murder, taught by Rome’s +consent that regicide was God’s service, when a +king (Henri III.) stood in her way; and when the +Church once corrupted herself, baptizing her St. +Bartholomew whose emblem was a knife, in blood, +she absolved Paris, [<i>cité au glaive</i>, i. 182] who +in midsummer madness stained her kennels red. +The example of Whitehall—in re-enactment before +the Tuilleries (<i>vin et sel à l’envers</i>), with force and +wisdom converted into violence and democratic +sensibility,—next turned Paris <i>rouge</i>, and the blood +carnation burst into bloom at every street corner.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“When nations are to perish in their sins,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis in the Church the leprosy begins;”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">says the wise, mild, thoughtful, but much underrated +bard, Cowper, who has done Gilpin inimitably, +and Homer better than anybody else, by a long +way.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Loss of de la Ferrière’s Squadron (1655).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 121.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 87.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Classe⁠<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> + Gauloise n’approche de Corsegue,⁠<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Moins de Sardaigne, tu t’en repentiras:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trestous mourrez frustrés de l’aide grogne;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sang nagera, captif ne me croiras.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Approach not Corsica, thou fleet of France,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor yet Sardinia, lest thou rue the chance:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For ye no headland aids, ye all shall die,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The captive drown, for unbelieved am I.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>M. le Pelletier tells us of a French squadron, commanded +by the Chevalier de la Ferrière in 1655, that +foundered in the Gulf of Lyons in coasting Corsica +and Sardinia. All hands perished: they did not, he +says, pass Cape Pourceau. He points out that <i>Grogne</i> +is the synonym of Pourceau, which is a cape with a +little port in the Mediterranean. This may have +more to support it than appears at first sight, but I +think it much simpler to take it for what it says. +<i>Grogne</i> is the same as <i>Groin</i>, cape, or headland which +runs out into the sea. In other words: nothing will +put off to you from the headland where you founder; +there will you all be drowned; for what the better +will your master pilot be for this advertisement of +mine? Jean de Rian was this master pilot, and <i>Le +Captif</i> was his nickname, as he had been a slave.</p> + +<p>Though perfectly useless for interpretation, Garencières +makes annotations on this quatrain, that have +an interest of their own. He takes the fulfilment to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>have been in 1555, just about the time when the +quatrains were copied out for presentation to Henri II. +But he remarks that <i>Greigne</i>, which is the word in +his reading, signifies <i>galley</i> in the Provençal language, +which was that of Nostradamus by his mother’s side; +and this makes very good sense: “they shall all +founder without a galley putting out to them from the +shore.”</p> + +<p>Of course Garencières knows nothing about Jean +de Rian, or the curious precision with which Nostradamus +gives us his nickname <i>Captif</i>; but he appends +to his “Poor prisoner, thou shalt not believe me” the +following comment that is worth recording, as it may +furnish a link to some inquiry in the future:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We find in this work many examples of those who went to +consult with the author concerning the success of their undertakings, +as did the Earl of <i>Sommerive</i>, before the besieging of +Bagnole; to whom he answered, that he should leave the trees +loaded with a new kind of fruit, that is to say, the rebels, +whom he caused to be hanged on the trees.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fortifications of Vauban and the Canal of +Languedoc (1659-1666).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 122.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 93.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Les ennemies du fort bien esloignés,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par chariots conduict le bastion,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par sur les murs de Bourges esgrongnés,⁠<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand Hercules bastira l’Hæmathion. <a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When the enemy are driven from French soil,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And earthworks or bastions are brought by carts;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When the walls of Bourges have crumbled by time,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then will Æmathion undertake a work of Hercules.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span></p> + +<p>When the peace of the Pyrenees, concluded with +Spain in 1659, had removed the enemy from the French +frontiers, and Vauban had invented earthworks: +at least so says Le Pelletier; Nostradamus only says +he used them. Moreri tells us that the castle of Grosse +Tour at Bourges was not repaired by Louis XIV., and +was already partly ruined in 1651. This line seems +to be a whimsical, but special announcement of the +fact. Then Æmathion, or Louis XIV., will undertake +the Herculean labour of constructing the Canal of +Languedoc, which opened the Mediterranean to the +ocean. It was begun by Paul Riquet in 1666, and +terminated in 1681. It cost thirty-four million francs. +It is said that when Vauban visited it he gave some +useful hints that were acted upon with advantage. +Vauban, like Turenne, was a glory, not to France, +but to mankind. He was truly great, for he despised +riches, and loved truth to indiscretion; yet his life +shows that in judgment he much excelled those who +loved truth less.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Peace of the Pyrenees (November 7, 1659).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 123.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 58.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Au temps du dueil que le felin⁠<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> monarque,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Guerroyera le jeune Æmathien:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gaule bransler, perecliter la barque,⁠<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tenter⁠<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> + Phossen,⁠<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> au Ponant⁠<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> + entretien.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>When the court of France shall be in mourning, the cat-like +monarch shall make war against the young Æmathien. France +will stagger; the bark of St. Peter be in danger. Marseilles +will be taken. Two great personages will meet in the West of +France.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>More at large this may be read, that at the death +of Louis XIII., when the French Court is in mourning, +shrewd Philip IV. of Spain will make war on the boy +King. France will be greatly shaken (1648-1653) by +the civil war of the Fronde, whilst Rome will be +endangered by the growth of Jansenism. This is Le +Pelletier’s version. Garencières says that Paris is +signified, as she carries a ship represented in her arms. +The 2nd of March, 1660, Louis XIV. enters Phocea or +Marseilles by a breach, after which it submits to him. +He then hurries to the west of the Isle of Conference +on the Bidassoa, and there concludes the peace of the +Pyrenees with Philip IV., and marries his daughter, +the infanta Maria Theresa, of Austria.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Expedition to Ireland in support of +James II. (1689-1691).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 125.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century II.—Quatrain 68.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De l’Aquilon les efforts seront grands,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur l’Ocean sera la porte ouverte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le regne en l’Isle sera reintegrand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tremblera Londres par⁠<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> + voilles⁠<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> descouverte.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Ireland, on the north of England, shall make great efforts. +The door of the ocean shall be opened to the fleets of France; +the kingdom in the island of Ireland shall be set up again; +London shall tremble at the discovery of sails.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span></p> + +<p>When William III., in 1688, shall have established +himself on the throne, when James II. absconded; +Ireland will still be a stronghold, and the French +fleets, commanded by Château Renaud and Tourville, +will convoy the King to Ireland, in spite of the combined +fleets of England and Holland, in 1689-1690. +They will become masters of the sea, and London will +for a moment tremble before the fleets of Louis XIV. +This is Le Pelletier’s statement. After the fight off +Beachy Head on June 30, 1690, it seems to have been +pretty much as he relates; for Smollett’s account (ed. +1822, i. 93) is that;</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Torrington retreated without further interruption into the +mouth of the Thames; and, having taken precautions against +any attempts of the enemy in that quarter, returned to London, +the inhabitants of which were overwhelmed with consternation.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>There is a most remarkable passage in the work of +M. Bouys on this quatrain. He professes to apply +it to the coming victory that was to confer on +Napoleon the coveted command of the seas, saying +that you need not always wait until after the event +to interpret Nostradamus. His own conduct, however, +in this very instance does but enforce the rule. +He pretends not to know anything of the fulfilment +in 1689-1690. In furtherance of the same view he +cites Century VIII., Quatrain 37:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La forteresse auprès de la Thamise</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cherra pour lors le roi dedans serré,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Auprès du pont sera vu en chemise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un devant mort, puis dans le fort barré.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The word <i>cherra</i> presents the only difficulty here +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>as to the mere words. It is the future of the verb +<i>choir</i>, tomber, to fall. Of the prophecy I know of +no interpretation. Garencières significantly quotes +Dan. iv. 10: “The dream be to them that hate thee, +and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies.”</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">War of the Camisards (1702-1704).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 126.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 38.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’entrée de Blaye par Rochelle et l’Anglois,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Passera outre le grand Æmathien:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Non loin d’Agen attendra le Gaulois,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Secours Narbonne deceu par entretien.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The great Æmathion shall pass out of the Garonne at Blaye, +the seaport of Bordeaux, no longer impeded by Rochelle and +the English; the Camisards shall look for aid from their +co-religionists on the side of Agen and Narbonne, but will be +disappointed by an arrangement.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Louis XIV. shall pass out by the <i>Pâté</i> de Blaye, a +fort of that name, built by him in 1689 to command +the entrance of the Gironde against the English and +the Protestants of Rochelle. The Camisards in revolt +in the Cévennes (<i>les Gaulois</i>) will wait at Agens and +Narbonne for promised help, but quite in vain, after the +submission of Jean Cavalier (1704) to Marshal Villars, +at a Conference held at Nîmes. Louis XIV. was so +beset by the enemies of France that he sent the +Marshal into Languedoc to pacify the districts he +despaired of subduing by force.</p> + +<p>In this quatrain, Garencières shows that there is +some analogy between <i>Æmathien</i>, which we are quite +sure is Louis XIV. from the frequency of the application +to him, and the country of Macedon, so-called, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>where Cæsar and Pompey fought their last battle in +the field of Pharsalia; and he quotes Lucan’s line—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bella per Æmathios plus quam civilia campos.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">It is very probable that line was in the mind of +Nostradamus at the moment.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 127.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 2.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par mort la France prendra voyage à faire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Classe⁠<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> par mer, marcher monts Pyrenées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Espaigne en trouble, marcher gent militaire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Des plus grands Dames en France emmenées.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>By reason of a death, France shall undertake a foreign +expedition. The fleet will go by sea, the troops will cross the +Pyrenees. Spain in trouble will march her military forces, +because great ladies have migrated to France.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Philip V., grandson of Louis le Grand, by will of +Charles II., will ascend the Spanish throne. But +Austria, England, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, and +Savoy will coalesce to support the pretensions of the +Archduke Charles. The fleets of France will put to +sea, her armies will cross the Pyrenees. Spain, in two +camps, will be trampled by troops in every direction: +all springing out of Bourbon marriages with the two +Infantas; one, daughter of Philip III. married to +Louis XIII., the other, a daughter of Philip IV., +married to Louis XIV. This war lasted twelve years, +and was disastrous to France. Philip V. found himself +chased from Spain by the Austrians. By the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>Peace of Utrecht, 1713, the Spanish monarchy was +dismembered, and some of his earlier conquests were +snatched from Louis XIV.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Overthrow of Philip V., <i>grandson of Louis XIV</i>. +(1706).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 129.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 64.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’Æmathion passer monts Pyrenées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En Mars Narbon⁠<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> ne fera resistance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par mer terre fera si⁠<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> grand menée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cap⁠<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> n’ayant terre seure pour demeurance.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Æmathion is to pass the Pyrenean Mount;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In Narbo Martius no resistance shows;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By sea and land are greatest efforts made;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Capet holds no foot of land is safe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Louis XIV. will leap the Pyrenees, and will treat +(as we have before seen) with the Camisards of Narbonne. +He will make desperate efforts by sea and +land. But the Capetian, his grandson, Philip V., will +be driven out of Spain by the Imperial forces, and +not retain a foot of soil on which to live.</p> + +<p>In all these passages of history, quite detached as +they seem to be, we find analogies springing up at +all points: Æmathion the Macedonian, and Louis le +Grand; the Spanish succession which came up again +in Louis Philippe’s time, even to uniting the very two +names of Louis XIV. and his grandson Philip V. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>in his own baptismal one. Louis wished to expel +a Charles, and Louis Philippe actually expelled +Charles X. Leibnitz made an express journey to +Paris to persuade Louis XIV. to undertake a grand +expedition against Egypt. Napoleon, the next +Æmathion or Apollon leading France to mischief, +was thrust into an Egyptian expedition, and entered +into a desperate Spanish war to follow, that crippled +France again. History repeats itself, they say. It +seems at every turn to be perpetually engaged in a +process of replaiting its old lines and once-discarded +threads.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOUIS_XV">LOUIS XV.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Minority of Louis XV. (September 1, 1715).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 131.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 15.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Coeur, vigueur, gloire, le regne changera.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De tous points contre ayant son adversaire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors France enfance par mort subjuguera;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un grand Regent sera lors plus contraire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Heart, vigour, glory, change with change of reign,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At every point opposed by something cross:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An infant is set up in France by death;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And a great Regent helps the contrary.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>With the death of Louis XIV., the splendour +of his reign will pass away, and every point +show contrary in his successor. By failure of direct +inheritors of the throne, Louis XV., a child of five will +rule, under Philippe d’Orléans (<i>un grand Regent</i>), whose +vices will show him more contrary to Louis XIV. +than even to Louis XV.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Decadence of Monarchy (1715-1774).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 132.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century V.—Quatrain 38.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce grand monarque qu’au mort succedera,⁠<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Donnera vie illicite lubrique,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Par nonchalance à tous concedera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’à la parfin faudra⁠<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> la loy Salique.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>He who succeeds to the great monarch dead, will lead an evil +and illicit life. By his neglectful habit he will entrust business +to the management of others, so that at last (<i>à la parfin, per +finem</i>) the Salic law will fail.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In other words, this is a plain announcement that +the reign of Louis XV. will serve as a simple prelude +or introduction to the establishment of a Republic; +the annihilation of the Salic law; and of the French +throne.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ENGLAND">ENGLAND.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Changes of Government in England (1501-1791).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 135.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 57.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sept fois changer verrez gent⁠<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> Britannique.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Teints en sang en deux cens nonante an;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Franche⁠<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> + non point, par⁠<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> appuy Germanique;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aries⁠<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> + doubte son pole Bastarnan.⁠<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>You will see the British nation change seven times, stained +with blood, in two hundred and ninety years; but not so +France, thanks to the strength of its Germanic Kings [of the +Capetian race]. The sign of the Ram will not know (<i>doubte</i>) the +northern district (<i>son pole Bastarnan</i>), so changed will it be.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>England will change its government seven +times in a period of 290 years, inundated with +blood, says Le Pelletier,—making this long run of +years commence at what he calls the Renaissance +(1501-1791). Not so in France; thanks to the firmness +of the Germanic kings, she will hold out till 1792. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>I take this to be, in effect, a French endeavour to +chalk out a grand epoch in French annals. Poland +(<i>la Bastarnie</i>) will be dismembered. The first partition +took place in 1772. There will arise in the north +of Europe,—Peter the Great ascending the Russian +throne, 1682, and Lutheranism triumphing in Germany, +1517,—so that Aries cannot identify the regions +adjacent to its northern pole (<i>son pole Bastarnan</i>).</p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier gives an elaborate statement of +what he conceives to be the seven Revolutions in +England (1501-1791). But starting from the Renaissance, +at the fancy date 1501, he vitiates the whole of +the interpretation as it relates to England; but for the +last half of the quatrain he is excellent. His interpretation +of the fourth line is masterly. Garencières +gives a lengthy annotation, to me in the main unintelligible, +but he makes the period to run out about +the year 1845; in which year I can see nothing to +chronicle but the Maynooth Grant of £26,000 per +annum. He says the two first lines refer to England, +and he leaves the English nation to interpret them. +We shall shortly try to do so.</p> + +<p>(1) The Revolution Le Pelletier dates 1532, when +Henry VIII. is proclaimed by Parliament the head of +the Church; 1534 this should be. (2) Re-establishment +of Popery under Queen Mary. (3) Elizabeth +comes back to Protestantism. (4) Commonwealth +follows upon death of Charles I. (5) Restoration +under Charles II. (6) William III. takes the throne +of James II. (7) The House of Hanover succeeds.</p> + +<p>This is exceedingly faulty. It omits as one Revolution +the most important of all, if consequences are to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>be regarded, that is, the lapse of the Tudor race in +Elizabeth and the succession of the Stuarts. Another +very weak point is the commencing of the 290 years +prior to the first issue of the quatrains. According +to this, two of the Revolutions were already elapsed. +A man does not prophesy of what is past. Nostradamus +was writing in the reign of Queen Mary, so that +the first Revolution would naturally count from 1558, +when Elizabeth re-introduced Protestantism.</p> + +<p>Now that we have contrived a firmer basis, let us +see what this leads to.</p> + +<p>No. 1. Elizabeth comes to the throne, November 17, +1558.</p> + +<p>No. 2. James I. (Stuart succession), March 24, 1603. +Queen Elizabeth dies exactly one hundred years +after her namesake, Queen of Henry VII.</p> + +<p>No. 3. Commonwealth on death of Charles I., +January 30, 1649; Protectorate, Cromwell, December +16, 1653.</p> + +<p>No. 4. Restoration, Charles II., May 29, 1660 (on +his 30th birthday).</p> + +<p>No. 5. William III. and Mary, November 5, 1668; +Revolution (Gunpowder Day).</p> + +<p>No. 6. Hanoverian succession, George I., May 21, +1714.</p> + +<p>No. 7. Reform Bill, June 17, 1832. (Dulling the +lustre of the Crown, as we shall see the French King +<i>mitré</i>.)</p> + +<p>Those who wish to prophesy pleasant things can +do away with the disagreeable date of the Reform +Bill, in part, because the No. 3 Revolution can fairly +be interpreted as two Revolutions. Cromwell’s usurpation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>belied the pretended principles of his whole life +and conduct prior to that assumption, and can be +called a new order of things. This arrangement will +obviate the necessity of classifying the Reform Bill +as the 7th Revolution. But the 290 years must end +where they do, though you can regard the matter in +what light you please. But I look upon Cromwell’s +treason, not to the King, but to himself as a man, as +being practically part and parcel of the Commonwealth, +or a horn growing out of the head of that +rhinoceros or unicorn: nothing more. Given a popular +revolt, a self-seeking horn always grows out of the +forehead of the beast, till, with a ring in its nostril, it +is driven whither its sublime liberties shall dictate.</p> + +<p>Take it either way, it seems to me quite beyond +the reach of the ordinary human mind, simply left to +its own resources, to strike out four lines so pregnant +as these, and await silently, for three hundred years, +an interpretation, so little forced or driven as this is. +I may say that to even pack into the space of four +lines a mass of assertions so pregnant with hints, is a +feat in condensation that no poet has ever equalled. +Tacitus, the tersest of historians, has never approached +it. No précis writer of the most accomplished skill +has ever reduced the facts furnished to him in a well-drawn +manuscript to such a compass. He could +not, and remain intelligible. To those who will +merely look at it in this light it may afford endless +matter of reflection and curious study. As a forecast, +its appearance to me is purely miraculous. Let any +one explain it otherwise who thinks he can; we shall +all be ready to learn.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Stuart Dynasty (1603-1649).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 138.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 40.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La jeunne⁠<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> nay au regne Britannique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’aura le pere mourant recommandé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Iceluy mort, Lonole⁠<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> + donra⁠<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> + topique,⁠<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et à son fils le regne, demandé.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The young Prince of the Kingdom of Britain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose dying father will have recommended him;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This one being dead, Lonole will perorate,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And snatch the kingdom from his very son.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>James I. of England and VI. of Scotland was born +June 19, 1566: the son of Mary Stuart and Henry +Lord Darnley; who, before his assassination by Bothwell, +had commended the young prince to the fidelity +of the Scotch lords. He ascended the throne of +England in 1603, and under him England and Scotland +were first denominated Great Britain (<i>au regne +Britannique</i>).⁠<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> When King James I. dies (<i>Iceluy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>mort</i>), <i>Lonole</i> will seduce England with artificial +rhetoric, and demand the kingdom and the life of +his son Charles I.</p> + +<p>Lonole is the right reading, according to the +<i>Texte-type</i>; others read <i>Doudlé</i>, and Garencières reads +<i>Londre</i>. He also fancies that the prophecy concerns +Charles II., because Charles I. commended him to +the people of England. It is rather curious that +<i>Lonole</i> should give the anagram of Olleon, or Ὀλλύων, +as Napoleon does that of Ναπολλύων and Apollyon. +Cromwell and he have many analogies and points of +contact, whether in history, character, or prophecy. +But a further anagram, still more wonderful, springs +here into view, which, I believe, has hitherto escaped +all the commentators. <i>Ole Nol</i>, or <i>Old Noll</i>, has always +been the Protector’s nickname, and in the first form +is letter for letter <i>Lonole</i>. It may stand for Apollyon +also, and as such for “Old Nick” too.</p> + +<p>I ought not to pass away from this mass and +congeries of singular hints and disclosures without +pointing out the remarkable fact or link connecting +James I. with Nostradamus, and the particular +quatrain we are now dealing with. James I. was +born June 19, 1566, and thirteen days after, July 2, +1566, Nostradamus breathed his last. This quatrain, +once understood, is one of the clearest and most +extraordinary of the forecasts of Nostradamus. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>commencing event, the birth of James I., just touches +his own death; and the last event, the death of +Charles I., 1649, stretches to nearly a hundred years +later.</p> + +<p>Anagram seems to have been once a passion with +the people. We find the white cloth of Lincoln in +the thirteenth century alluded to as “Drap blanc de +<i>Nicole</i>,” that standing for <i>Lincoln</i>. [Le Roux de Lincy +“Livre des Prov. Franc.” i. 195.]</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Fall of Charles I. (March 31, 1646).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 139.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 80.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Du regne Anglais le digne dechassé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le conseiller par⁠<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> + ire⁠<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> mis à feu,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ses adherans iront si bas tracer,⁠<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que le bastard sera demy receu.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>He who had the right to reign in England, shall be driven +from the throne, his counsellor abandoned (<i>mis a feu</i>) to the +fury of the populace (<i>par ire</i>). His adherents will follow so +low a track that the usurper (<i>le bastard</i>) will come to be Protector +(<i>demy receu</i>, or half King).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Garencières fancies this to relate to Charles II., +and, that it is very clear. But evidently <i>le digne dechassé</i> +is Charles I. Strafford was surrendered weakly +to the unreasoning rage of the people (<i>par ire</i>). The +Scotch, his countrymen (<i>ses adherents</i>), will sell him +for £400,000 (Hume, vii. 76) to the Independents with +unexampled baseness (<i>si bas tracer</i>). After this Cromwell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>(<i>le bastard</i>) will become Protector, or half king +(<i>sera demy receu</i>).</p> + +<p>This could scarcely be made more remarkable than +it is, had it been written historically after the event, +as history, than it is now before it, as prophecy. +Look, again, at the overwhelming insight and terseness: +the King defeated, Strafford sacrificed, the +Covenanters’ money bargain, and the Protectorate +chalked out in decisive outline nearly a century before +the realization: and each event is contained in one +metrical phrase.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Execution of Charles I. (January 30, 1649).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 141.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 49.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Gand et Bruceles marcheront contre⁠<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> Anvers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le sel et vin luy seront à l’envers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour eux avoir le regne en desarroy.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Gand and Brussels will march past Antwerp,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Senate at London will put their King to death;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Salt and wine will be applied contrariwise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So that they will set the whole kingdom in disarray.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Philip IV. in the Netherlands, being at war, will +move Gand and Brussels towards Antwerp against +Holland in revolt. Holland had, in 1579, detached +itself from the Low Countries. Thus Antwerp became +the border town of the Spanish possessions. Philip +claimed rights over her till the treaty of Westphalia, +or Munster, of which we have Terburg’s curious +portraiture in the National Gallery, concluded on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>October 14, 1648; three months only before the death +of Charles I., so that the conjunction of the two events +is extraordinarily definite and remarkable.</p> + +<p>The second line is as definite and marvellous as +anything that occurs in Nostradamus. By the treaty +of Munster it fixes the date to within three months. +Garencières says: “It is the most remarkable of all +those [prophecies] that ever Nostradamus was author +of.” He notifies also, what I think nobody else has, +that the number of this quatrain, 49, gives the very +year of the occurrence in the seventeenth century. +For though we in England then called it 1648-49, +Nostradamus, by the Gregorian Calendar used in +France, would reckon it as 1649. We need lay no stress +whatever upon this, for the quatrain wants nothing to +strengthen it. Yet, be it the offspring of chance or +intention, it is most singular. I have before said how +much value lies in mere curiosities, and it is part of +my business to point one out whenever I am able.</p> + +<p>We have already handled the phrase <i>vin sel</i> at +<a href="#Page_151">p. 151 and 153</a> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 119</span>], but from a French, and not +English point of view; yet even there the line is</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’Isle Britanne par vin sel en souci.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">—showing the consistency with which the visions +must have shaped themselves in the mind of Nostradamus. +The one we are treating of now appears in +the ninth century of the prophet’s quatrains, but the +above line occurs in a quatrain of the tenth century. +Still, what is said in the one is consistent with what +is said in the other. If we call this chance, we shall +have to admit an axiom far from self-evident; namely, +that method is discernible in chance as well as in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>madness. Here, as at disgraceful Old Pancras graveyard, +there is clearly a slight derangement of epitaphs.</p> + +<p>Bouys and nearly all the commentators treat the +figure of <i>le vin et sel</i>, as representing force and +wisdom, which were wanting to the King of England. +I think we are not at all necessitated to adopt this +interpretation. Supposing <i>salt</i> and <i>wine</i> in a good +sense to symbolize wisdom and power, before we +settle that to be their application here, we shall have +to understand what <i>à l’envers</i> means. In the first +place, it is not the preposition <i>envers</i>, meaning <i>for</i>, or +<i>in regard to</i>. It is a noun substantive, masculine, and +stands for the wrong side of a fabric, as contrasted +with, or opposed to, the right side, called <i>l’endroit</i>. It +means that wisdom and power will present their +wrong aspect at this juncture, and become intrigue +and violence, and will so stand to him (<i>lui seront à +l’envers</i>), as that they will convert into their opposites, +intrigue and violence. It has the old sense of <i>inversus</i>, +as in the <i>Roman de la Rose</i>. A person is there told +that on going to bed no sleep will come, but tossing +from one side to the other:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Une heure <i>envers</i> et l’autre adens</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Come cil qui a mal aus dens.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Here it reads one hour on the <i>back</i>, another on the +teeth. Molière says of a character (<i>l’Et.</i> ii. 14):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">Vous serez toujours....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un envers du bon sens, un jugement à gauche.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Nothing can better describe the mockery in Westminster +Hall of the trial of the King than <i>un jugement +à gauche</i>. The third line of the quatrain is the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>precise equivalent. <i>Vin</i> so nearly resembles vis that +it is sure to mean force, the two extremes of which +are power and violence, law and lawlessness. We see +this very distinctly in the old French word <i>vimaire</i>, +force majeure (<i>vis major</i>) and the word further signified +storm, tempest, famine, and pestilence (<i>vide</i> Roquefort, +<i>s.v.</i>). That wine does not at all definitely stand +for power well directed, is plain enough from “the +wine of fornication” (Rev. xvii. 2); and that salt is +not to be taken as wisdom personified with fixity +may be gathered, if from nothing else, from the +sanctification of the sacramental elements in the +Church of Rome; where before salt is used, it is first +exorcised, to purify it from the stain of original sin, +that passed upon all creation at the fall (Auber’s +“Symbolisme,” iii. 394). Whatever wisdom Godwin, +Carlyle, and other modern revolutionists may suppose +themselves to have discovered in the character of +Cromwell, Nostradamus certainly had formed no such +notion of him, as we shall immediately feel assured +by the next quatrain. Nostradamus’s opinion of +Cromwell may determine nothing at all as to the +final estimate of that man. I adduce it only to help +to settle what he meant by the words we are studying, +<i>le sel et vin</i>. The next line is plain enough. +The Independents set the whole kingdom by the +ears.</p> + +<p>I think we have reached a point at which every +line of this quatrain has become tolerably clear. A +wiseacre, writing about it in the <i>Quarterly Review</i> +(vol. xxvi. p. 189) says: “Œdipus himself could not +give the sense of the whole verse.” This is the way in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>which people treat a difficult, abstruse, and intricate +subject. It is so easy to say we have made up our +mind about a man; that he is unintelligible, a +charlatan, an impostor; that his forecasts are oracular +nonsense, meaning nothing, or that if at times they do +light on something, chance has more to do with it +than seership or vision. You would certainly think +that a sane man, finding in a book,—that indubitably +was in print,—in 1558 a line prophesying the death of +the King of England nearly a hundred years after, +“Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy,” would +be struck with astonishment at the clearness of that, +rather than with the difficulty of making sense of the +other three lines. But this is what prejudice can do +with us all.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Cromwell’s Protectorate (1653-1658).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 142.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 76.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus Macelin⁠<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> que Roy en Angleterre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lieu obscur nay⁠<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> par force aura l’empire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lasche sans foy sans loy saignera terre:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son temps approche si près que je souspire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>A Butcher more than king rules England. A man of no +birth will seize the government by violence. Of loose morals, +without faith or law he will bleed the earth. The hour +approaches me so near that I breathe with difficulty.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Here we have a most remarkable forecast. It puts +in a clear light what view Nostradamus had formed +of Cromwell. There appears to have been visually +present to him the butcher-like face of Cromwell, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>with its fleshly conch and hideous warts. This seems +to have struck him with such a sense of vividness +and horror, that he is willing to imagine that the time +is very near at hand. A full century had, however, +to elapse; but he sighs as with a present shudder, and +the blood creeps:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Son temps s’approche si près que je souspire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>One of the most remarkable features throughout +the work of Nostradamus, is the general absence of +any sense of time, apart from the mere enumeration of +years as an algebraic or arithmetical formula; further +than this, he so regulates and controls his feelings as +to appear almost impassible; but this announcement +is of such unparalleled and terrific import that he +departs from his usual practice and stands horror-stricken +as in the presence of a fearful vision.</p> + +<p>It was intended to treat here of the portraiture of +Cromwell. To complete, however, my observations, I +had to go to Chequers Court, the Print Room, and +the National Portrait Gallery. These and other +necessary steps occupied so much time that the +printers had to commence paging; then, as the enlarged +matter could not find room here, there was no +alternative but an Appendix, which will be found at +<a href="#Page_351">p. 351</a>. My remarks, which make so little show now +that they are done, cost me far more trouble than ten +times the mere amount of writing would. The final +settlement depends on the cast at Florence, if still in +existence. I have cleared the road for a decisive conclusion; +which, though it is not much, is yet something.</p> + +<p>Bouys specially comments (p. 109) upon the word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span><i>Lasche</i> in this quatrain, and takes it to mean cowardly, +the same as <i>lâche</i> does in modern French. Both +forms of the word are alike deduced from the Latin, +<i>laxare</i>, <i>laxatus</i>, and then it might well mean of +<i>loose morals</i>, as I have rendered it. That the Latin +may mean this Bailey’s “Facciolati” shows, <i>s.v.</i> +<i>Laxitas</i>: “Liber membris cum mollibus fingitur, et +liquoris feminei dissolutissimus laxitate”; and Cromwell’s +dissolute life in early youth has been insisted on +by many, though, of course, contradicted by others. +Frederic Harrison is the last of these, and passes over +the charge of vice with a very light hand, saying that +“Such testimony as theirs we cannot trust; but we +cannot now refute it.” Suffice it to say, I do not +think cowardice was what Nostradamus meant to +impute to Cromwell.</p> + +<p>The obscure birth requires a moment’s consideration, +as none of the French commentators allude in +any way to it. The household of Robert Cromwell, +Oliver’s father, in Huntingdon, was of the industrious, +jog-trot, somewhat over-professingly pious, middle-class +order, common enough then in the Eastern +counties. What is most remarkable, perhaps, is that +the homestead, in which he was born, had been built +upon the ruins of a convent of Augustine Friars, and +that the two estates which came to him, one from his +father and the other from his mother’s brother, consisted +of old church-lands. Oliver’s branch of the +family had rather fallen away from the county position +which such inheritance infers. But it was always +the more prominent families that stole, or possessed +themselves of, the church-lands at the spoliation, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>thus the Cromwells were married in and in with +gentry. This scion of the robbers of the Church +was soon to develop, on his own account, into a robber +of the State; a man of violence and passion quite +after the heart of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle’s notion +of a hero, is a strong devil in a tantrum, mollifying, +now and again, to the drone of a Psalm tune. Cromwell’s +branch seems to have drifted from the more +courtly side to Calvinistic burghers and narrow-souled +Independents; whilst Milton, who was born +a London citizen, far away from gentry, was floated +by his tastes and nature to the Court side of things, +to the Bridgewaters, Ludlow Castle (see his deathless +Masque of Comus), until a lofty idea of principle,—taken +up by an unripe judgment, and +dazzled by that false illusion, Liberty,—dashed him +headlong into polemics, and irretrievably damaged the +greatest poet ever born to England. They were +exact opposites—these two. Milton sacrificed himself +to his principles, Cromwell his principles to his +person. Still, an old brewing concern at Huntingdon +may well be designated by Nostradamus <i>lieu +obscur</i>, as contrasted with Whitehall, and a burial, if +you please, in Westminster Abbey, so wastefully +extravagant as that it might well break a nation’s +treasury to meet it. Such prodigious pageantry +belies the professions of the life, and can in no way +be harmonized with “Take that bauble hence.” +Such empty, worthless show has less, for me, of the +saint and hero in it, than of the froth of beer, and of +the littleness and vanity of man. If this is to be +great, prythee, tell us, what is it to be little?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">British Ascendancy of the Sea (over three +Centuries).</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 143.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 100.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand empire sera par Angleterre.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le pempotam⁠<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> des ans plus de trois cens:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Grandes copies⁠<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> passer par mer et terre.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les Lusitains⁠<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> n’en seront pas contens.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>England the Pempotam (πᾶν <i>potens</i>) will rule the great empire +(of the waters) for more than three hundred years. Great +armies will pass by sea and land; the Portuguese will not be +satisfied.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The French render this as meaning the destruction +of England by large forces coming to overwhelm her +by sea and land, but the reader will see that it does +not at all necessarily show this. If we altered the +colon, and put it at the end of the third line, it would +simply mean that, whilst she was “all powerful” at +sea, she moved large bodies of troops by both elements. +I do not think it is very clear what the last line +intends. But the three hundred years’ dominion of +the sea is a very palpable and most important object. +That it is now drawing to a close is a somewhat +melancholy subject for the contemplation of Englishmen, +when we consider the searching revolution +introduced by steam. If it really forebodes evil to +England, it would involve dissatisfaction to the +Lusitanians, as, if England fell, Portugal would be +overwhelmed simultaneously by Spain.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span></p> + +<p>The Invincible Armada of Philip II. was destroyed +in 1588 by storms first, and the residue by Drake in +Cadiz Bay. From that epoch we naturally date the +maritime supremacy of our country, which, according +to Nostradamus, is to last for more than three +centuries, but not four. Nelson’s death at Trafalgar in +1805 was the culminating event of our naval history. +Its salt-sea tale still stirs young hearts in far-off sea-board +cottages on stormy nights in winter with a +flush of heroism, and that yet more sacred thing, a +solemn sense of duty. But the old sobriety and +obedient spirit of reverence, that was common in +English homes last century is greatly decadent under +the rotten knowledge dropping widely from the +Upas Board Schools,—with reverence banished and +obedience lost. The bare three hundred years ended +in 1888. What the <i>plus</i> may count for, with Revolt +thus bred at every hearth, a wise Englishman might +ask with some emotion now.</p> + +<p>It is said, in James’s “Naval History,” that from +1793 to 1815—I have not referred to verify—two +hundred ships of the line, and three to four hundred +frigates were taken or destroyed of the fleets opposed +to England; and of the sea as at the pouring out of the +second vial, ἐγένετο αἷμα ὡς νεκροῦ, it became as the +blood of a dead man (Rev. xvi. 3). This completely +crushed out all chance of Napoleon’s descent upon +England; but, with the lying spirit that distinguished +his administration at all times, he managed to disguise +the fact from Frenchmen at the time; so that we find +Bouys, at p. 92, promising him—out of two misinterpreted +quatrains—in 1806, when his fleet was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>annihilated, the empire of the sea and a conquest of +England as complete as that of William the Conqueror. +It only proves once more how far from truth is the +wish that is father to the thought. Let him stand +aloof who would read the future by the light of the +lantern of his prejudices.</p> + +<p>We are now at the end of the guidance of Le +Pelletier. Nevertheless, I will adduce several other +quatrains to bring the English sequence down to the +succession of the House of Hanover. They will +perhaps not be devoid of instruction, though they +will not be so remarkable as those already adduced. +Several quatrains, more or less intelligibly wrought +out, are enumerated in a pamphlet of the year 1715 +by D. D.⁠<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> The first relates to Queen Mary.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Queen Mary.</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 96.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La Sœur aisnee de L’Isle Britannique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quinze ans devant le frère aura naissance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par son promis, moyennant verrifique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Succedera au Règne de Balance.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The elder sister of the British Isle shall be born fifteen years +before her brother; true to her intervening promise, she will +succeed to the Kingdom of the Balance.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span></p> + +<p>This means that Mary, elder sister of Edward VI., +shall ascend the throne of England. She was not +born fifteen years before him. Her birth took place +February 18, 1516, whilst Edward VI. was born +October 12, 1537, over twenty-one years later. The +fulfilment of her truthful promise lay in carrying out +her vow to reinstate the Papists, causing even her +sister Elizabeth to be imprisoned in the Tower on a +charge of conspiracy. <i>Moyennant</i> seems to refer to +the temporary nature and duration of her papal +restorations; <i>en la moyenne</i>, in the midst or interim, +between the Protestantism of her young brother, and +that of Elizabeth, who succeeded her. Mary’s birth +was an event actually contemporary with Nostradamus; +a very little inquiry, we may be sure, would +have enabled him to have rendered it conformable to +the facts of history. As exemplifying his method and +procedure, it is very important to find that he took +no trouble whatever to do so. It is evident that our +prophet acted quite independently of external aids. +He seems to have had methods and ways of his own, +in which he had the most entire and implicit faith. +In whatsoever manner the impressions reached him, +he laid himself open to their reception, a reception to +all appearance of pure passivity: he took the earliest +moment of noting them down, more after the manner +of an amanuensis under dictation than as being personally +at all responsible for anything he committed +to paper. The explanation of D. D. upon this passage +is very singular, and implies somewhat of the insight +of an adept into magical processes and fatidical +language, of which we should be glad to know more. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>We must, however, content ourselves with it as it is; +and even this little glimpse will be valued by those +who love to study the human mind in all its byeways, +and who are qualified to do so by thrusting aside +from their own mind all private prejudice and vain +prepossession. He says with regard to the discrepancy:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“But, if he has not known it, then has he either overheard it +<i>in raptu</i>, whilst his genius dictated unto him one year and +three <i>Heptades</i>, or forgot it <i>post raptum</i>, and did write one year +and two <i>Heptades</i>. The <i>Lingua Demonum</i> uses <i>Septenarios +in numerando</i>, as we do <i>Denarios</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Where he gets this intelligence from I have no +idea. What he heard <i>in raptu</i>, could not have been +one year and three heptades, for that would have +represented twenty-two years, and we have to do with +twenty-one years. What he might have heard, supposing +we are right as to the <i>lingua demonum</i>, would +be “one, plus two heptades,” meaning <i>three heptades</i>; +and he might have supposed it to mean one year +plus two heptades, or fifteen years. If not satisfactory, +this at least, has something of plausibility +about it.</p> + +<p>The phrase <i>Règne de Balance</i> has much of importance +attaching to it. Garencières translates the last +line, “She shall succeed in the Kingdom of Libra,” +and he annotates that the princess, whom he does not +recognize at all, born so long before her brother, shall +be married to a King of France, which is signified +by the “Kingdom of <i>Libra</i>.” He also says that +Louis XIII. was called <i>The Just</i>, because he was born +under the sign <i>Libra</i>. I give this for the sake of its +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>being curious, though quite beside the mark, so far as +I am able to see.</p> + +<p>The phrase <i>Règne de Balance</i> is one of those pithy +pregnant sentences, ever and anon dropping instinctively +from the pen of Nostradamus, on all topics +treated by him or glanced at. The whole bent of +England’s policy, from Henry VII.’s day to the Treaty +of Vienna, has been to maintain a European equipoise, +and to provide that no State should grow so +strong as to overwhelm the rest. The wise counsels +of the statesmen of Elizabeth were all directed in the +hope of fortifying it; and it was never seriously infringed +until the first partition of Poland in 1772, +which was completed by the third in 1795. Napoleon’s +false profession to restore it in 1806 may count—like +all he said, “as false as dicers’ oaths”—for nothing. +England’s permission of that crime,—that satanry of +royal crowns, struck her with judicial blindness;—and +hired publicists, the venal reptiles that preceded the +journalists, soon sprang up in abundance, to confuse +and smoke-dry the moral sense of Europe. Poland +had established that most unworkable of all governmental +schemes, an elective monarchy; an arrangement +that insures periodical anarchy at every election, +and generally a wrong choice at last. The satanry +of Split Eagles gave out, that the Poles could not +govern themselves. But the fourth article in Peter +the Great’s will shows that they were not to be +allowed to govern themselves. They were to be kept +in continual jealousy, whilst the other powers were +to be corrupted by gold, and a share of the plunder; +till Russia could retake all. The bribers, the bribed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>and the publicists succeeded so well that the very +phrase “Balance of power” became, and still is, a +topic of ridicule in common conversation. By this +means its obvious rationality is excluded from any +chance of a fair hearing. The Navigation Laws, Corn +Laws, and Protection, have all been treated in the +same way in our own time, and with the same revolutionary +consequences, and loss of English supremacy. +The Marquis de Bouillé, in his “Mémoires,” +ed. 1821, p. 8,—one of the few modern men who is +entitled to be called a statesman,—says of England, +that it is an empire whose support all other nations +stand in need of, and that its happiness is intimately +bound up with that of the world at large, but that if +its thirst of gold should destroy its patriotism; or that +bold demagogues and orators should get power to +meddle with its fundamental laws, it would soon +become chaotic and fall, leaving nothing behind it +but another great ghost of empire perished, to glimmer +as an historical beacon through the night of time. +Again he says, at p. 24, that for thirty years (speaking +about 1783) she has been the happy rival of France, +and in some sort the arbitress of Europe. A little +later on, when we crushed Napoleon by sea and land, +and yet preserved France, we rose to our highest; +but at Vienna the <i>Règne de Balance</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> passed, probably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>for ever, from the sceptre of England; just twenty +years after the final partition of Poland. Cursed are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>those who, with arms in their hands, stand by and allow +evil to be done! We repeated the cowardice when +France was under the heel of Prussia. If no virtue +remained, the common policy of equalization should +have weighed, to throw in aid to the weaker side.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 74.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La dechassee au regne tournera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ses ennemies trouvez des conjurez;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plusque jamais son temps triomphera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trois, et Septante, la mort, trop asseurez.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The rejected one shall at last reach the throne, her enemies +found to have been traitors. More than ever shall her period +be triumphant. At seventy she shall go assuredly to death, in +the third year of the century.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Elizabeth was long withheld from the throne. +When she reached it, of course all enemies were +regarded as traitors, and no reign was ever more +triumphant. She proved a thorn in the side of +popery; overthrew the Armada; and crippled the +power of Spain, despoiling it of a large tract of land +in America, which has been called after her Virginia; +and under Essex, in 1596, inflicted on it a loss of +twenty million ducats or pieces of eight, in the Bay +of Cadiz. The next quatrain that we shall take +seems to refer to the expedition by Essex.</p> + +<p>The fourth line is a very singular one. It has no +punctuation in the edition of 1558; so I introduce a +comma between <i>trois</i> and <i>septante</i>. <i>Septante</i> is +“seventy,” a good old word that has dropped out of +French usage, but which many French scholars think +infinitely preferable to the clumsy circumlocution +<i>Soixante dix</i>. <i>Trois</i> stands for 1603. Nostradamus +often drops the thousands and hundreds from a date. +We shall shortly come to a case in point, at the Fire +of London, 1666. When Nostradamus describes the +doomed city, he writes: “Bruslé par fond, de vingt-trois +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>les six.” The nought in 1603 cannot be given, +so that, omitting the figures in the tens, hundreds, +and thousands, the <i>trois</i> remaining gives the date; so +that the line remains “In the third year [of the +seventeenth century] and seventy years old, assured +death comes.” Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533, +and she died March 24 (April 3, N.S.), 1603; fulfilling +to a nicety the conditions of the line as thus set forth.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Attack on Cadiz Bay (1596).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 94.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Devant le lac ou plus cher fut getté</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De sept mois, et son ost desconfit</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seront Hispans par Albanois gastez,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par delay perte en donnant le conflict.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Before the lake, where much treasure (<i>plus cher</i>) was stranded, +after a seven months’ voyage, and the host discomforted, +Spaniards shall be worsted by the English, by time lost before +giving battle.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Garencières here takes <i>Albanois</i> for Albanians, which +of course prevents him from reaching any conceivable +meaning. It stands for English, as Albanies, or +Albions. The quatrain may reasonably enough be +interpreted of the attack made by Essex, Howard, +and Raleigh, June, 1596, on Cadiz Bay. They +destroyed there thirteen ships of war, and forty huge +South American galleons, part of the great “silver +fleet,” or “plate fleet.” They had got stranded in +their own harbour. Had the Spaniards been alert, +they might have unloaded the treasure-ships, and so +saved the cargoes. If they had attacked the English +at once, instead of awaiting the onset, they might +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>have beaten them off, or at least have kept them out +of the harbour. But they were so supine that the +Duke de Medina had at last to fire the ships to +prevent their capture. The Spartans and Spaniards +have been noted as being of small despatch: <i>Mi venga +la muerta di Spagna</i>—“Let my death come from +Spain, for then it will be sure to be long in coming” +(Bacon’s Essay on Despatch). Collins does not give +this in his Spanish proverbs. But not only did +Spaniards and Spartans procrastinate. “Business tomorrow,” +said the Theban Polymarch, in Plutarch, as +he laid under his pillow some despatches relating to +a conspiracy, and was killed before he read them. +Copyslip wisdom saith “Delays are dangerous.”</p> + +<p>The bay and harbour of Cadiz may very well be +called a lake, being twelve miles one way, and at +least six the other, whilst the entrance to it from +Rota to the Castle of St. Sebastian is a good six +miles. When Essex got possession of the Castle of +Puntales, he commanded the whole town and harbour. +The idea of <i>lake</i> is actually expressed in the very +name of Cadiz, which is derived from the Punic word +<i>Gaddir</i>, an <i>enclosed place</i>. The Greeks corrupted this +into γάδειρα, or γῆς δειρή, “neck of land.” The +Romans contracted either this or the Punic word into +Gades, and the Spaniards into <i>Xerez</i>, by the help of +their Arabic guttural.</p> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 22.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dedans la terre du grand temple celique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nepueu à Londre par paix feincte meurtry:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La barque alors deviendra scismatique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Liberté feincte sera au corn’ et cry.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>In the country of the great heavenly temple the nephew is +murdered [by her who comes] to London under a feigned truce. +The ship [of Peter] will then become schismatic, and feigned +liberty become the hue and cry.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I cannot, I confess, altogether make this out. D. D. +interprets it of the murder of Henry Stuart, 1567, and +the final establishment of the Reformation. If it +mean this, it will be a proof of the uncertainty, and +almost caprice with which forecasts are concerned. +It is strange that Henry Stuart’s murder should find +any representation, when, so far as I yet know, nothing +is recorded of the fate of Mary Stuart herself. The +heavenly temple is, according to D. D., the kingdom +of the <i>Angeli</i>, Angels, or Angles, meaning the English. +We are by no means forced to accept this interpretation, +for <i>Celique</i> may stand for <i>luminous</i>, according +to Le Pelletier’s Glossary, where he derives the word +from the Greek σίλας, though I see no such word. +<i>Celigue</i> is generally considered to stand for <i>celeste</i>, +<i>cælitus</i>, from <i>cælum</i>. We might read it as a misprint +for Celtique. Then <i>la terre du grand temple Celtique</i> +would be the island in which is placed the great +Druid temple of Stonehenge—the island of Apollo, +<i>Templum Solis</i>, as Bath is the fountain of the sun, +<i>Aqua Solis</i>. I record these hints, not as possessing +much value in themselves, but as being possible aids +towards future elucidation.</p> + +<p><i>La Barque</i>, in Nostradamus, is no doubt usually to +be interpreted of the Popedom, the ship of St. Peter; +but if, as I think, the general reference of the quatrain +be to England and English affairs, then I should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>interpret <i>La Barque</i> as the Ship of State, becoming +more and more schismatical, and in which the +Puritans, Independents, and other Dissenters raise a +great hue and cry about liberty, and liberty of conscience +(<i>au corn’ et cry</i>, or <i>à cor et à cri</i>, which is a +variant of the early edition). The Puritans were +becoming most troublesome both in England and +Scotland all through the reigns of Elizabeth and +Mary Stuart. Here D. D. insists upon what it is the +business of his book to establish; that the accession +of the House of Hanover to the throne of England is +one distinct topic of the prophecies of Nostradamus. +James I. was the great-grandfather of George I. His +daughter Elizabeth married Frederic, the Elector +Palatine, and had issue the Princess Sophia, Electress +of Brunswick-Lunenberg, the mother of George I.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">England Becomes Great Britain (1603).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century III.—Quatrain 70.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La grand Bretaigne comprinse d’Angleterre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Viendra par eaux si⁠<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> haut à inonder</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La Ligue neuve d’Ausonne fera guerre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que contre eux ils se viendront bander.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Great Britain comprising England, will come to be inundated +very forcibly by the waters. The new League in Italy will +make war against all such as band together against any one +of the cosignatories.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>England was politically called Great Britain when +Scotland was united to her at the accession of +James I. in 1603. Still, in an indefinite way, the +term, or kindred terms, had often been employed. To +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>go no further than the “Faerie Queene” of Spenser +(Book III. c. ii. § 7), we find:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent8">Far fro my native soyle, that is by name</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Greater Brytayne, here to seeke for praise and fame.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In this passage, Church says, it means Wales, as +distinguished from the Lesser Brittany in France. +The Greater Brytayne would hardly be Wales, but +England and Wales together before the Saxon +Heptarchy. This, however, in no way interferes with +the propriety of the distinction drawn by Nostradamus. +His allusion is clearly to the time of James I., +who assumed the title of “King of Great Britain” on +October 24, 1604.</p> + +<p>The floods spoken of commenced about the end of +January, 1607. The principal damage occurred in +Somersetshire, where the sea broke down the dykes, +and overflowed the country for thirty miles in length +and six miles inland, to the destruction of all property +and most of the inhabitants. Bristol suffered. The +east coast by Norfolk suffered in like manner, though +not quite to so great an extent. A long account of +it, giving curious details of the calamity, was hunted +up by Garencières, and found in an old, almost-forgotten +Latin book, entitled “Rerum in Galliâ, +Belgiâ, Hispaniâ, Angliâ, etc., <i>gestarum anno</i> 1607,” à +Nicolao Gotardo Artus Dantisco, VII., Book 2.</p> + +<p><i>La Ligue neufve</i>, D. D. says, was a renewal of the +<i>Liga Sancta</i> first entered into in 1526 between the +King of France, the Pope, and the Venetians. The +renewal took place in 1606, and was simply defensive, +precisely as the quatrain puts it. Thus the quatrain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>stretches over a space of three years, from October, +1604, establishing the title of “Great Britain;” the +ratification of the <i>Liga Sancta</i> in 1606; and the inundations +in Somerset and Norfolk in 1607. The +alliance of 1526 goes by the name of the Treaty of +Cognac (or <i>Holy League</i>). It was concluded on +March 22, 1526, between the Pope, Francis I., Venice, +Henry VIII., the Swiss, and Florence. The second +or defensive alliance, according to D. D., was between +three only of the original signatories; France, the +Pope, and the Venetians. I do not find it mentioned, +but presume he is right. Garencières evidently writes +in entire ignorance of both these treaties; but he +says that the League will be of Bordeaux, which is +called <i>Ausone</i>, from Ausonius, the famous Latin poet, +who was born there. Here it certainly means Italy; +but I mention it, as it is quite likely that Nostradamus +might so employ the word, though he does not on +this occasion. <i>Ausone</i> occurs once again, at least, in +Quatrain 22 of Century VII., which I do not know +that anybody has yet interpreted.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Charles I.</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century V.—Quatrain 93.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Soubs le terroir du rond globe lunaire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors que sera dominateur Mercure:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’isle d’Escosse fera un luminaire.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui les Anglois mettra à deconfiture.⁠<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Under the jurisdiction of the round globe of the moon, when +Mercury shall be lord of the ascendant: the island of Scotland +will produce a luminary (prince) that shall throw the English into +a great discomfiture.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p> + +<p>Garencières entirely misses the purpose of this, but +remarks that the prophecy must of necessity relate to +the past, for since the Union nothing of the kind has +happened. Charles I. was born at Dunfermline on +November 19, 1600; in astrological language, when +Mercury, lord of the horizon, was combust and +following Saturn cosmically with the sun: the sun +leaning to a conjunction with Mars, and the moon, in +her worst location, in quadrature with Mars. He +succeeded to the throne in 1625.</p> + +<p>D. D. translates the quatrain, oddly enough, as +follows:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In regione aëris sublunari,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Mercurius shall govern,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When a light shall be born in Scotland,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Which will put England into great disorder.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We have here the stars in their courses fighting +against King Charles, and, as soon as we had disposed +of the historical remarks appended to the +quatrain by D. D., our intention was to have thrown +together some of the fatalistic signs of the time and +the ill omens that attended this unhappy monarch +almost throughout life, but unfortunately this intention +must be laid aside for the present.</p> + +<p>In 1609 James I. tried to induce the Scotch to +conform to some sort of uniformity in Church ceremony, +but he stopped short of endeavouring to thrust +it down their throats. Archbishop Laud was less +moderate. With the zealous persistency of a shard-borne +beetle flying against a stone wall, he, in 1637 +advised Charles to introduce the English Liturgy into +the churches of Scotland, <i>auctoritate regis</i>. It was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>flying in the face of Fate. <i>Quem Deus vult perdere +prius dementat.</i></p> + +<p>Next to the folly of establishing it, was the folly of +its public withdrawal in less than twelve months’ time. +It was established by royal mandate, July 23, 1637, +and by royal proclamation, June 20, 1638, withdrawn; a +further undertaking being given that no English ceremonies +should be thrust upon the Church of Scotland. +Any tyro in statesmanship would have known that this +course was doomed to fail utterly. Having taken +the first inconsiderate step, it should have received no +other impulse from England; private instructions +should have been communicated to the chief clergy +that no proceedings would be taken to enforce the +law, and it would have died down of itself. As it +was, the concession came too late, and gave the +Scotch time to enter into a covenant never to permit +the establishment of the English ritual; or, as they +called it, the English <i>Service Book</i>. The fault was +committed that, over and over again, the English +commit as to Irish affairs; the yielding to outside +pressure. Contentious opposition should be crushed +by force first, and then conceded to as of grace. You +will never get thanks from any party for having +yielded to their threats. This only cemented disaffection; +and, in 1643, England, puritanically urged, +went further still, and established the <i>Solemn League</i> +to like effect. This was a pure piece of political +claptrap intended to secure general disaffection.</p> + +<p>In 1641 the discontent had spread into Ireland, +and, as usual in such cases, English reasoning and +Scotch logic developed into bloodshed on the other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>side of St. George’s Channel. The English often +content themselves with ink and oratory, but an Irish +Celt prefers to record his dissent in a rubric of blood. +During the first four months of antagonism, the +rebellion under Phelim O’Neil caused the massacre +of 40,000 English Protestants in Ulster: D. D. says +150,000, massacred by Papists, and they could be +reckoned up by name. But where he got his list I +do not know. His comment on this is: <i>Tantum +religio potuit suadere malorum</i>. His quotation is not +correct; I hope the same may be said of his statistics.</p> + +<p>As we all know, Laud expiated his mistake with +his head on Tower Hill, and the King himself was to +follow on five years later at Whitehall, after being +surrendered for money by the Scotch to the English. +As Nostradamus puts it [II. 53], <i>Du juste sang par +pris damné sans crime</i>.</p> + +<p>King Charles was only twenty-five when he ascended +the throne, labouring in that respect under almost the +same disadvantage as Louis XVI. Both of these kings +could derive but little wisdom from the Council-table. +Charles’s early acts consequently were rash, and those +of the French King speculative rather than practical. +Clarendon, in his History (i. 23, ed. 1731), devotes a +paragraph or two of great interest to the impeachment +of the Earl of Middlesex (Lionel Cranfield). Clarendon +admits him to have been “a man of great wit +and understanding,” and to have held every place +with great ability. He had been raised by Buckingham +from a city trader to a statesman, and in his +success seems to have quite forgotten the patron to +whom he owed it. The rash Buckingham, on his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>return from the Spanish Quixotism, influenced the +House of Commons to impeach him; altogether +overlooking the consequences of employing such a +machinery to revenge a private pique, and he must +needs drag in the young Prince Charles to help him. +The King foresaw the evil. “The wise King,” says +Clarendon, “knew well enough the ill consequence,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> +and he sent for these two,—his son and Buckingham—to +lecture them if possible into wisdom. He +pointed out that it wounded the Crown and shook +his authority, as Ministers would thus have to look to +the House, and not to the King alone, as heretofore. +At last he burst out in choler: “By God, Steenie, +you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly, and +will find that, in this fit of popularity, you are making +a rod with which you will be scourged yourself!” +He then turned to the prince, and told him: “You +will live to have your bellyfull of Parliament impeachments; +and, when I shall be dead, you will have too +much cause to remember how much you have contributed +to the weakening of the Crown by the two +precedents you are now so fond of,” <i>i.e.</i> engaging the +Parliament in the war, and the prosecution of Cranfield. +It was, indeed, to teach the many-headed +(which is equal to no head) beast to taste blood. +Here, indeed, a King turns prophet; foreseeing, from +existing facts misdirected, what future evils will arise. +This, of course, is quite different from Nostradamus. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>“Flambe exigue sortant de solitude” [I. 1], and all +that can be got out of visions of the night by secret +estude or otherwise.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Charles II.—Capitulation of Edinburgh (December +12, 1650).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 40.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le sang du Juste par⁠<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> Taurer la daurade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour se venger contre les Saturnins</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Au nouveau lac plongeront la maynade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis marcheront contre les Albanins.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The above is the reading in the texte-type, 1558. +D. D.’s version runs as below:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le sang du juste, par Tore et les Torads,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour se venger contre les Saturnins:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Au nouveau lac plongeront la Menade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis marcheront contre les Albanins.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">He translates thus—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The blood of the righteous, for Torah and Torees’ sakes, cries +for vengeance against the Saturnine rebels, who will plunge the +priestess of Bacchus, <i>la menade</i>, into the sea of their novelties, +and march afterwards against the Scotch.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>D. D.’s idea of the interpretation of this is that, for +the sake of the law-abiding people (the Torah and +Torees), the King’s blood cries for vengeance against +the Saturnian Roundheads. The intoxicated people +shall plunge into a new course of wickedness, and +will then march against the Highlanders. He considers +that this was fulfilled in 1650, when, after the +capitulation, as he calls it, with the Scotch at Breda, +Charles II. landed in Scotland on June 23, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>joined the royal army, consisting mainly of Highlanders. +About the same moment Cromwell reached +London from Ireland, and General Fairfax retired +from the army. Cromwell, at this critical moment, +jumps into his post, and, on June 29, heads the +Parliamentary army against the Scots.</p> + +<p>Without at all insisting upon the accuracy of this +interpretation, I think it furnishes sufficient of curiosity +to make it worthy of insertion. What follows, touching +the Tories, I give in his own words:</p> + +<p>“Some people stick to the Church of <i>England</i> +discipline, even to a superstition, and to their last +breath. These people had the nickname of <i>Tories</i>, +cast on them by the Cromwellites; which is as much +as to say some have the law of the Church put upon +them, from the Hebrew <i>Torah</i>, which signifies the +<i>law</i>, or the <i>law of the Church of God</i>. Perhaps did +Cromwell himself, or some of his confident advocates +and ministers, designedly invent that cursed name; +as it is likely from what happened in the year 1651, +when the Parliament ordered the law-books to be +translated out of <i>Latin</i> into <i>English</i>, wherein the +lawyers took a great deal of freedom by using the +<i>verbalia passiva</i> very frequently, and almost on all +occasions, according to their own fancy and pleasure. +As, for instance, Apellans and Apellatus, they made +an <i>Apealer</i> and an <i>Apealee</i>; the <i>Arrestans</i> and <i>Arrestatus</i>, +the <i>Challenger</i> and the <i>Challengee</i>, as likewise +the <i>Warranter</i> and the <i>Warrantee</i>; the <i>Voucher</i> and +the <i>Vouchee</i>; the <i>Leaser</i> and the <i>Leasee</i>; in which +manner they used likewise the terms of <i>Torer</i> and +<i>Toree</i>; a <i>Torer</i>, in the first place—that is, a promoter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>of the Common Prayer and Church of England +service; and an imposer of human traditions, instead +of God’s law; and, in the second place, a <i>Toree</i>; that +is, one that submits and suffereth such laws to be +imposed upon him. Which <i>nomina verbalia passiva</i>, +so much in vogue amongst the English lawyers, are +not at all English but mere French, and the <i>Participium +Passivum</i> itself; and more proper to the neat +<i>French</i> than the corrupted <i>Provincial Dialect</i>; which +last our Nostradamus very often mixes with his +style; wherein they commonly used to say, <i>Les confirmads</i>, +<i>les restads</i>, <i>les escilads</i>, instead of <i>les confirmez</i>, +<i>les restez</i>, <i>les exilez</i>, etc. And according to this +<i>Dialect</i> one must say, <span class="smcap">Les Torads</span>, instead of <span class="smcap">Les +Torez</span>, and thus does our Poet.”</p> + +<p>If what he says above has any value, the <i>Toree</i> +would be the prelates and clergy; the <i>Torads</i> the +laity, who adhere to the Church of England and its +discipline and ritual. This in the context would +have a greater appropriateness than D. D. himself +seems to be aware of, for the word it is contrasted +with in the context is <i>les Saturnins</i>. This word in +Nostradamus is constantly used for pagans, in contradistinction +to <i>Albanins</i>, Christians, robed in white +<i>albus</i>. In this quatrain also the men of Albany, if +we take them for Scotch, are fighting on the side of +Church and State against the Roundheads. <i>Saturne</i> +is often put for Antichrist by Nostradamus.</p> + +<p>The French of this quatrain, as it stands, does not +appear to be correct. The first two lines require a +verb understood to connect them: “The blood of +the king [cries] for vengeance,” etc. The third line +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>has an embarrassed construction: “They will plunge +the <i>Menade</i> into a new lake.” If <i>Saturnins</i>, again +repeated, be understood, it is difficult to see what +plunging their mad priestess into the lake can effect. +If it could be read as <i>les Menades</i>, then the frantic +Bacchantes would plunge into a fresh sea of evil or +troubles, and, in their wild intoxication, march northwards. +If we could put any interpretation upon +<i>Taurer</i> that would be applicable to the rendering, +the whole quatrain might then apply to the French +Revolution, and not the English. I think that the +<i>sang du Juste</i> furnishes thus much of certainty as to +the interpretation. It must relate to one of two +periods; the death of Charles I. or Louis XVI. +Then it would be that the Revolutionists, finding the +Royalists to be seeking revenge, declared against +the Church, and plunged madly into a new order of +things. The <i>Menade</i> would be more appropriate to +that period than to the earlier one. Bad as they were +in England, there was more of lust, infidelity, and +blood, corruption, vice, and madness, in France.</p> + +<p>Menade. The μαινάδες were Bacchantes, the priestesses +who celebrated the festivals of Bacchus. +Stephanus says that it is to be explained not only as +Bacchic, but as frantic; and this is unquestionably the +meaning here. The Greek word appears to be connected +with the Sanscrit <i>man</i>, to think; and thence +the word <i>manyu</i>, anger, is said to be derived. They +used to run dishevelled, half-naked, and, brandishing +the thyrsus; in their fury they would kill and behead +men whom they encountered by the way, and carry +off their heads, leaping with rage and joy. According +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>to Nonnus, they were virgins so careful of their +chastity that they slept with a cincture of serpents. +Juvenal attributes no great severity of virtue to them, +but their pretensions to such superlative purism +renders them all the fitter emblem of the canting +Puritans who won Cromwell’s battles for him. In Le +Pelletier’s Glossary <i>maynade</i> is given as a Romance +word for “a child of four or five years;” but this +throws no additional light on our difficulty.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Battle of Dunbar (September 3, 1650).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 56.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La bande foible la terre⁠<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> occupera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ceux du haut lieu feront horribles cris:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le gros trouppeau d’estre coin troublera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tombe pres Dinebro descouvers les escrits.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The weak band shall occupy the knoll (or, if preferred, it +can be, occupy the ground or field [after the battle]). The +Highlanders (<i>Ceux du haut lieu</i>) shall raise horrible shouts +(before they engage, and also after their defeat). The large +force shall be hampered or cornered (<i>d’estre en coin</i>), and fall +close to Edinburgh, their papers even falling into the victor’s +hands.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is a very important forecast indeed. The little +band on the knoll—for I prefer that reading—is +clearly enough Cromwell’s small force, very much in +the condition he describes it to be in, in his letter to +Haslerig at Newcastle, September 2, 1650 (Carlyle’s +“Cromwell Letters,” ii. 201):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We are upon an engagement very difficult. The enemy +hath blocked up our way at the Pass at Copperspath, through +which we cannot get without almost a miracle.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span></p> + +<p>Before sunrise Lesley sends down on Monday his +horse to cross the small Brocksburn. Whoso wishes +to attack must first cross this little brook, in its deep +<i>ditch</i>, as they then called it (the picturesque tourist +would now say <i>glen</i>), forty feet deep. Lesley’s army +comes out and places itself in “rather narrow ground,” +says Carlyle (p. 202) in 1846; <i>d’estre en coin</i>, says Nostradamus +in 1558; or 1546, if you like to have it so, +for it was probably on paper a clean three hundred +years before Carlyle commented; you may even +translate him, “takes the trouble to put itself into a +corner.” “Hampered in narrow, sloping ground,” +says Carlyle again (p. 206).</p> + +<p>The reader who wishes for it can here leave off to +peruse Carlyle’s very celebrated prose lyric, as they +call it, about this “Dunbar Battle,” with its “moon” +that “gleams out, hard and <i>blue</i>, riding among hail-clouds;” +whatever “a blue moon” may mean, or not +mean. Carlyle makes Nol there, as the level sun +shoots up over St. Abb’s Head and across the sea, +quote the sixty-eighth Psalm, in Rous’s doggerel:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Let God arise, and scattered</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Let all His enemies be;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And let all those that do Him hate</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Before His presence flee!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Observe here that it is the <i>Saturnins</i>, in a frenzy of +antichrist, who do this, according to Nostradamus. +But you can take which side you please. “The Lord +General made a halt,” says Hodgson, “and sang the +hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm” at the foot of Doon +Hill; to the tune of Bangor or other, says Carlyle, +“strong and great against the sky,” this grand strain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>arises, in which the metre, like the Lord General +himself, makes a halt too:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“O give ye praise unto the Lord,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">All <i>nations</i> that be;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Likewise ye people all, accord</div> + <div class="verse indent2">His name to magnify”—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">which, to eke out the measure, has to be read, <i>nay-shy-ons</i>, +and, for the rhyme’s sake, <i>magnifee</i>. This +energy is really not dramatic, but it <i>is</i> stagey; on the +border-land of sublimity, it curls the lip of humour to +a smile.</p> + +<p>The poor Highlanders taken prisoners were sold, +“not,” says Cotton, “to perpetual servitude, but for six, +or seven, or eight years, as we do our own” (blessed +are they who are of the household of faith); “which +is really a mild arrangement,” in the estimation of +“the Sage of Chelsea” (p. 358).</p> + +<p>But now back to our exegesis let us go. Cromwell +captured, on this occasion, the whole of the papers of +the Scotch War Office, as well as the Great Seal of +Scotland, which he sent forward as a trophy to +London. Cromwell’s letter to Speaker Lenthall +excuses his making “no more frequent address to +Parliament,” but “it hath now pleased God to bestow +a mercy upon you worthy of your knowledge;” and +so he goes on, for a space occupying eight closely +printed pages 8vo. He says he wishes to treat the +Scotch very kindly, for that “God hath a people here +fearing his name, though deceived;” and he concludes, +in the dirty language of the godly of his century, that +he has “offered much love unto such, in the bowels +of Christ.” His bowels, to the Highlanders made +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>prisoner, awarded slavery, not <i>perpetual</i>, but for eight +years only. Here are tender mercies and bowels +commiserate for contemplation! sufficient, as we +have seen, to make Nostradamus shudder at their +approach.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Son temps s’approche si près que je souspire (viii. 76, p. 177).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>All that was done here, however, could not prevent +Charles from being crowned on January 1, 1654, at +Scone, in Scotland. In the next summer he penetrated +into England, and was pursued by Cromwell +and his Ironsides.</p> + +<p>D. D. follows up the Quatrain 56, which we have +just treated, with Century VIII., Quatrain 57, which +stands next to it:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De Soldat simple parviendra en Empire. [<span class="allsmcap">II. 171.</span>]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>D. D. interpreting it of Cromwell, as was most +natural at that time. Garencières does the same, +saying, “I never knew nor heard of anybody to whom +this stanza might be better applied than to the late +usurper Cromwell;” but unless it be a type of two +handles, of the old ecclesiastical sort, I think it will +apply still better to Napoleon; and I shall so apply +it further on, giving the reasons why it is more +appropriate to him than to the Protector. Further +than this, as a general rule in regard to the succession +of the quatrains in Nostradamus, they have no more +affinity to each other than that they lie together, as +one bean touches another in a bushel measure. Still, +the next we shall treat is in sequence with the two +preceding.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester. (September +3, 1651).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 58.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Regne en querelle aux frères divisé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prendre les armes et le nom Britannique:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Titre Anglican sera tard avisé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Surprins de nuict mener à l’air Gallique.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>When a kingdom in quarrel divided between two brothers +takes up arms, and the name of Great Britain: The King +(<i>Titre Anglican</i>) too late advised, surprised at night (is forced) +to seek the air of France.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is rather harsh, but to make sense of this we +shall be forced to understand the two brothers to +be England and Scotland, or simply civil war. +When Charles at last made up his mind to visit +Scotland and fight for his crown, it was already +too late. The Parliamentary side had developed a +strength that he was never equal to cope with. +The loss of the battle of Dunbar was a disaster that +settled the question. He might as well have quitted +the field to Cromwell at once. Instead of that, on +the 3rd of September—ominous day! being the anniversary +of the Dunbar fight—he engages him again +at Worcester. Charles was completely routed and +his cause hopelessly broken. He managed, under +the cover of night, to escape from the city of +Worcester, and, flying from place to place for weeks, +as most romantically chronicled in the Boscobel +Tracts, he at last, on the 20th of October, got well +shipped for Dieppe, and finally rejoined his mother +safely at St. Germain.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Death of Cromwell (September 3, 1658). +King Charles II.’s Flight and Restoration (September +3, 1651-1660).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 4.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur la minuict conducteur de l’armée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se sauvera, subit esvanouy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sept ans après la fame non blasmée;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A son retour ne dira onc ouy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Upon the stroke of midnight, the leader of the army (King +Charles II.) shall save himself (by flight), and suddenly evanish. +For seven years longer that is, to a day, till the death of +Cromwell, his reputation will survive unchallenged; at his +Restoration no one will say anything but yes.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In other words, Nostradamus tells King Charles II. +to continue to hope on, for that though he will have +to fly by night from Worcester, his memory will be +preserved without diminution till the death of his +victor, seven years later to a day. Further, that when +the day of his Restoration does come round, he will +be received back with universal acclaim. Had it +been given as <i>neuf ans</i>, it would have been more +complete as regards Charles II. personally. But, as +it is, the date to a day coinciding with the death of +Cromwell, makes one suppose it to have been given +to point to that interesting coincidence. It would +have been no more wonderful than are many others +amongst the quatrains, had this been intended; but +whether it shall be so allowed or not rests with the +reader,—now that he knows exactly how it stands,—to +accept or to reject.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p> + +<p>The French used always to engage in a battle +willingly on St. Louis’s Day, April 11, and the +English upon St. George’s Day, April 23. But +September 3, St. Mansuetus’s Day, was ruinous to +the Royalists and prosperous to Cromwell. The +Battle of Worcester, so decisive in its consequences, +was commenced at three o’clock in the afternoon on +September 3, 1651; and at three o’clock in the afternoon +of September 3, 1658, Cromwell died on what +has been called his <i>Fortunate Day</i>: “Nature herself,” +says his last chronicler in the ninth edition of the +‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ “seeming to prophesy, in +the voice of the great tempest that swept over England, +that a great power had passed away.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> It was a +tremendous tempest no doubt, and men at the time +said the Devil had run away with Old Noll. Some +say he died broken-hearted, when the last Parliament +convened by him in January, 1658, refused to acknowledge +his House of Peers. So great a burden “drank +up his spirits,” said Maidston.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Cromwell declared Protector (December 16, 1653).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 22.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour ne vouloir consentir au divorce,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui puis après sera cogneu indigne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Roy des isles sera chassé par force:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mis à son lieu qui de Roy n’aura signe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The King will agree to the divorce of his crown, which would +afterwards have been regarded as an unworthy action, and +hence will by force be expelled from the island. One who +will have no sign of kingship will be put in his place.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Garencières was alive to the true sense of this and +its fulfilment. The Republicans murdered the king, +gave the government, if not the crown, to Cromwell, +and drove Charles II. into France.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Cromwell the Fox.</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 41.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Esleu sera Renard, ne sonnant mot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faisant le saint public, vivant pain d’orge,⁠<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tyrannizer après tant⁠<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> + à un cop,⁠<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mettant à pied des plus grands sur la gorge.⁠<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>A Fox shall be elected, uttering not a word, playing saint in +public and helping himself to other people’s property, in order +to tyrannize after a while by a <i>coup d’état</i>, placing his foot on the +throat of the greatest.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Garencières thinks this to apply to some Pope, but +D. D. refers it much more aptly to Cromwell. If my +proposed readings are allowed, the quatrain can fit no +one so well, especially as it follows Quatrain 40, +which we already have interpreted of the Commonwealth. +D. D. reminds us that the Protector was a +great Chiliast and Fifth Monarchy man, and certainly +<i>Faisant le saint public</i>; even so as to gull, in this our +late day, Thomas Carlyle, who allowed the heroism of +violence, in this case, to dazzle him into the belief that +the hypocrisy of Saintship was Godfearing. As to +Cromwell, D. D. says truly, that he was moderate in +diet. This he says to strengthen the barley bread, +though I feel very strongly that it is differently +intended. It might even mean that he got his bread +by barley, or John Barleycorn, from the Huntingdon +brewery. He was more given to ambition than to +pleasure, says D. D., as is the case with men of his +saturnine complexion. This may, by such as choose +to use it so, connect him with Quatrain 40 and <i>les +saturnins</i>. “His fortunate star, Mars,” writes D. D., +“had brought him the glory of a valiant hero and +general.”</p> + +<p>Here D. D. entertains us, somewhat at large, upon +his notion of a “<i>wig</i>, or <i>trimmer</i>, that is, a wavering +man or hypocrite, from the original words to <i>wag</i> +and to <i>trim</i> about.” We, however, know that this +etymology is not worth very much.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p> + +<p>Our next is a sequence of three quatrains, all of +which seem to refer to English affairs.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Fire of London—Dutch War—Plague (1665-1667).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century II.—Quatrains 51, 52, 53.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le sang du juste à Londres fera faute,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Brulez par foudres⁠<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> de vingt trois les six;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La dame⁠<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> + antique cherra⁠<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> de place haute,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De mesme secte⁠<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> plusieurs seront occis.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dans plusieurs nuits la terre tremblera:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur le printemps deux effors suite:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Corinthe, Ephèse aux deux mers nagera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Guerre s’esmeut par deux vaillans de luite.⁠<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La grand peste de cité maritime</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ne cessera, que mort ne soit vengée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Du juste sang par pris damné sans crime,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De la grand dame⁠<a href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> par feincte n’outragée.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The blood of the just shall be required of London, burnt by +fireballs in thrice twenty and six; the old Cathedral shall fall +from its high place, and many (edifices) of the same sort shall +be destroyed.</p> + +<p>Through many nights the earth shall tremble; in the spring +two shocks follow each other; Corinth and Ephesus shall swim +in the two seas, war arising between two combatants strong in +battle.</p> + +<p>The great Plague of the maritime city shall not diminish till +death is sated for the just blood, basely sold (for £2,000,000), +and condemned for no fault. The great Cathedral outraged by +feigning (saints).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The first quatrain deals most remarkably with the +great fire of London; noting the precise year, the +burning of St. Paul’s, and other injury to the Protestant +interest.</p> + +<p>The second shows that a bloody sea-war shall rage, +the earth quaking under the cannonade from the +ships, shaking the cliffs. There was such a war +in 1665, 1666, and 1667, between England and +the seven united provinces of the Netherlands. +Cruising within the narrow seas, he likens to the +Ægean waters between Corinth for England, and +Ephesus for Antwerp. He describes them as they +really occurred, commencing afresh with every ensuing +spring,—<i>sur le printemps</i>. D. D. remarks that they +were so obstinately contested, all these fights, that +they would last for days on a stretch, or, as Nostradamus +says, <i>nights</i>: <i>plusieurs nuits la terre tremblera</i>, +according to the English custom of reckoning by a +<i>fortnight</i>, and not fourteen days. Now the French +reckon the fortnight as a <i>quinzaine</i>, that is, up to the +fifteenth day, which of course contains only fourteen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>nights; and you might say <i>la terre tremblera</i>, for the +cannon reverberating between the cliffs would move +them perceptibly. D. D. thinks that <i>la grande dame</i> +in the last quatrain is the great city of London, the +metropolis, or mother-city; an Eastern way of +speaking. In his learned way, he adds: “The great +fire has only metamorphosed the city—<i>ex Ligneâ in +Lateritiam</i>,” converting it from wood to brick.</p> + +<p>The distance at which sounds may be heard seems +variable. Captain Parry, in his “Third Voyage,” +p. 58, relates, it is said, that at Port Bowen a conversation +could be carried on distinctly at 6696 feet, which +is over a mile. Dr. Clark, in his Travels (iii. 331), +whilst sailing from the Gulf of Glaucus to Alexandria, +heard the firing of the English upon the fortress of +Rachmanie, upon the Nile. All on board heard it, at +a distance of 130 miles. The earthquake at Sumbawn, +in 1815, was heard 970 miles away (Elliot’s +“Horæ Apoc.,” iv. 218). In Dereham’s “Physico-Theology” +(i. p. 185, ed. 1786), a Dr. Hearn is quoted +as certifying that guns fired at Stockholm in 1685 +were heard at a distance of 180 English miles; and in +the above Dutch war, 1672, the guns were heard +above two hundred miles (<i>vide Philosophical Transactions</i>, +No. 113.) I remember reading, though I have +not noted where, that the guns employed at Waterloo +were heard, at Hythe in Kent, on the Sunday morning, +so that it was known Wellington and Napoleon had +engaged in battle somewhere; the fact was confirmed +by intelligence shortly after. The buzz of London +traffic in 1820 could be heard by putting the ear to +the ground on the top of Putney Hill, as Sir Richard +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>Phillips relates in his “Morning’s Walk to Kew” +(p. 152). But the whole south of Thames was then +tricked out rurally in Nature’s emerald vest, and, +herself at ease, the earth could transmit vibrations +from the troubled town; but now she shudders with a +like palsy of her own, and Putney is as rural as +Clerkenwell Green. Much of the conveyance of +sound depends upon the wind, no doubt. J. P. +Malcolm (“Londinium Redivivum,” iii. p. 117) has +some interesting remarks upon St. Paul’s bell. He +lived in Somer’s Town, and with a strong north-east +wind he could hear every hour tolled as clear as if +only a quarter of a mile distant, but with the wind +east, south-west, or north, not a sound could be heard. +Now Somer’s Town is north-north-west from St. +Paul’s, which, in a straight line, is two miles and a half +away; so that a north-east wind should convey the +vibrations to Lambeth. He found that this wind +carried away all the smoke, and so left the air free +for the sound to travel through it. A south wind +overwhelmed him with noise. He could distinctly +hear the guard at St. James’s Park beat the tattoo at +eight, nine, ten, and eleven, to each distinct roll of +the drum. One would judge from this that the wind +was blowing nearly due east at Waterloo on that +famous Sunday, the 18th of June. It was an east wind +at Baalzephon that ruined Pharaoh. I have dwelt +thus episodically upon sound to show, if possible, that +this <i>tremblement de terre</i> was an effect of sound arising +on the waters but vibrating upon land, and not the +convulsion of an earthquake.</p> + +<p>Quatrain 80 of Century III. we have already treated +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>of by the help of Le Pelletier, and interpreted it of +Charles I., and we there made the bastard to stand +for Cromwell. D. D. takes the alternative reading of +<i>l’indigne</i>, and understands James II. The bastard +then is naturally the Duke of Monmouth, natural son +of Charles II.; but he was never <i>demy receu</i>; and had +it been intended to portray him, he would not have +been mentioned after, but before, the abdication. +Hence we to prefer to leave it as we placed it at first.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">William III. and the Revolution (1688).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 89.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Trente de Londres secret conjureront,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Contre leur Roy, sur le pont l’entreprise:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Leuy, satalites là mort de gousteront,⁠<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un Roy esleut⁠<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> blonde, natif de Frize.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Thirty of London shall conspire secretly against their King; +upon the bridge the plot shall be devised. These Satellites shall +taste of death. A fair-haired King shall be elected, native of +Friesland.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>D. D. reads for <i>trente</i>, <i>trained</i>. Had the true reading +been <i>trained</i> it would have been very wonderful, +because the trained bands of London had not been +thought of in Nostradamus’s time. Garencières +interprets the quatrain to refer to Charles I., and +says it is well known that the plotters used to +assemble at the <i>Bear at the Bridge foot</i>. This was a +celebrated inn on the south side of London Bridge. +It was pulled down 1761, when the houses were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>removed from London Bridge (<i>Public Advertiser</i>, +December 26, 1761), “Hist. Sign.,” p. 154.</p> + +<p>The <i>Quarterly Review</i> (xxvi. 189), in some very +disparaging remarks on Nostradamus, says of this +particular quatrain that it predicts “the Revolution of +1688 with tolerable clearness,” resting upon the last +line, which it prints in <i>italics</i>. As, however, William +III. was born at the Hague, he was not born in what +is called Friesland, but South Holland. I do not +know whether it formed a part of Friesland in Nostradamus’s +time. D. D. is puzzled with the word +<i>blonde</i>, and suggests that perhaps William had fair +hair in his youth, “or it might be an allusion to +his name, Guillaume, because (<i>sic?</i>) of <i>cil</i>, signifying +<i>eyebrows</i>.” This vermicular wriggle must be permitted +to our highly excellent cleric, who is manifestly +unable to get the quatrain to say what he +wants it to say. We have had numerous quatrains +that, when properly understood, have appeared to be +clear enough, and which are disparaged as “perplexed +verses” by the <i>Quarterly</i>. But this which they find +expressed with “tolerable clearness,” I do not find +clear at all. I find no plot of <i>thirty</i>, no meeting of +conspirators at the Bear at the Bridge foot, or at any +other bridge, nor satellites who are executed, nor of a +<i>blond</i> king, nor of a native of Friesland.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Marlborough and the Cardinal de Bouillon.</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 53.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand Prélat Celtique à Roy suspect,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De nuict par cours sertira hors de regne:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par Duc fertile à son grand Roy Bretaine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bisance à Cypres et Tunes insuspect.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great Celtic Prelate suspected by the King,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall post with haste by night out of the realm,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Through Bisance, Ypres, and Bethune, undiscovered,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By aid of the duke fertile (in conquest) to the great King of Britain.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This refers to the Cardinal de Bouillon, Great +Almoner of France, who was misrepresented to the +French King to such an extent that he could not +appear at Court. After some years he threw up his +charge and determined to quit France. He was related +to Prince Eugène, who was with Marlborough, near +Arras. The Cardinal came over to them under cover +of night, precisely as described by Nostradamus, +under the protection of a strong convoy, sent by +Marlborough to protect him from the scouts of +Ypres and the other places named. When he reached +Antwerp, he simply sent in his ribbon of the Order to +the French Court, accompanied with his resignation. +He is called “Prelat Celtique” as the Duchy of +Bouillon is in Gallia Celtica. D. D. holds that <i>grand +Roy</i> is an abbreviation of <i>Royaume</i>. But the sense is +better if taken literally as it stands.</p> + +<p>I transcribe for the curious reader from D. D. the +following passage; it is too singular to be neglected:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“But the allusion on the Duke of Marlborough is still prettier. +Had his [Nostradamus’s] genius dictated unto him <i>Marnebourg</i>, +he might have understood and written down without hesitation, +for the English <i>Marl</i> and the French <i>Marne</i> are one and the +same. The Dæmons speak all sorts of languages, but Nostradamus +did not understand the English, whence it came that at +the hearing of the name Marlborough, he startled, and thought, +‘<i>Qu’est-ce que Marl?</i>’ Thereupon it was inspired to him, +‘<i>C’est une terre fertile et graisse</i>,’ whereby he is ascribing to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>him both <i>Nomen</i> and <i>Omen</i> at once: the Duke, by whose +indefatigable zeal and incomparable valour the Kingdom of +Great Britain should be fertile in conquests.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<h4><i>Century II.—Quatrain 68.</i></h4> + +<p>This has already been treated by Le Pelletier (i. 125) +under Louis XIV., as fulfilled in the endeavour to +re-establish James II. in Ireland. But D. D. refers it +to March 23, 1708, when the Pretender cast anchor +before Edinburgh, and nobody came out to him. He +sailed away, narrowly escaping the English fleet. On +this account an Act of Parliament was passed, declaring +him a rebel, and setting a reward upon his head. +D. D. says that from this time forth Nostradamus +always designates him by the title of Rebel. As this +quatrain, which we are upon, does not refer to the +Pretender, the above remark would only show that +Nostradamus always speaks of the Pretender as a +rebel. Bouys interprets this, as we have said before, +of Napoleon’s victories at sea; as also that Bouys was +blindly prophesying after the battle of Trafalgar, +and in ignorance that such a decisive engagement had +been fought. Garencières interprets it as fulfilled in +Charles II.’s times: so that with four interpreters we +have four interpretations. Sceptics can employ this +fact how they like; I am pleased to furnish them with +the opportunity. The total of the interpretations +seems to me so astounding that we can well afford +to submit to deductions such as this. Besides which, +I am not endeavouring to establish any point; I wish +the facts to establish themselves. What they finally +show to be tenable, let us adopt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">George I.’s Succession (October 20, 1714).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 64.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">On ne tiendra pache aucune arresté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tous recevans iront per tromperie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De paix et trefue, et terre et mer protesté.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par Barcelone classe prins d’industrie.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>They will keep no treaty fixedly (arrested). All who have +gained by cheating will go (free). Peace and truce are proclaimed +by land and sea. Barcelona captured by the perseverance +of the fleet.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This quatrain is exceedingly obscure, and very +difficult even to translate adequately. D. D., who is +writing only a year after the actual events,—the +publishing date of his book being 1715,—makes +sense of it thus: George I. is proclaimed King, +October 20, 1714, and Nostradamus notifies that +there shall be a general liberation of all prisoners for +debt. But it is hard to extract that sense out of the +first two lines, especially as not a word occurs about +England, a king, or a throne. The other two lines +approach the period well enough. The Peace of +Utrecht was concluded in 1713, and the peace between +Germany and France at Radstadt followed in March, +1714. The war between France and Spain also was +concluded before King George ascended the throne; +even Barcelona was taken, before he was crowned +(October 20), by the French fleet for the King of +Spain, September 12, 1714. At the intercession of +Great Britain, honourable terms were conceded to the +Catalonians in Barcelona, so that the mention of that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>city by Nostradamus comes with much felicity and +appropriateness, if we decide that he refers to George +I. at all here. D. D.’s book must have been written +before October 20, 1714, as he says it is hoped that +on the <i>Coronation Day</i> the King will empty most of +the prisons.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">George I. (1714.)</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century II.—Quatrain 87.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Après viendra des extrèmes contrées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prince Germain, dessus le throsne doré;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La servitude et eaux rencontrées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La dame serve, son temps plus n’adoré.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Afterwards shall come, from a distant land, a German prince +upon the gilded throne. The slavery and waters shall meet. +The lady shall serve, her time no more adored.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>D. D. considers this to relate to King George, and +he remarks that the King exercised a stronger control +than it was possible for Queen Anne to do. The +German prince ascending the throne of gold certainly +seems to point to George I. But Brunswick is not a +very far country. It might be said that modern constitutional +government was established first by the +Georges, so serfdom and <i>les eaux</i>, or the people and +their so-called rights, met together, but then you +would have to interpret figuratively the last line: +authority (<i>la dame</i>) serves, or is to become subordinate +to, the phantom of Freedom, the time of reverence +and good feeling having gone by. This, I say, +might be so interpreted, but it does not carry much +more conviction with it than does the meaning found +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>by Garencières. He will have it to be a prophecy +relating to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, called +German because of German ancestry. His gilded +throne was the gilded ship he sailed in. He made +slavery and waters meet, because on landing he began +to conquer Germania,—that lady who was no more +worshipped afterwards as she had been before.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">George I. and Peace (1714-1727).</span></h3> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 42.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le regne humain d’Anglique geniture,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fera son regne paix union tenir:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Captive guerre demy de sa closture,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Longtemps la paix leur fera maintenir.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The human throne of English geniture will make its rule to +maintain peace and union. War will be captive, or at least +confined to half its usual area. (George will contend only with +Spain. Peace abroad and an endeavour to maintain union at +home, against the Pretender’s efforts.) Thus peace will be +secured to the country for a long stretch of years.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We have already given our interpretation to D. D.’s +next quatrain (III. 57, <a href="#Page_156">p. 166</a>). He discovers from it +that George shall never want for an heir to the throne +up to the Day of Judgment. Myself I see nothing of +the kind to be warranted out of Nostradamus. He +seems here to be contrasting the numerous changes in +Britain with the happy stability of France. I should +have made no reference to this, but for the opportunity +it affords of introducing some of D. D.’s curious +remarks upon the astrological portion of the verses.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p> + +<p>At the Creation the Gemini stood in the house or +sign Aries, near the equinoctial colure, which has but +its own one pole; but they are now in the fourth +house called Cancer, near the solstial colure, which +has a double pole, viz. <i>Mundi et eclipticæ</i>. <i>Basharion</i> +is an Arabic word, and denotes <i>Humanus</i>. <i>Bashar</i>, a +substantive <i>Caro, hominis cutis, homo</i>. In the three +signs, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, which have successively +formed the Caput Zodiaci, none but Gemini is of +human figure; that sign must be intended by the +word <i>Basharion</i> (especially as the word is not <i>Basharion</i> +at all, but <i>Bastarnan</i>); so that, till the age of the +world is six or seven thousand years old, <i>i.e.</i>, till +the Day of Judgment, this will last; and when the +great day comes there will be found a direct descendant +of that great king sitting on the English +throne.</p> + +<p>He has taken no notice of the <i>Pempotam</i> and its +duration of three hundred years, as a sort of measure +of the seven changes, and Nostradamus nowhere says +that the seventh change shall endure to the end of +time. Like almost all interpreters, D. D. reads his +own imagination into the prophecy.</p> + +<p>The reader who cares about such explanations as +these will find a great deal more of the same sort in +Garencières’ annotations upon this quatrain. He +remarks that the sign of Aries doth govern France, +and that by doubling his pole is meant his returning +a second time to the same place, so that the stars do +promise France a long continuance in exaltation. +He adds that if he were a great astrologer himself he +should work out exactly the whole calculation, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>he thinks Aries should come to that pole in the year +1845. But Garencières seems to have had no inkling +whatever of the French Revolution of 1789, as forecast +by Nostradamus; nor yet of the second Revolution +of 1848, though he translated all the quatrains +into English.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FRENCH_REVOLUTION">FRENCH REVOLUTION.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Vulgar Advent.</span> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 160.</span>]</h3> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 74.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La dechassée⁠<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> au regne tournera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ses ennemies trouvés des conjurés:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus que jamais son temps triomphera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trois et septante à mort trop asseurés.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She who was proscribed will return to the kingdom,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her enemies will be treated as conspirators;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">More than ever her time (or empire) will triumph;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seventy-three years its deathly domination is assured.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Revolution (<i>la dechassée</i>), repressed in 1816, +shall again obtain the government. Its enemies +will be treated as conspirators, and it will be stronger +than ever. Seventy-three years are assured to its +death-like rule. I give this as M. le Pelletier does, +but I see no reason whatever to think that it is correct. +Garencières makes it apply to Charles II. of England, +and the seventy-three put to death are those who +abetted the murder of his father. This is very vague. +Garencières reads <i>Le dechassé</i>. Here we may remark +that Napoleon himself [p. 289] dates his nobility from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>the battle of Montenotte, 1797. Seventy-three years +added to this yields us the remarkable date of the fall +of his dynasty at Sedan, 1870.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 3. (September 22, 1792.)</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 162.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand la lictiere du tourbillion versée,⁠<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et seront faces de leurs manteaux⁠<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> couvers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La republique par gens nouveaux vexée,⁠<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors blancs et rouges jugeront à l’envers.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When the litter is turned topsy-turvey by the typhoon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Men will mask their faces with the cloak of hypocrisy.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The republic will be troubled by new-risen men;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The white and red will judge by contraries.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This means that the royalists (<i>les blancs</i>) and the +republicans (<i>les rouges</i>) will judge of everything from +utterly opposed points of view. What was top will +become bottom, when the blast blows the litter over; +and, new men rising to power, the rest will cover their +faces with hypocrisy, as men do with their cloaks in +a storm. Compare the phrase <i>à l’envers</i> with <a href="#Page_175">p. 175</a>.</p> + +<h4><i>Century II.—Quatrain 30.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 163.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un qui les dieux d’Annibal infernaux</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fera renaistre, effrayeur des humains.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oncq’⁠<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> + plus d’horreur ne⁠<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> plus pire journaux</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’avint viendra par Babel aux Romains.⁠<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">There will be one who will revive the infernal gods</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of Hannibal, a terror to mankind.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Never arrived by Babel more horror</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor worse day’s work than will fall upon Roman Catholics.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The meaning is, Napoleon shall arise, who will +reawaken the solemn curse on Rome uttered by +Hannibal, when he called the infernal gods to witness +his hatred to her, to the terror of all mortals. Not +Babel at the dispersion brought on the world more +horror, nor days of more evil-ploughing for the +present or seed-sowing for the future than shall fall +upon the Roman world by him. This is much better +than to limit it to an ecclesiastical area merely. We +shall see that Charles V. is a sort of prototype of +Napoleon, and Garencières adduces Charles V. as +fulfilling this prophecy. Hannibal is also a prototype +of Napoleon in attacking Italy by crossing the Alps.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 14. (1789-1793.)</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 164.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De gent esclave chansons, chants et requestes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Captifs par⁠<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> Princes et Seigneur aux prisons,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A l’advenir par idiots sans testes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seront receus par⁠<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> divines oraisons.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Songs, chants, and refrains of the slavish mob,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whilst the Princes and King are captive in prison,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall be received in the future as oracles divine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By headless idiots deprived of judgment.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Songs—such as the Marseillaise while the King and +Princes are imprisoned in the Temple,—songs of the +mob (<i>gent esclave</i>) are received by brainless fools for +divine utterances, even prayers (<i>divines oraisons</i>). +<i>Vox populi, vox Dei</i>, is always the fools’ blasphemous +formula, when swine chose Barabbas for Pontifex or +Generalissimo. A cruelly entreated people; whose +burdens are aggravated by wickedness in high places +needlessly, above and beyond the grief, which every +man is born to by the act of birth into a world of +sickness, sorrow, and injustice; sighs heavily at this +unduly heaped-up burden, and that sigh, that <i>vox +populi</i>, runs upward like a lightning conductor to elicit +fire from the clouds, coming back charged with +electricity and thunder,—a <i>vox Dei</i> of terrible divinity. +But when scum rises to the direction, as with the +Revolutionists, and is followed by some brutalized +<i>sabreur</i> aggrandizing himself as king of chaos and +disorder, with shouts of subservient applause from the +smutty mob, saying, “Herod, thou art a god,” the +<i>vox populi</i> that split the welkin once, is <i>now</i> the <i>vox +infernorum demonum</i>, the whole upspring and outcome +of which is bestiality and lawlessness enthroned in +defiance of the decalogue and heaven. Thenceforth +the appeal of all good men and sane is, “Ye who +worship God, good and alone from eternity, down +with them.” The men must work and serve. This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>fiat is in the air, is in the sea, is on the earth. It is +the <i>vox naturæ</i>, in comparison with which the people’s +voice, <i>vox populi</i>, is nothing, beyond a momentary +troubling of the silences.</p> + +<p>The following quatrain I give for what it may be +thought worth. M. le Pelletier thinks it to relate to +the creation of assignats, December 19, 1789. It +would be a pity to lose sight of his identification, if +even some should presume it to be incorrect.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 53. (December 19, 1789.)</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 165.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Las! qu’on verra grand peuple tourmenté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et la loi saincte en totale ruine;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par autres loix toute la Chrestienté;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand d’or d’argent trouvé nouvelle mine.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Alas! how great a people shall tormented be,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And holy law in utter ruin laid:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By newer laws all Christendom is vexed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With a new mine of gold and silver found.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We shall see, alas! the French people (<i>grand peuple</i>) +agitated, the Catholic religion (<i>la loy saincte</i>) totally +ruined, all Christendom put under new laws, when +the National Assembly decrees that four hundred +million assignats shall be issued (<i>nouvelle mine d’or</i>, +etc.), secured on the property of the clergy, in the +interests of the Revolution.</p> + +<p>Older commentators applied this to the paper-money +schemes of Law 1716; and Garencières finds +the fulfilment in the discovery of the Spanish-American +gold and silver mines.</p> + +<p>A properly regulated paper-money issue, based on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>the taxation of a State, having absolutely no intrinsic +value whatever in itself, could undoubtedly be converted +into a circulating medium that would work +more smoothly than any metallic one can, because +the market value of the ore, employed as now in +coinage, is perpetually introducing a fluctuation of +values that conflicts with the nominal standard of +the coin, so that the standard is never uniform. The +currency required would never amount to a tenth +part of the taxation leviable. Paper could therefore +be destroyed at the Bank of England, or issued +exactly according to the needs of trade and commerce. +Fluctuation in the market value of metals +would no longer affect the circulating medium in the +least. Thus might one cause of recurrent panics be +removed for ever. But can bank directors or ministers +be trusted with such a responsibility? This hinges on +honesty, and there is none to spare.</p> + +<h4><i>Century VII.—Quatrain 14. (1789-1793.)</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 166.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Faux exposer viendra topographie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seront les cruches⁠<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> des monumens ouvertes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pulluler secte, sancte philosophie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour blanches noires, et pour antiques vertes.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Topography will soon be falsified,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The urns and sepulchres stand violate,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sects swarm, and babbling sentiment</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Black put for white, and green fruit for the ripe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The curse be on them for changing old landmarks. +The provinces turned into departments (by decree of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>the Assembly, December 22, 1789). The sepulture +of Kings violated at St. Denis. Unholy sects will +swarm, and a sentimental philosophy, of Rousseau +and other maddened sophists, usurping the office of +religion, black will stand for white, and green, crude +fruit be substituted for the ripe.</p> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 24.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ouy soubs Terre Sainte Dame⁠<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> voix feinte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Humaine flamme pour Divine voit luire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fera des sœurs de leur sang terre tainte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et les saints temples par les impures destruire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hear from the ground a voice of Halidom,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A human flame pretending light divine.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The blood of sisters stains the earth to red,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And holy temples the impure destroy.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This, I think, refers to the sentimental advocacy of +the Rights of man, as substitutionary of religion and +faith in the literary movement of the eighteenth +century. It would comprise Rousseau’s gospel of +dirt and sentimentality, Voltaire’s substitution of wit +for wisdom, and the science of the encyclopædists +floating disoriented upon the waters of uncertainty, in +lieu of the deep thought of the solitary thinkers that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>preceded them. These last were men who, heretofore +walking humbly and without association in +conspiracy, interrogated the universe, divinely sown +with riddles in great abundance by a hand invisible, +until they fell asleep into that hand, and awoke to +the illuminated answers.</p> + +<p>The blood of sisters was the wholesale slaughter +of women that distinguished the Revolution, whilst +church altars were desecrated by naked women, set +there to personate the goddess of impure reason, +feigning <i>la sante dame</i>.</p> + +<p>The quatrain 25 that follows this in the text of +Nostradamus I now give; but this verse 24, so far as I +have seen, has never been commented upon nor has the +connection been pointed out. Yet this stanza furnishes +the reasons why the stars became overclouded to a +people that were benighted, <i>par ces raisons</i>, as the reader +will perceive by the second line that succeeds this.</p> + +<h4><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 25.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 167.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Corps sublimes⁠<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> sans fin à l’œil visibles,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Obnubiler⁠<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> viendront par ces raisons.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Corps front comprins,⁠<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> + sens⁠<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> chief⁠<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> + et invisibles.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Diminuant les sacrées oraisons.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The infinite stars are links that light to doubt,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And drop the pall of night upon the soul:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The eye and front of man,—and soul,—grown cerebral,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God and His host withdraw; and with them prayer!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier considers that Nostradamus attributes +these effects to the reasonings hostile to the faith that +improved optical instruments will introduce, as they +suggest a plurality of worlds. I quite admit that in +many minds this has been the tendency. Almost +any discovery, giving a new hint as to infinitude, +launches a number of inferior but vigorous brains into +new lines of reasoning. We then get great multiplication +of secondary volumes, which supply minced +Aristotle or chaff to represent any amount of sausage-meat +required by the reading public. Of course the +further you can see by the telescope the further you +put heaven away from the earth-dweller, and he loves +it the less; for it is the near things we love, and not +the remote. The heart is not universal, and cannot +be stretched to it. I look upon the telescope, to an +ordinary man, as a drain-pipe, through which he can +run off and lose the moisture of his soul and live the +worse for it afterwards; to the multitude of men, +useless; to the scientific man, a means of inflation and +puffing up; and to the really serious and isolated +thinker, as the threshold of infinitude that may, though +it has hardly yet done so, answer a few out of the ten +million astral riddles sown in space. The last-named +individual alone may benefit a little by it. But I +question if anything at all of this was present to +Nostradamus.</p> + +<p>He seems to me, in these two closely interlinked +quatrains, to enlarge much upon the theme of St. Paul +(Rom. i. 28) that, as at the French Revolution, “they +did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God +gave them over to a reprobate mind;” or one void of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>judgment, “to do things which are not convenient.” +So that the earth gave out deceptive voices to them, +and false lights for Divine light, to slay women and +desecrate the temples; and then that the very stars +visible to the eye, which should teach faith to all, will +for these reasons veil themselves and leave nothing to +mankind but the darkness of night. Pure materialism +follows, God and His host withdraw, and prayer is no +more heard upon the earth.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 60.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 168.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un empereur naistra près d’Italie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui à l’Empire sera vendu bien cher:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Diront avec quels gens il se ralie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’on trouvera moins prince que boucher.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">An emperor shall be born near Italy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bought by the Empire at a bankrupt rate:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You’d say the herd, he gathers to himself.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Denote him butcher rather than a prince.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<blockquote> + +<p>An emperor shall be born in Corsica—Napoléon Bonaparte. +His advent to the throne of France will prove prodigiously costly +to her. It is enough to make one say, from the tribe he surrounds +himself with, that he is more like a butcher far, with the steel +dangling at his side, and slaughterman apprentices, than a +prince.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is natural that Bouys, who has hunted Nostradamus +for quatrains that will serve for adulation of +Napoleon, has passed this over, <i>sub silentio</i>, entirely. +Garencières, speaking of this, says it is a prophecy +for the future, for that until now (1672) no such +emperor has been heard of, born near Italy, that cost +so much and proved a butcher.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span></p> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 23.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 169.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">D’esprit de regne munismes⁠<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> descriés,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et seront peuples esmeus contre leur Roy:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Paix, sainct nouveau, sainctes loix empirées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rapis⁠<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> + onc⁠<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> + fut en si trèsdur arroy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The rampart of tradition battered down,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The people rise against their King anoint’:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Peace, a new Saint, and sacred laws made worse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Paris was never in such disarray.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The traditions of the French monarchy are thrown +to the ground and the people rise against the King, +Louis XVI. Peace will succeed the anarchy when +Napoleon comes to power. Pius VII., to flatter the +Emperor, will interpolate the ritual on the 15th of +August with a new saint, the fête of St. Napoleon,⁠<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> +who was martyred under Diocletian. The Emperor’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>interference will hurt the Church greatly, and foreign +armies (1814-1815) will reduce Paris to extremities +she has never before undergone.</p> + +<p>As to the fête of St. Napoleon, the story runs that +when it was first instituted its impropriety, if not +blasphemy, was much discussed in Catholic circles. +An Irish priest from Rome was one day communicating +the strange fact at a dinner-table in +Dublin, when an Irish gentleman exclaimed with +vehemence, “What d—d impudence!” “No, no!” +said the priest, “what you mean to call it is the Blessed +Assumption,” for that day falls on the 15th of August.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 31.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 170.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tant⁠<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> d’ans en Gaule les guerres dureront,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Outre⁠<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> + la course du Castulon⁠<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> monarque:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Victoire incerte⁠<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> trois grands couronneront,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aigle, Coq-lune, Lyon-soleil en marque.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">War draws her length in Gaul for many a day,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Beyond the course of Castula the Queen;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Uncertain victory will crown three thrones,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Eagle, Cock-moon, Lion-sun, on coin.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Civil war and foreign will last in France long after +the ephemeral Republic has perished. Victory, always +uncertain, will crown three houses in succession. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>will coin money with the Imperial eagle of Napoleon; +the revolutionary Gallic cock appearing with the +house of Orleans, instituted by revolution, and adding +the crescent of Mahomet for successes in Algeria; +whilst the Lion represents Louis XVIII. and Charles X. +of the Capetian Monarchy, with the sun representing +Catholicism. Le Pelletier says the <i>Sun</i> symbolises +Christianity, and the moon Mahomet or Antichrist. +Myself I think it would be best to consider the <i>sun</i> +as the symbol of Christ; the <i>moon</i> as the symbol of +atheistic democracy or Antichrist.</p> + +<p>This Garencières thought to be interpretable in his +time. He reads the second line,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Outre la course du Castulon monarque,”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">as, after the death of the King of Spain a Castilian +monarch. The eagle as Charles V. [a further analogy +with Napoleon], Henry II., contemporary with Nostradamus, +and Soliman, which three crowns met +under Leo with uncertain odds in war.</p> + +<p>The quatrain that follows this is:</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 32.</i></h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand Empire sera tost translaté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En lieu petit qui bientost viendra croistre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lieu bien infime d’exigue comté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Où au milieu viendra poser son sceptre.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The great Empire will soon be translated into a little place +that quickly will expand. An unworthy spot, a mere county, +from the midst of which he will come to lay aside his sceptre.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Garencières interprets this of Charles V., who, three +years before his death, resigned Spain and the Low +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>Countries to Philip II., his son, and the empire to +his brother Ferdinand. He then shut himself up in +the Escurial, in Castile, a monastery; which the son +afterwards enlarged into a grand palace, accounted +by Spaniards as the eighth wonder of the world. +But I am not aware that any one has yet pointed out +that it fits Napoleon as patly just as it can Charles. +His empire was cramped into Elba—Æthalia, the +soot island (<i>lieu bien infime</i>); a mere countship was +his monarchy there. It soon grew again into an +empire, but he only came out of its midst to resign +his sceptre a second time and for ever.</p> + +<p>After these prelusory flourishes relating to the +Vulgar Advent and French Revolution, we are now +to enter upon a more special theme; the murder of +the King, and the ragged beggars’ festival and brawl, +called the First Republic of the Sans Culottes.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOUIS_XVI">LOUIS XVI.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>We enter now upon the lamentable period comprised +in the reign of Louis XVI.—a period +whose only parallel in history is the false and illegal +trial of Charles I. of England; the perfectibility of +man being evinced only by the increased savagery +and augmented moral turpitude exhibited at the +later period. The first quatrain that has been +adduced as pertaining to this period in the Centuries +of Nostradamus is that of:</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 57.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 173.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par⁠<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> + grand discord la terre⁠<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> tremblera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Accord rompu dressant la teste au ciel,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bouche sanglante dans le sang nagera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Au sol la face ointe de laict et miel.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">By reason of great discord the earth shall quake.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Revolt destroys the old order and lifts its head to heaven.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The [King’s] mouth will swim in its own blood,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And his front, anointed with milk and honey, roll upon the sod.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + +<p>Tremblement de terre is earthquake, and from the +time of Virgil, and much earlier than that, has been +always taken to forebode convulsions of the State; +disturbance of all things rooted and firm, and typifying +upheavals of the populace. That it is the King’s +mouth shall swim in blood is shown unmistakably by +the fourth line that follows, where the face is said to +be anointed with the milk and honey of the holy +ampulla. The Kings of France were crowned at +Reims with the oil that was kept there in <i>la sainte +ampoule</i> for this purpose. The milk and honey is +merely a figurative expression; oil and wine, milk +and honey, equally represent the fatness of the land.</p> + +<p>Upon this quatrain, about the meaning of which +he manifestly could know nothing, Garencières naïvely +says: “The words and sense are plain, and I cannot +believe there is any great mystery hidden under these +words.” Words put a slight upon men’s minds to +think they understand what they see written; from +this it is clear that you may understand the words, +and yet comprehend nothing from understanding +them. Orators please take note.</p> + +<h3><i>Century III.—Quatrain 59.</i> [Bouys, 55.]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Barbare empire par le tiers usurpé.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La plus grand part de son sang mettra à mort.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par mort sénile par lui le quart frappé;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De peur que sang par le sang ne soit mort.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The rude empire is usurped by the third estate (tiers état).</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It will put to death the greatest part of his [the Royal] family.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A quarter [of the kingdom] is struck with senile death;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For fear of retribution of death, from children of those murdered.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span></p> + +<p>This must relate to 1789, as in no country but in +France had the third estate usurped exclusive power +to itself. Since that period the House of Commons +in England has pursued the same lines, in a more +covert, gradual, and, as some would say, lawful +manner. In the Lyons edition, 1558, the second line +reads <i>mettra à mort</i>, which makes better sense, though +it spoils the rhythm, unless the <i>a</i> in <i>mettra</i> may +suffer elision in old French prosody—a question I +lack knowledge to determine. The quarter being +destroyed, as old age withers a man, is to be understood +analogically of the lives of citizens removed by +terror, or emigration, or spoilation of property, or +revolutionary taxation, or by imprisonment.</p> + +<p>Bouys tells us that <i>sang</i> is to be understood in Nostradamus +of children, family, relatives, so that <i>que sang +par le sang</i> here would mean, lest the families of the +injured should rise against the assassins of their flesh +and blood. Such a reaction actually took place in +the South, in spite of all the truculent precautions +taken. The quatrains exhibit no kind of method or +chronological order in their arrangement. So that, +out of the thousand and more that exist of them, the +commentator must hunt at large until he comes upon +something salient that enables him to attach the +passage to some event, when often he will be led to +the most extraordinary results. The usurpation by +the <i>tiers état</i> here, with all but the very phrase supplied, +and with the results that would follow from +the usurpation so unmistakably set forth, fixes the +pertinency of the quatrain almost as perfectly as if it +had been headed <i>French Revolution</i>. Yet a reader +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>of less observance and care than is requisite to stay +the attention which leads to discovery, might readily +pass it over as jargon and mere nonsense. But, once +you have deciphered the quaint phrases and their +connection, you cannot doubt the meaning, nor the +author’s vivid gift of expression in conveying ideas, +with a terseness more than Tacitean, if less artistic. +You discover that Nostradamus can hint in a phrase +of three words what would require a long paragraph +to make it explicit in an ordinary way. This is truly +the language of prophecy. It becomes legible in the +light of the event it prefigures, as characters written +in milk upon paper become visible at the fire, or when +placed in the hot light of the sun.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 36.</i> [<i>Bouys, 56.</i>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tard le monarque se viendra repentir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De n’avoir mis à mort son adversaire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais viendra bien à plus haut consentir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(à ce) Que tout son sang par mort fera défaire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The monarch shall too late repent</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That he hath not put to death his adversary;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But he will have to permit later on,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That all his family shall suffer for it by death.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Taking this to be the meaning, it is clear that the +adversary is the Duke of Orleans,—that centre of all +plotting and intrigue against Louis,—who had so forgotten +himself as, at a public bed of justice, in 1788, to +shake his fist in the King’s face with a most threatening +expression of countenance. For this he was only +sent into exile when he ought to have suffered death. +In the last line <i>sang</i> again stands for family and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>relatives. This could scarcely be plainer if the names +were given; but, had Nostradamus here deviated from +the secret idiom of prophetic language, he would have +prevented the accomplishment of what he was asserting. +Things like this may be happened on by chance, +if you choose to say so, but the theory reels under +the constant repetition of such chances. Men whose +names are prominently before the world can hardly +be introduced into prophecy. But we shall see +shortly that Nostradamus is able to assign names +with precision where the individuals are of a lesser +rank, and that their names may so pass unobserved +until history has recorded them with her iron pen.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 20. (June 20, 1791.)</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 174.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De nuict viendra par le forest de Reines,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deux pars, vaultorte, Herne la pierre blanche,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le moyne noir en gris dedans Varennes:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Esleu Cap. cause tempeste, feu, sang, tranche.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">II. P., I. 174.</span>]</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">By night shall come through the forest of Reines</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Two parts, face about, the Queen a white stone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The black monk in gray within Varennes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chosen Cap. causes tempest, fire, blood, slice.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In the translation of this, Garencières leaves the +two words <i>vaultorte Herne</i> as in the original French, +and does not attempt the translation. He also mistakes +Reines for Rennes, the chief town in Little +Brittany. He evidently has no conception whatever +of the meaning of the quatrain. Bouys and Le +Pelletier differ on minor points in rendering these +words. <i>Forest</i>, Le Pelletier reads, in Latin, as <i>fores</i>, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>gate, that is, by the Queen’s gate, and he quotes +Thiers to show (“Hist. Révol. Fran.” i. 309) that the +Queen made sure of a secret gate out of the Tuileries, +by which they escaped. But Bouys takes it for the +forest of Reines, which is on the road to Varennes. +<i>Deux pars</i> is husband and wife; <i>voltorte</i>, or <i>vaultorte</i>, +is a cross-road, or a divergent road; <i>vaulx</i>, a valley, +and <i>torte</i>, tortuous, says Le Pelletier. One does not +quite see how to educe cross road from this. Roquefort +gives <i>volt</i> for face, and <i>torte</i> would be turned, which +seems to me more likely. However, it stands for +the road through St. Menehould, on the way to Montmédi. +This, it seems, they were forced into by posting +arrangements. Prudhomme (“Revol. de Paris,” +No. 102, p. 542) sets the divergence down to vacillation +or change of orders. If that be the correct +statement, then my etymology of <i>face about</i> for <i>vaultorte</i> +fits it best. <i>Herne</i> is <i>Reine</i>, by metaplasm of +<i>h</i> for <i>i</i>. It was permissible in anagrammatic writing +to change one letter in a word, but not more than one. +The reader can refer for this to the “Dictionnaire +de Trévoux,” under <i>Anagramme</i>. The white stone +stands for this royal or precious stone, the Queen, +who was dressed in white. The King was dressed in +grey. Prudhomme, in the work mentioned above +(p. 554), says he wore a round hat, which hid his face, +and had on an iron-grey coat (<i>gris de fer</i>), so he +appeared like a Carmelite.</p> + +<p>There are nearly fourteen octavo pages of small +print (p. 411) of De Bouillé, which it might be well to +print, called “Détails du voyage du roi et de la reine +à Montmédy et leur arrestation à Varennes dans le +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>Clairmontais, le 22 juin, 1791,” full of interesting +particulars.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Vaultorte.</span></h3> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Mais on verra que les circonstances changèrent entièrement +jusqu’au moment de l’exécution de son projet; et ce qui était +possible au mois de janvier 1791, ne l’était plus au mois de juin.”—“Mémoires +du Marquis de Bouillé,” p. 195, ed. 1821.</p> + +<p>“Il [le roi] m’informait qu’il partirait, avec sa famille, dans +une seule voiture qu’il ferait faire exprès. Dans la réponse que +je fis au roi, je pris la liberté de lui représenter encore une fois +que la route par Varennes offrait de grands inconvéniens, à +cause des relais qu’il fallait y placer pour suppléer à la poste.... +J’engageai donc Sa Majesté à prendre la route par Reims, ou +celle de Flandre, en passant par Chimay, et en traversant ensuite +les Ardennes pour se rendre à Montmédy. Je lui représentait +les inconveniens de voyager avec la reine et ses enfants, dans +une seule voiture <i>faite exprès</i>, et qui serait remarquée de tout +le monde,” etc.—“Mémoires du Marquis de Bouillé,” p. 217.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This flight occurred on June 20, 1791. On the +following day the National Assembly suspended +Louis XVI. from his functions. On the 1st of September +they passed another decree, that should the +King surrender to the will of the people and become +a Constitutional King he might do so. This he duly +signed and attested on the 14th of the same month; +so <i>Capet fut esleu</i>. The title of King of the French, +instead of the King of France, had been established +since October 16, 1789 (“Cyclopædia of Universal +History”), which virtually was the same thing. But +yet strictly it was not until after the flight that +he became <i>Esleu Cap</i>. Madame Campan, in the +“Mémoires de Marie-Antoinette,” ii. 150, relates that +the Queen’s hair had become white in a single night +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>and she had had a lock of her white hair mounted +in a ring for the Princesse de Lamballe, inscribed +<i>Blanchis par le malheur</i>. She had become <i>la pierre +plus blanche encore</i>. Her dress was white, and her +complexion too. The <i>tranche</i> stands for the slice, +or <i>couperet</i>, of the guillotine. Bouys was amongst the +first to explain this quatrain in print, and he says +he owed the explanation to M. de Vaudreuil, of Nevers, +who has written upon Nostradamus.</p> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 34.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 177.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le part⁠<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> + solus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> mary⁠<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> + sera mitré</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Retour: conflict passera sur le thuille,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par cinq cents: un trahyr⁠<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> + sera⁠<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> tittré⁠<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Narbon: et Saulce par coutaux avons d’huille.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The husband alone afflicted will be mitred on his return. A +conflict will take place at the Tuileries by five hundred men. +One traitor will be titled—Narbon; and (the other) Saulce, +grandfather oilman, will [hand him] over to the soldiery.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The harness broke at Montmirail, and detained +them two hours (p. 247). The King showed himself at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>Chalons, and was recognized by the postmaster, who +held his tongue. Everything went wrong owing to +the change of date and loss of time on the road. At +St. Menehould he was recognized again, and Drouet +the postmaster’s son, rode on to Varennes to betray +him.</p> + +<p>On the 15th of June the Marquis de Bouillé received +a letter from the King, saying his departure would be +delayed till the 20th, at midnight; that he could not +take the Marquis d’Agoult, recommended to him by +Bouillé (as an “homme d’esprit, ferme et courageux, +qui peut se montrer si les circonstances l’exigaient,” +p. 217), because Madame de Tourzel, the governess +of the children, insisted on her right of place never to +quit them; and this consideration carried the decision. +As if the King could not have let them follow in +another vehicle! Anything rather than be forced to +show himself on the road as he did (p. 256).</p> + +<p>How it all miscarried will be best understood by +reading the whole of De Bouillé’s account. His +arrangements seem to have been masterly, like the +noble soldier and statesman that he was; the King’s +arrangements vacillating, foolish, and even perverse. +In this account Monsieur Saulce is not seen at all.</p> + +<p>This is to be filled in as follows. Louis XVI. alone, +without his wife, will suffer the disgrace of being +crowned with the red cap of Liberty, called the +Phrygian bonnet or mitre, from its being the head-dress +of the priests of Mithras. The five hundred +Marseillais led the attack upon the Tuileries, a palace +begun by Catherine de Medici (1564) on the site of +the tile-kilns (<i>le thuille</i>), and not in existence when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>Nostradamus wrote this (1555). The Count de +Narbonne, Minister of War, was of the noblesse, +and Saulce, father, son, and grandson, were chandlers +and grocers, or oilmen, of Varennes. The father was +<i>Procureur-syndic</i> of his commune. These oilmen betrayed +him to the populace, and he was arrested <i>per +custodes</i>. These sneaks stand as typical or representative +traitors of the two classes of <i>noblesse</i> and +<i>bourgoisie</i> paying cowardly court to the <i>prolétaire</i> class.</p> + +<p>The Madame Campan before alluded to (ii. 158) +relates that their Majesties alighted at the grocery +shop of the Mayor of Varennes, Saulce; and he could +have saved the King. The Queen was seated in the +shop between two high-piled stacks of candles, and +was talking to Madame Saulce.</p> + +<p>The <i>Gazette Nationale</i>, June 25, 1791, reporting +what took place in the Assembly the night before, +announces that M. Martinet, in addressing the House, +described Saulce’s conduct as wise and <i>heroic</i>, replying +as he did to the promises and caresses of the King +and Queen, “J’aime mon roi; mais je resterai fidèle +à ma patrie.” The result of his heroism was that two +months later on the Assembly voted him twenty +thousand livres as the reward of his exalted <i>vertue +citoyenne</i>. Whether, in the scramble that so soon +followed, he ever received the wasteful and ridiculous +Judas-gift there is nothing to show; but the bulletin +recording the vote of these new-fledged statesmen, +liberal of money not their own, still exists. We have +here “<i>un Brute Français</i>,” apeing the Roman, who +loved Cæsar well, but blood better.</p> + +<p>Thiers’ account of the attack upon the Tuileries, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>June 20, 1792 (“Révol. Fran.,” ii. 152), furnishes +a pathetic picture of the afflicted King (<i>marri mitré</i>) +of the red nightcap, in which he was day-dreaming. +The palace was evacuated at about seven in the +evening by the populace, which had effected its entry +by main force; but, when the crowd had now withdrawn +peaceably and in good order, the King, Queen, +his sister, and the children, all met together, shedding +a torrent of tears. The King seemed stunned by +what had taken place; the red cap was still upon his +head; he now, for the first time for several hours, +noticed it, and flung it aside with indignation.</p> + +<p>As to the five hundred men named by our oracle, +the historian of the French Revolution again comes +to our aid (ii. p. 209), saying that Barbaroux had +promised the Jacobins the co-operation of his Marseillais, +who were on the way to Paris. The project +was to assemble at the Tuileries and depose the king +(ii. p. 235). They arrived on June 30, 1792, and were +five hundred men. Ils étaient <i>cinq cents</i>.</p> + +<p>Those who care to see how Narbonne acted against +the King, can refer to the “Histoire de la Révolution,” +by Bertrand de Molleville, for satisfaction.</p> + +<p>This stands out certainly as one of the most +startling of all the thousand quatrains of our strange +seer. It will henceforth and to the end of time +speak for itself without comment, if we merely +enumerate the historic facts as here anticipated in +four lines. The horror of the king at finding himself +<i>mitré</i>. The god Mithras is depicted on coins in this +very cap, and his priests made it their head-dress; +further, it furnishes the lively etymology of the word +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span><i>mitre</i> itself. It was for ages, before the French took +it up, the received emblem of that frantic crime that +has been called <i>Liberty</i>. I will not say the result of +this is, as poetry, artistically beautiful; but, as a phrase +of intense expression, it is so terse that at a stroke, +beyond that of hydraulic power, it seems able to compress +a truss of hay so as it may lie in a husk of beech-mast. +I do say, nevertheless, that, thus regarded, +Dante and Shakespeare can hardly furnish between +them three sentences of such compressed force; the +matter in it seems to be condensed to adamant. +<i>Mari sera mitré</i>, as it has been just explained, will +be found, the more profoundly it is thought upon, to +be an original miracle in phraseology. It is an actual +and an awful prophecy in itself, but to devise a +phrase to so convey the idea by human speech to the +human mind of another is miraculous. It may sleep +for centuries, as this has done, for lack of interpretation; +but, when duly interpreted it cannot be resisted; +it storms the understanding; and, as a phrase, seems +to be a miracle begotten expressly to become the +vehicle in which to convey another miracle. This +horror of the King mitred is one distinct forecast. +The second point is his return to Paris. There is, +thirdly, the conflict of the five hundred. Fourthly, the +spot, the Tuileries,—at Nostradamus’ time, a thing +of thin air, where the tiles were still baking, fire-hot +to roof houses with, whilst the pen was writing this. +Here again, if it is not poetry, it performs the poet’s +function, which gives to airy nothing a local habitation +and a name. Fifthly, comes a titled name—Narbonne. +Sixthly, that of Saulce; and finally, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>handing over to the custodians. Here are seven +distinct prophecies of events historical: two of them, +names of men yet to be born at a period two hundred +years removed. And, behold, these seven facts are +put before you in four lines!</p> + +<p>There is a point of particular interest to be noted +in that first line. Bouys (p. 62) remarks that, first line +though it be, it should be the last, as the mitre was +the closing act of the entire drama; and he supposes +that Nostradamus wanted to make the treachery +most prominent to the mind of the reader. That is +to talk like a chronologer. The first cause and the +final are, in spiritual matters, one. The life and +death of man are reduced to two points, and epitaphs +give enough about most of the lives of mortal men +when they chronicle the birth and death dates. +“Alone he returned and was mitred.” How, step +by step, it all came about, <i>follows</i> necessarily; and +that is how Nostradamus puts it to us. If he had +weighted himself with what science calls method, he +would have destroyed his own instinct; as science +does, just as Saturn ate up the offspring of his proper +loins. The soul that does this must grope to its +results, but can never jump to them by prophecy.</p> + +<p>Before we go to the next quatrain it may be instructive +to note Garencières’ treatment of the +pregnant forecast we have just traversed. He translates +thus:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The separated husband shall wear a mitre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Returning, battle, he shall go over the tyle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By five hundred one dignified shall be betrayed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Narbon and Salces shall have oil by the quintal.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p> + +<p>“The verse signifieth, that some certain man who +was married shall be parted from his wife, and shall +attain to some great ecclesiastical dignity. The +second verse is that, coming back from some place or +enterprise, he shall be met and fought with, and compelled +to escape over the tiles of a house. The third +verse is that a man of great account shall be betrayed +by five hundred of his men. And the last that, when +these things shall come to pass, Narbon and Salces, +which are two cities of Languedoc, shall reap and +make a great deal of oil.”</p> + +<p>This shows some skill, but what an unintelligible +total we reach. I merely set it down to prove to the +sceptical, and those who incline to class Nostradamus +authoritatively amongst impostors whose jargon is not +worth the pains of interpreting, that they may look at +this and learn from it two facts: First, that before the +event forecast has happened, all the keys of interpretation +are wanting, the prophecy looks like jargon, +and is so for all practical purposes; but that, +secondly, once it has happened, or as we may say +kissed sunlight, the keys appear with it, the light and +the understanding awaken together. There is light in +potence or <i>in posse</i> now; but even then they will not +unlock secrets, if the keys remain in the hands of +ignorant or scientific persons [or self-sufficient, which +is nearly the same thing as scientific], or in the hands +of romance-readers and lazy dullards. You will not +unravel “the words of the wise and their dark sayings” +by reading a quatrain once through. The interpreter +must approach the work in a simple, unprejudiced +manner; he must get light from history how he can,—from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>memoirs, letters, books,—and learn by the +success and failure of past commentators. He must +be content to work very hard all the while, and with +little encouragement from others; and then at last he +may so do something, that even his neighbours may +allow his work to be,—according to the bent or water-pent +of the particular mind of each,—some a discovery, +some a revelation. He himself may probably +feel that a supreme patience has had more to do +with bringing the thing to pass than any other faculty +that could easily be named. Things of the spirit +must, of course, be spiritually discerned, and all talk +about faculties when the individual soul is treated of +must sound a little paradoxical. To divide the unique +and indivisible unity of the soul into parts and +pieces, betrays in the proposer himself perhaps some +“want of parts.” But from the earliest time until +now, this has been the scientific way of treating the +human understanding; so let us consider that it is right +enough. The soul has almost always been cut into +three, and then left to wriggle and wriggle, and at last +to join itself together again, as best it can, like a +worm in a garden. If this be according to Aristotle, +let all Sorbonne profess it for right. What does it +matter how we treat <i>one</i> thing, if only our method be +perfectly scientific and in accordance with all the +rest of the universal phenomena, and with a right +interpretation of nature? What can it matter about +the invisible, if only our eyes know how to take +account of the things that are seen; that is, of the +only things truly subject to the cognizance of +man?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span></p> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 92.</i> [Bouys, 64.]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le roi voudra en cité neufue entrer.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par ennemis expugner l’on viendra.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Captif libère faux dire et perpétrer,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Roi dehors estre, loin d’ennemis tiendra.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The King would enter into the city.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(By enemies expelled, France will obtain it [or] they will arrive there;)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It will be false to say and reiterate that the captive is free,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">[And] that the King who is out [of Paris] will keep aloof from enemies.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>M. le Pelletier does not touch this quatrain. M. +Bouys gives his interpretation, which is not very +convincing, and I thought of passing it by altogether. +But the <i>captif libère</i> so links it with the journey to +Varennes of the Royal family, that it seemed preferable +to include it, and leave it to the reader to +reject or accept it, as he might think fit. Another +determining influence was from my noticing that the +<i>cité neuve</i>, or Montmédi, which the King desired to +reach, was not French when the quatrain was penned. +The VIII., IX., and X. Centuries were not published +with the first seven, but were issued at Lyons from the +same press, namely that of Pierre Rigaud. Moreri +states that Nostradamus felt encouraged by the reception +accorded to the seven Centuries to publish +three more (<i>i.e.</i> VIII, IX., and X.), in 1558. There is +a copy now in the Bibliothèque Royale, to which the +authorities give the date of 1558. Pierre Rigaud’s +name appears on the title, but no date, which is +remarkable, as the first volume of 1555 has this +imprint: “<i>Ce present livre a été achevé d’imprimer le +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>IIIIᵉ jour de may MDLV</i>,” giving a date as if for a +nativity. M. le Pelletier demurs to the accuracy of +the pretended date, and thinks it must belong to the +edition of 1566, by Pierre Rigaud. If so, these three +Centuries scarcely appeared in the lifetime of Nostradamus, +though they are dedicated to his patron, +Henry II.,—who died in 1559,—in an elaborate and +interesting epistle dedicatory. In opening this, Nostradamus +says he has long been in doubt as to whom +he should devote (<i>consacrer</i>) these three Centuries, but +at last took courage to lay it at the feet of royalty. +Now, the edition of 1566 particularly states that the +prophecies <i>n’ont encore jamais esté imprimées</i>. One +cannot read the Dedicatory Epistle without feeling +sure it was written for the eye of the King, and therefore +at least as early as 1558, but probably earlier by +a year or two. I therefore assume that he presented +them to the King in a fair manuscript, and that +having done that he remained content, and that the +family at his death, finding the original manuscript, +put it in Rigaud’s hands to be printed.</p> + +<p>My reason for thus inquiring into the dates is this: +that the investigation makes it extremely likely the +above quatrain was written before 1557, the year in +which Montmédi was taken by France, and, if so, it +explains the line that I have thrown into a parenthesis +in a manner in which it has never been interpreted +before. <i>Expugner</i> is not French now; <i>expugnable</i> is +all that now remains of it in the language. So that</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par ennemis expugner l’on viendra</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">may, I think, be regarded as a parenthetic explanation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>referring to the <i>cité neuve</i>, which was not yet +French territory, though on the point of becoming so,—<i>l’on +viendra par ennemies expugner</i>, by expulsion of +the enemy, in 1557. If this rendering be thought +valid, it furnishes one reason the more for explaining +this quatrain as one of the series belonging to the +Revolutionary epoch, and one more redeemed from +the maze of Nostradamus.</p> + +<p>It would appear from Bouys, though he does not +produce his historical authorities, that immediately +the King escaped, France was flooded with announcements +that the captive was free, and had their +consent to hold himself aloof—<i>loin d’ennemis tiendra</i>. +If this be established, it becomes certain that we can +in the main determine this quatrain accurately. +(“Histoire de la Révolution, par deux amis de la +Liberté,” in 7 vols., vol. vii. p. 126.)</p> + +<h4><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 87.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 179.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Mort conspirée viendra en plein effect,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Charge donnée et voyage de mort:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Esleu, créé, receu par siens, deffait.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sang d’innocent devant soy par⁠<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> remort.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Death hatched by treason will take its full effect,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A charge imposed, voyage made to death.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Elected, created, received by his own, and undone by them.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The blood of Innocency (rises) before them in remorse (eternal).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Bouys thinks by the last line Nostradamus intended +to convey, that the King felt poignant grief at the +innocent victims his overthrow would leave without +protection to the tender mercies of the States-General. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>The other is better, connecting it, as it does, with +that case analogous, where the mob cursed themselves +out of their own mouth, and said “His blood be +upon us, and on our children” (Matt. xxvii. 25).</p> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 43.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 180.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le trop bon temps,⁠<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> trop de bonté royale,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fais et deffais, prompt, subit, negligence,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Legier⁠<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> croira faux d’espouse loyalle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Luy mis à mort par⁠<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> sa benevolence.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Too much of good fortune, a too lax Royalty,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That makes and unmakes [appointments] sudden, hasty, negligent;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lightly believes his loyal Consort false,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And bids good nature lead the way to death.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a picture to the life of the fat-making King +Louis Seize. The brush of a Velasquez, as it cannot +paint the moral, could hardly so well place him +before the eye, as in life. He is no picture well-framed, +hanging for inspection in a gallery of pictures, +but flesh and blood like one’s self alive, and moving +with us in the gallery a spectator and observer like +ourselves. We have here Louis XVI. before us in +the flesh.</p> + +<p>“<i>He makes and unmakes appointments</i>; yes, indeed.” +In a little more than eighteen years, sixty-seven +ministers take office and relinquish it. Here they +are alphabetically, as Bouys enumerates them. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>Amelot, Barentin, Bertrand de Molleville, Boyne, +Breteuil, Brieune, Brogli, Beaulieu, Cahier de Gerville, +Calonne, Castries, Champion de Cicé, Clavières, Chambonas, +Clugny, Dabancourt, Danton, de Grave, Delessart, +de Crosne, de Joly, d’Ormesson, Dabouchage, +Dumourier, Duportail, Duport-Dutertre, Duranton, +Foulon, Fourgueux, Fleurierès, Joly de Flemy, +Lacoste, la Galaisières, Lailliac, la Jarre, la Luzerne, +Lamoignon, Lambert, Laporte, Latour-Dupin, Lenoir, +Liancourt, Leroux, Malesherbes, Maurepas, Miromeuil, +Montmorin, Montbarrey, Mourgues, Narbonne, Necker, +Pastoret, Puységur, Roland, Sartines, Ségur, Servan, +Saint-Germain, Saint-Priest, Sainte-Croix, Taboureau, +Tarbé, Terrier-Monceil, Thevenard, Turgot, Vergennes, +Villedeuil. Several of these served twice, and +Necker was in three times; so that the number of +ministries in the time mentioned is seventy-two—a +thing not to be paralleled in history as a course of +doing and undoing, of <i>fais and deffais</i>.</p> + +<p>His temper was ungovernable and sudden, extending +even to rough bathos, but was soon over. Maurepas +always said, you must let the King have his first fling +of humour out, and then he will soon recover. +Secondly, his negligence let everything drift, finance +included, till ruin brought collapse. You might +think his economists had drawn their singular axiom +for statesmanship, <i>Laissez faire</i>, from the example of +their royal master. He fell at once into the intrigue +of the diamond necklace belonging to Marie Antoinette, +which was conveyed by the Countess of La +Motte to the Cardinal de Rohan. Report runs that +he even placed his wife under arrest in her own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>chamber for several days. “Lui mis à mort par sa +bénévolence” displays a most wonderful forecast, and +it is open to read it now <span class="smcap">Louis</span> <i>mis à mort</i>.</p> + +<h4><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 92.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 182.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Prince de beauté tant⁠<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> + venuste,⁠<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Au chef menée, le second faict,⁠<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> trahy.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La cité au glaive de poudre face⁠<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> + aduste,⁠<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par trop grand meurtre la chef⁠<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> du Roi hay.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The prince of very comely beauty (shall be)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Led to the head, and then betrayed to a second (place).</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The city of the sword, with powder-torch, burns</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The head of the King, hated on account of his illegal murder.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The edition 1558 gives the reading as above, but +the line does not scan; it wants two syllables. Bouys, +without comment, reads <i>Prince sera</i>; Le Pelletier +understands <i>menée</i> as a synonym for <i>intrigues</i>. But I +should read it rather as a misprint for <i>mené</i>. The +city of the sword is a graphic name for Paris, where +the guillotine was first erected on September 25, 1792, +having been perfected by Guillotin, the doctor, +whose name was given to it. Roquefort gives the +word <i>adusté</i> as <i>brûlé</i>; but Nostradamus uses it as +a verb, <i>aduster</i>, in the third person of the present +indicative. Paris burnt the king’s head with a powder-torch, +or burning powder, that is to say with quicklime; +and, as having done him wrong, the people hate +him, and wish to obliterate the traces of the murder +perpetrated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span></p> + +<p>The body and head of the King were placed in a +basket of wicker-work, and carried, according to De +Montgaillard (“Histoire de France,” iii. p. 415. Janvier, +1793⁠<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a>⁠) to the cemetery of the Madeleine, and thrown +into a trench twelve feet deep, which had been spread +with quicklime; more was thrown in upon the top of +the body, so that decomposition would follow instantly. +When the grave was reopened some twenty-four +years after, to bestow a more decent burial on the +relics, nothing remained but a few fragments of +calcined bone.</p> + +<p>Garencières reads <i>Princesse de beauté tant venuste</i>, +which will not scan any better than the line of the +edition of 1558; but he translates <i>au chef menée</i>, I find, +as “shall be brought to the general,” and the feminine +termination is then right. This helps to confirm my +rendering above. His annotation says that the only +difficulty about the quatrain is as to what city is +meant. As, however, he suggests no historical +allusion whatever, he leaves every difficulty unsolved.</p> + +<p>I think that most readers will be inclined to allow +that this is a very extraordinary forecast, and that <i>La +cité au glaive</i> as a name for Paris, and what has been +perpetrated there, is both poetic and terrific in a very +high degree—a sobriquet that, once heard, is likely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>to cling in the memory for ever. To devise epithets +of this simplicity and force constitutes an author at +once master of utterance; no matter what may be the +shortcomings of the adjacent text. But, when you +find these startling felicities perpetually recurring to +illustrate facts historical,—facts that will not come into +mortal ken for centuries after the death of the writer,—stiff, +indeed, must be the reader’s neck if he cannot +bow it a little, as to a man of God passing by; or, if +he would rather have it so, to the occasional divinity +shining through man’s nature, that will not, cannot +wholly die when death has done its worst. From +Hecla to the tropics all rational creatures should +rejoice at such a fact. What is the new world of +Columbus to this? Why, nothing but a new hemisphere +of dirt. A spirit, that can read time future, +must be a spirit whose habitation is Eternity. It is +this hope kindles as we decipher, in the stillness of night, +rune upon strange rune of the oracular sage of Salon.</p> + +<h4><i>Century X.—Quatrain 17.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 184.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La Royne Ergaste⁠<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> voyant sa fille blesme</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par un regret dans l’estomach enclos:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cris lamentables seront lors d’Angolesme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et au germain mariage forclos.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The stranger Queen, seeing her daughter fading</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By reason of the deep regret she endured inwardly:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The cries of Angoulême will be lamentable,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the marriage with her cousin-germain foreclosed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Princess did marry the Duc d’Angoulême in +1799, but there was no issue,—<i>mariage forclos</i>. The +Queen wished to marry her daughter to a German +Prince: hence all the grief. The Abbé Torné-Chavigny +(“L’Histoire prédite et jugée par Nostradamus,” +ii. 28) had the merit, M. le Pelletier says, of +this learned interpretation. I cannot quite see this, +as M. Bouys gave the same interpretation as far back +as 1806, though with a particularity a little less +minute. The prophecy thus unravelled is the more +wonderful, as the event seems so little worth recording. +There is the same exactitude and precision shown as +where a kingdom is at stake.</p> + +<h4><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 77.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 185.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le regne prins⁠<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> le Roy convicra,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La dame prinse à mort jurés à sort,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La vie a Royne fils on desniera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et la pellix⁠<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> au fort de la consort.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Pierre Rigaud’s edition reads <i>conjurera</i> for <i>convicra</i>, +and that, at least, makes the line scan, which <i>convicra</i> +does not. Bouys says that some ancient editions +read <i>conviera, commitari per viam</i>, and then it would +mean to arrange the funeral cortège of the King. I +think <i>conjurera</i> the best reading, for that might be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>taken to mean that they condemned the King by +jurors, or jury, as the Queen was in the next line.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The assembly will condemn the King taken,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">[And] the Queen taken to death by jurors sworn by lot;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They will deny life to the Dauphin (<i>à Royne fils</i>),</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the prostitute at the fort will partake of the same fate.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Upon the word <i>jurés</i>, in the second line, M. le +Pelletier remarks that the Convention, erecting itself +into a supreme court of justice, proceeded to condemn +the King to death. But the judgment upon Marie-Antoinette +was passed by the <i>Tribunal révolutionnaire</i>, +newly set up, which proceeded by jurors chosen by +lot, <i>jurés à sort</i>. He further says that this <i>jury</i> is an +institution borrowed from England, and he erroneously +fancies that it had been first introduced into England +at the Revolution, and had no existence there, even +by name, during the lifetime of Nostradamus. This +shows how little a Frenchman, when even well read, +cares about English institutions. Pettingal almost +proves that the Roman <i>judices</i>, and Greek δικασταί, +were jurors. There has been great and profitless +dispute, as to whether the Anglo-Saxons had juries, +or whether they came in at the Conquest. If they +did it would be strange, for they died out in +Normandy. If the practice be Roman, it would have +prevailed in England as in Normandy, both having +been under Roman law forms. Coke, Blackstone, +and many others, confidently maintain its existence +here prior to the Conquest. If Anglo-Saxon it would +still be Roman. Were it Scandinavian in origin, or +were it Teutonic, it would equally have prevailed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>here before the Conquest. So that the whole discussion +has an interest merely archæological; and +leaves the <i>trial by jury</i>, no matter what its origin, a +thing of immemorial usage in these islands. You +might as well try, by chemical analysis, to ascertain +when oxygen first entered as a component part into +the air men breathe. If you could settle the question +it would be no use; whilst the time lost in discussing +it might otherwise be well employed. But the +forensic usage was not so in France itself, as modern +Frenchmen think, for in old Glossaries, like Roquefort’s, +you find <i>jurie</i>, not <i>jurée</i>: “Assise où l’on prononce +sur le rapport des jurés.”</p> + +<p>They delivered the poor Dauphin to the <i>cordonnier</i> +Simon, with orders to let him die slowly. The inhuman +villains seem to have felt they could not +condemn a child to public execution; so they give +orders to a murderer to make away with him by ill +usage and starvation, a process that would have +rendered the guillotine welcome and a boon.</p> + +<p>The last line admits of three interpretations. M. le +Pelletier takes the <i>pellix</i> to stand for the National +Convention itself, saying that it had prostituted +justice in condemning an innocent prince over whom +it had no jurisdiction. But clearly it had no jurisdiction +over the King or Queen. He then takes the +fort to be the <i>Conciergerie</i>, to which it consigned its +own members, <i>consorts</i>, as an introduction to the +scaffold. This is very striking, but the quatrain does +not appear to me to threaten members of the Assembly +at all. The unity of conception is best maintained by +limiting its meaning to the fate of Royalty; and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>Bouys places an excellent and forcible interpretation +upon it without breaking the unity of purpose. He +says that it relates to the Dubarri, the King’s courtesan, +and that the fort is her palace of Luciennes, which +had anciently been a strong place or fort. This is +good, if the Château de Luciennes bears it out; but +the <i>fort</i> may so easily be <i>sort</i> with the old <i>s</i> type, +which is scarcely distinguishable from an <i>f</i>, that I +think we might very well substitute it. We should +then construe the last line</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“And [consign] the prostitute to the fate of the Queen consort.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This interpretation requires less force to be employed +upon the line, and less explanation than any +of the others. The forms of the <i>s</i> and <i>f</i> are nearly +identical. The reading that brings simplicity with it, +and removes stumblingblocks out of the way, usually +proves the safest and the best. Here we remove the +complication introduced by the word <i>fort</i>, which +otherwise requires explanation, and it runs: <i>The +courtesan shares a like fate with the Queen</i>. It is now +for the reader to select the best.</p> + +<h4><i>Sixaine 55.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 186.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un peu devant ou après très-grand’ dame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son ame au ciel, et son corps soubs la lame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De plusieurs gens regrettée sera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tous ses parens seront en grand’ tristesse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pleurs et souspirs d’une dame en jeunesse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et à deux Grands la deuil delaissera.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A little before or after a very great lady,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The soul [of Madame Elizabeth shall rise] to heaven, her body under the blade,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> <div class="verse indent0">She will be grieved for by many persons;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All her family connections will be cast into deep sorrow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">One lady very young [Duchesse d’Angoulême will shed] tears and sighs,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And two great ones will be depressed with mourning.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This can be mistaken for no one but Madame +Elizabeth, the sister of Louis XVI., her niece, the +Duchess d’Angoulême, and the two brothers of +Madame Elizabeth, the Count of Provence and the +Count of Artois. This is not one of the very striking +stanzas, but the forecast is still notable, and occupies +its position very well as one in a considerable series.</p> + +<h4><i>Century I.—Quatrain 58.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 187.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tranché le ventre naistra avec deux testes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et quatre bras: quelques ans entiers vivra,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jour qui⁠<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> + Alquiloye⁠<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> celebrera ses festes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fossen, Turin, chef Ferrare suivra.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The belly cut shall spring again with two heads</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And four arms: <i>Aquiloye</i> shall live several years,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In great force (<i>entiers</i>) what (<i>jour qui</i>) time he holds.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fossen, Turin, Ferrara shall fall under his domination (<i>suivra chef</i>).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a very crabbed, but very wonderful quatrain.</p> + +<p>The elder branch of the Bourbons was cut short in +the person of Marie-Antoinette (<i>le ventre tranchée</i>); +shall spring up again in two heads, Louis XVIII. and +Charles X. The two heads being crowned, the four +lesser princes are called arms and uncrowned. They +are counted thus: The Duc de Normandy, who died +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>in the Temple, June 8, 1795; the Duc de Berri, +assassinated January 13, 1820; the Duc d’Angoulême; +and the Duc de Bordeaux, exiled August 16, 1830, +who, though he had so many close chances, died +without the crown,—an arm only, not a head, a hand +tenaciously to the last holding to its white handkerchief +as a flag. Zurich and Fossano stand, by +synecdoche, for Piedmont, and Ferrara for the Papal +States.</p> + +<p>This brings us to the end of the Louis Seize series. +Let us, before passing on to a fresh series, just give a +glance at the ground we have traversed; and endeavour +to estimate the value of the historical facts prefigured +for us by Nostradamus in his book more than two +hundred years before the earliest of them began to +take effect upon the stage of actuality.</p> + +<p>First, we beheld a section of the nation, the third +estate, usurping the sole authority of government, +and bringing down upon the whole the desolation +that was witnessed in Europe in 1789. Then the +intriguing Duc d’Orléans was portrayed, and the poor +King was seen repenting that he had not, when +insulted by him, publicly punished him by death. +The next picture was that of the remarkable flight to +Varennes, in which the very travelling habits of the +King and Queen, to their respective colours even, +were minutely given, and the precise name hinted of +the fallen Capet on the road,—fallen, though elected +by the people, <i>esleu cap</i>. At the very last moment +we are told their destination was changed by the +King, where changing meant his destiny. He was +then depicted as betrayed. He had run into the jaws +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>of death, and the very names of the traitors, Narbonne +and Saulce, were given; with the further detail, that +he was taken back to Paris and mitred with the +Phrygian cap, in the desecrated Tuileries, at the +dictation of five hundred Marseillais. In another +quatrain that journey is called a voyage of death, +and in one line is laid before us all that happened to +Louis the Unfortunate. He is elected, created king, +received by his own people, and undone. To this +succeeds that extraordinary picture of the King himself: +his best friend could scarcely have portrayed the +man so truly to us. Too prosperous at the outset, +too good-natured a royalty, sudden in temper, yet +dilatory in act, making and unmaking ministries +quarterly, and finally done to death by his own +benevolence. We then have a stanza devoted to him. +We see him as a beautiful youth made chief, then +deposed, and his head rolling from the scaffold in the +City of the Glave, even to his burial in quicklime at +the Madelaine, a procedure so unheard of in the +case of kings. Then that curious reference to <i>La +Royne Ergaste</i> and the little incident touching her +daughter’s marriage to D’Angoulême. Then follows +the Queen’s death, brought about by a jury, a novelty +imported from England by the innovators of that +period; crowned by cruelty to the Dauphin. There +follows a more or less curious sixaine, conveying the +fate of Madame Elizabeth, the King’s sister; till we +close with a brilliant quatrain that exhibits, in a +symbolical fashion, the Napoleonic interregnum, when +the severed Bourbon race puts out again its last two +crowns, above the Eagle-law or <i>Alquiloye</i>,—probably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>the last appearance it will ever make upon the stage +of history. I think we may agree, that it would not +be easy to parallel such a series of verified forecasts +relating to the most striking historical incidents, that +bear upon a single reign, from any one book existing +in the world.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_NATIONAL_CONVENTION">THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>We now reach a fresh division, and shall treat of +the National Convention,—a period of about +three years.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 17.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 189.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Les bien aisés subit⁠<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> seront desmis;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par les trois freres le monde mis en trouble.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cité marine saisiront ennemies;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faim, feu, sang, peste, et de tous maux le double.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The well-to-do [members] shall be suddenly dismissed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On account of three brothers the world shall suffer trouble.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Enemies shall take possession of the marine city;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hunger, fire, slaughter, plague, of evils all the double.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Privilege is to be abolished suddenly. The three +brothers who trouble the world are the Royal trio, +Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles X. Toulon +is the maritime city. We shall come upon it again, +further on, in Century VII. 13, where it is treated of +more fully. M. le Pelletier interprets <i>feu</i> as being +war, and <i>peste</i> as standing for irreligion. As goods +were all doubled to Job, so here all evils are to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>doubled. On the night of August 4, 1789, feudal +privilege was abolished suddenly (<i>subit</i>). The clergy +and nobility were dispossessed of property and title. +Toulon, taken by the English, is the <i>Cité marine</i>. It +was retaken, in the name of Louis XVII., on +August 23, 1793, by the French; on the 19th of +December, Marie-Antoinette and Égalité, Duc +d’Orléans, being both executed during the British +tenure.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 17.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 191.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le tiers⁠<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> premier pis que ne fit Neron,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vuidez⁠<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> + vaillant que⁠<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> sang humain respandre!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rédifier fera le forneron,⁠<a id="FNanchor_269" href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Siecle d’or mort, nouveau Roy, grand esclandre!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The third become first does worse than Nero,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">See how much valiant human blood it squanders!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It will rebuild the old tile kilns,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The age of gold is dead, a new dynasty, and great scandal.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This interprets itself. M. le Pelletier explains the +rebuilding of the kilns as setting up the scaffolds to +consume the clergy and nobility. I do not myself +see the force or necessity of this. The age of gold +yields to that of iron or the sword; the new dynasty +(the Napoleonic) is a vast scandal, and reintroduces +pomp and ceremonial at the Tuileries.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 19.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 192.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A⁠<a id="FNanchor_270" href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> + soustenir la grand’ cappe⁠<a id="FNanchor_271" href="#Footnote_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> troublée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour l’esclaircir les rouges marcheront:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De mort famille sera presque accablée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les rouges rouges la rouge assommeront.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">They will <i>not</i> sustain the great but troubled Capets,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The reds will take steps to purge their number,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They will almost exterminate the family with death,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The red of reds will overwhelm the red.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This very forcibly announces the Reign of Terror +to have set in. The reds will do what in them lies to +crush the Capets, till they have almost annihilated the +family in death; and, then the reddest reds will +guillotine the reds,—the Montagnards the Girondists. +Bouys does not allude to this, though one would +have thought it must strike every reader as far as +what is said relating to the conduct of the double-dyed +reds against the moderate reds. Garencières’ mistakes +serve to show how impossible it was to guess at the +meaning of a quatrain in the seventeenth century. +He fancies this to refer to some conspiracy of red +Cardinals against a Pope, to be designated the Red +one.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 69.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 193.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La pitié grand’ sera sans loing tarder,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ceux qui dônoyent seront contraints de prendre:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nuds, affamés, de froid, soif, soy bander,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les monts passer commettant grand esclandre.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A sight of pity will not long delay,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The almoners will soon be forced to beg:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hungered, athirst, naked, proscribed, and cold.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In bands they cross the Alps, a scandal to be seen.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This conveys a forcible picture of the calamitous +emigration the clergy of France would undergo +between 1792 and 1801. Once the clue is supplied, +it leads so naturally, that one almost finds insight +from it into the manner in which these representations +presented themselves to Nostradamus. One feels, +that he must have seen the events passing before the +field of sight as visions, sometimes accompanied with +uttered words; otherwise how could he get intimation +of names? But, if it was thus that intuition came to +him, the quatrains, that he now scattered up and down +throughout the Centuries in utter disorder and disconnection, +must have come to him in a sequence, +rendering them comprehensible; more or less, indeed, +in the very order probably into which the chronology +of historical record enables the careful student to +replace them now, as soon as they are understood by +him. If this be so, a rather curious fact presents +itself, in a form approaching to something like a +certainty, which is this: disorder must have been the +method of the book. We know that generally his +practice was to write down the matter in prose, and +at leisure convert this into separate quatrains rhymed; +these he must afterwards have shaken up in a bag or +hat, and when inextricably mixed have counted them +out into hundreds. I think it quite possible that he +found his forecasts became too intelligible when put +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>together in their natural order, and in the sequence of +events. No doubt, with regard to those events of his +own time and to be soon fulfilled, he first began to +perceive the necessity for inverting or displacing the +order. Consecutive and interlinking stanzas would +form a kind of commentary, and throw mutual light +one upon the other; so that the adoption of disorder +would follow as a measure of personal security. He +thought that his sayings should be dark, as becometh +the words of the wise; and that it would be quite +time enough, should they grow clear when fulfilled to +a reader, who would take sufficient trouble to elucidate +them and bring out their meaning.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 44.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 194.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">En bref⁠<a id="FNanchor_272" href="#Footnote_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> seront de retour sacrifices,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Contrevenans seront mis à martyre;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus ne seront moines, abbés, ne⁠<a id="FNanchor_273" href="#Footnote_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> novices,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le miel sera beaucoup plus cher que cire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This quatrain exhibits the suppression of the +Catholic worship in France, which took place November +10, 1793. What they called the worship of the +goddess of Reason was set up; and a return to +Paganism is what the first line means.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">For a short time there will be a return to [Ethnic] sacrifices,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And those who oppose will suffer martyrdom:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There will be no more monks, clergy, nor novices;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Honey will fetch more than wax.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The last line means that wax will be cheapened, as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>none will be consumed in the churches. The rest +explains itself. Garencières can see the meaning of +the last two lines; but the first two he considers to +have been fulfilled in the time of Henry V. of France +and Henry VIII. of England.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 8.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 195.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Temples sacrés⁠<a id="FNanchor_274" href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> + prime⁠<a id="FNanchor_275" href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> façon Romaine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rejetterons les gofres⁠<a id="FNanchor_276" href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> fondements,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prennant leurs loix premieres et humaines,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chassant non tous des saincts les cultements.⁠<a id="FNanchor_277" href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The temples consecrated in the fashion of early Rome,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They will reject the deep foundations [of Christianity],</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Returning to their first and human laws,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They will not entirely abolish all saint-worship.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This M. le Pelletier explains to be a forecast of the +<i>Fête de l’Être Suprème</i>, which was appointed by decree +of the Convention May 7, 1794, and celebrated on the +8th of June of the same year with great pomp.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 33.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 196.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Des principaux de cité rebellée.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui tiendront⁠<a id="FNanchor_278" href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> fort pour liberté r’avoir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Detranchés⁠<a id="FNanchor_279" href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> + masles, infelice⁠<a id="FNanchor_280" href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> meslée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cris, hurlements, à Nantes piteux voir!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The chief citizens of the revolted city,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who will struggle hard to recover liberty.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The men beheaded, an unhappy mixture,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cries, howlings, at Nantes piteous to see.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This was realized at Nantes, in Brittany, under the +Proconsulate of De Carrier. The town had, in 1793, +become the focus of the Vendean reaction against +the National Convention. The men were beheaded +generally, but many men and women were stripped +naked. They were then tied together, a man to a +woman, in couples, or pairs, which their fiendish +tormentors styled “republican marriages.” In this +diabolic connection (<i>infelice meslée</i>) they were precipitated +helplessly into the Loire, amidst heartrending +cries and howlings. No viler crime was ever +committed on this earth, nor can ever be; the infamy +of man and the revengeful filth of lust can no further +go. From that extraordinary coinage and coupling of +words, <i>infelice meslée</i>, you know, or seem to know, that +Nostradamus beheld the horrid spectacle in vision—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Estant assis de nuict secret estude (Century <span class="allsmcap">I.</span> 1).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Those who believe this to be a recital at haphazard +are of a brain-formation singularly constituted.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 88.</i></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dans la Sardeigne un noble Roy viendra,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui ne tiendra que trois ans le royaume.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plusieurs couleurs avec soy conjoindra,⁠<a id="FNanchor_281" href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Luy mesme après soin sommeil marrit⁠<a id="FNanchor_282" href="#Footnote_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> + scome.⁠<a id="FNanchor_283" href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In Sardinia a noble King shall come,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who will only hold the kingdom during three years.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The tricolour will annex him [the King] to itself;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He after much pains will sleep afflicted and ridiculed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is Charles Emmanuel IV. The Republic of +the tricolour, “le drapeau tricolor,” will despoil him +of his continental estate; and he will withdraw to his +island, ruling for three years, 1798-1802. He then +abdicates to his brother, Victor Emmanuel I., and, +<i>après soin</i> much care, will sleep [as regards governing], +and, residing at Rome, sad and humiliated, will +assume the Jesuit robe, and die in 1819.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PIUS_VI">PIUS VI.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>The next four quatrains refer to Rome and Pope +Pius VI.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 57.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 199.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Istra⁠<a id="FNanchor_284" href="#Footnote_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> + de mont Gaulfier⁠<a id="FNanchor_285" href="#Footnote_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> et Aventin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui⁠<a id="FNanchor_286" href="#Footnote_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> par le trou advertira l’armée.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre deux rocs sera prins⁠<a id="FNanchor_287" href="#Footnote_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a> le butin.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De <span class="smcap">Sext</span>⁠<a id="FNanchor_288" href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> + mansol⁠<a id="FNanchor_289" href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> faillir la renommée.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When a [French] army shall go from Mont Gaulfier to the Aventine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There will be a man advising them from under the hole.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The booty shall be seized between the two rocks,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And the glory of the sixth celibate shall wither.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a very curious stanza. The name of Montgolfier, +the æronaut, is visible enough in the two +separate words, <i>mont Gaulfier</i>. M. le Pelletier calls +it the grammatical figure of metaplasm; but it is not +strictly so. Metaplasm is the forming of cases from a +non-existent nominative. This is making two words for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>things non-existent to represent a proper name. But +there is a still greater singularity in the employment of +it here. For Nostradamus, as I understand him, makes +this fictitious mountain contrast with the real Mount +Aventine. He makes it stand, as I think, for one of +the two rocks between which the booty is secured. +The brothers Montgolfier were paper-makers at +Annonay Ardèche, and they gave their own name +to their discovery, which dates June 5, 1783. Their +balloons opened at the bottom to be filled, so that a +man placed in them was under the hole, <i>par le trou</i>. +I do not know at what point the Montgolfier was +floated to furnish military information to the French, +but I suppose on the Italian side of the Alps, so that +from that rock or mountain to the Aventine rock +would be the points between which the booty was +seized. But the former of these Nostradamus seems +to me to designate by the man’s name, which lends +itself to a play upon the word, rather than by a peak +of the Alps. M. le Pelletier says that the two rocks +refer to Peter, <i>pierre</i> being <i>rock</i>. One is Avignon, in +France, and the other Rome, in Italy, and the booty +was obtained by the treaty of Tolentino, under date of +February 19, 1797. By this the Pope lost Avignon +and Venaissin in France, Bolognia, Ferrara, and the +Romagnia in Italy, and this he calls the two rocks. +The balloon was first used to reconnoitre the position +of the Austrians at the battle of Fleurus, June 16, +1794. Almost immediately after the treaty, the +Pontiff was dragged from Italy to die at Valence: +thus was fulfilled the prophecy of <i>faillir la renommée</i>. +Interpret how you may, the mention of the name of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>Montgolfier so appropriately in this connection, must +always stand as proof of the most solid kind that +Nostradamus’s foresight was miraculous.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 30.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 201.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tout à l’entour de la grande cité</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seront soldats logés par champs et villes:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Donner l’assaut Paris Rome incité,⁠<a id="FNanchor_290" href="#Footnote_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur le pont⁠<a id="FNanchor_291" href="#Footnote_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> lors sera faicte grand pille.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Compassing all round the great city</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There shall be soldiers camping in the fields and towns:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A Frenchman [Paris will take] Rome excited;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">There will then be perpetrated on the Pope a great pillage.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Executive Directory, in defiance of the Constitution +which formally forbade it, encamped troops +around Paris, <i>la grande cité</i>, on September 4, 1797. +This was to quell, or keep in awe, the counter revolution. +A Frenchman [<i>Paris</i>], General Berthier, took +Rome by assault, February 10, 1798, the pretext being +that General Duphot had lost his life in an <i>émeute</i> +[<i>dans Rome incité</i>]. Pope Pius VI. was dispossessed +of his states, arrested in his palace, and subjected to +general pillage.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 46.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 202.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Pol⁠<a id="FNanchor_292" href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> + mensole⁠<a id="FNanchor_293" href="#Footnote_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> mourra trois lieües du Rosne;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fuis⁠<a id="FNanchor_294" href="#Footnote_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> + les deux prochains⁠<a id="FNanchor_295" href="#Footnote_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> tarasc⁠<a id="FNanchor_296" href="#Footnote_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> + destrois:⁠<a id="FNanchor_297" href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a>⁠</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Car Mars⁠<a id="FNanchor_298" href="#Footnote_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> + fera le plus horrible trosne</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De Coq, et d’Aigle, de France Freres trois.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The grand Celibate shall die three leagues from the Rhone;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The two dejected brothers shall fly tumult:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For war shall make a most horrible throne</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the three brothers of France by the Cock and Eagle.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Pope, that is, shall die at Valence, a few leagues +from the Rhone. The two brothers [afterwards +Louis XVIII. and Charles X.], alarmed at the movement +of the populace, take flight. War inflicts sad +havoc on the throne of the three brothers [Louis XVI., +Louis XVIII., Charles X.] by the Orleans Cock, and +Napoleonic Eagle.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 99.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 203.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Terroir Romain qu’interpretoit Augure⁠<a id="FNanchor_299" href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par gent⁠<a id="FNanchor_300" href="#Footnote_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a> Gauloise par trop sera vexée:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais nation Celtique craindra l’heure,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Boreas⁠<a id="FNanchor_301" href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> + classe⁠<a id="FNanchor_302" href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> + trop loing l’avoir poussée.⁠<a id="FNanchor_303" href="#Footnote_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Roman territory that the Pope governed</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The French will cruelly vex:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But that Celtic nation should fear the hour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When it has advanced its army too far to the north.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>I render this in the main in accordance with M. le +Pelletier; but perhaps some may think that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>Pope cannot be called an augur without great +violence. <i>Interprétoit</i> can hardly stand for spiritual +government. It is also difficult to make <i>classis</i> +into army. <i>Classis</i> represented the orders of the +people of Rome; that divided them into bands and +companies for governmental and electoral purposes, +not for war. The only <i>classis</i> of war was the <i>fleet</i>, and +Garencières renders it by <i>navy</i>, although he is entirely +abroad in every other respect in his interpretation of +the quatrain. Though he forces a fulfilment upon it +in the time of Henry II. of France, still, evidently +Rome is meant, whatever the Augur may interpret. +The Roman territory was twice trampled on by the +French: first by General Berthier against Pius VI, +and again by General Miollis, who in 1809 removed +Pope Pius VII. The closing couplet is clearly a +forecast of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia. That will +not be affected by the manner in which we interpret +<i>classe</i>; but I cannot imagine for a moment that +Nostradamus would employ the Latin <i>classis</i> so +erroneously for an <i>army</i>, which no Roman would ever +use it for. <i>Certamen classicum</i> is a sea-fight, but never +employed for engagements on land. The result of +this minute verbal inquiry will, I think, end by establishing +the more remarkably the prescience and forecast +of this consummate seer. He uses the word +<i>classe</i> in one of its late eighteenth, or early nineteenth +century acceptions, for that body of young men, +which is called out every year in France by lot to +serve in the army; or all those called to the colours, +who are drawn for service in the same year. It is an +administrative word, that sprang into use out of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>conscription, and which will die out again when that +fraud, passed upon the nations of Europe, has been +detected and abolished; that institution which fosters +war and makes its otherwise intermittent evils permanent +and perpetual upon humanity. To enlarge +the area of this view is to doom conscription to death +and sure oblivion. Conscription is an invention of +Beelzebub, when seeking his bath of blood, under the +euphonic guise of a patriotic defence of the mother +soil. <i>Mourir pour la patrie</i> is the glozing lie of Roget +de l’Isle, that supplements, or drowns, the true cry of +“Blood for Moloch.” So we will read, for the first +time now, the passage thus: But let the Celtic nation +beware the hour when her <i>conscript columns</i> are pushed +too far to the Boreal north-east. In brief, beware of +Moscow. If this sixteenth century anticipation of a +nineteenth century idiom be nothing, then let the +Alps be called a molehill, and the hollow sea a cup. +Here we close the prefiguration of the Papal torment +appropriately enough; it closes with a terrible hint to +its tormentor.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="NAPOLEONIC_RULE">NAPOLEONIC RULE.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><i>Century III.—Quatrain 35.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 205.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Du plus profond de l’Occident d’Europe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De pauvres gens un jeune enfant naistra,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui par sa langue seduira grande troupe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son bruit au regne d’Orient plus croitra.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In the Southern extremity of Western Europe</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A child shall be born of poor parents,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who by his tongue shall seduce the French army;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His bruit shall extend to the kingdom of the East.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In the island of Corsica was born, of an ancient but +impoverished family, a child, Napoleon Bonaparte, +whose proclamations electrified the French troops. +His expedition, by order of the Directory, to Egypt, +which was meant to ruin his career, conferred upon +him a world-wide renown. This man was not eloquent +as orators are eloquent; verbosity is their gift. Even +the endowment of Cicero lay much in words; and in +their multitude, which wanteth not folly: Solomon +says sin. A plethora of words becomes the apoplexy +of reason. But this man’s phrases are all portable, +made for the knapsack: they fly to the lip as lightning +does to metal; poetry, passion, and energy are in +them, but fused to an aerolite, till they fall like a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>luminous bolt, only to burn in man’s memory for +ever after. They are not winged, but lightning-shod. +Fulminants are matter etherealized to an interlinking +with spirit. But this man’s words are spirit itself, and +burn their niche in Time, to last as long as that will. +Take two of them: “Soldiers, forty centuries look +down upon you!” and again, “Behold the sun of +Austerlitz!” When you speak, speak thus to men; +such words are deeds; and come not as from one who +beateth the air to the pitchpipe of the tibicen Ciceronical, +but as the bullet to its butt; speak sword-points, +that press between the joints and marrow. +But I will stop here, to escape oratory. That may +still fetch its price, and seduce the zebra troup in the +courts of legal falsity, or in the Babel-room down by +the river-Minster.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 76.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 206.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">D’un nom farouche tel proferé sera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que les trois seurs⁠<a id="FNanchor_304" href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> + auront fato⁠<a id="FNanchor_305" href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> le nom;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis grand peuple par langue et faict dira,⁠<a id="FNanchor_306" href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus que nul autre aura bruit et renom.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Of a savage name there shall be such publishing</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That the three sisters shall have by Fate the same name:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then he will lead a great nation by tongue and deed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And have more glory and fame than any other.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Here M. le Pelletier takes <i>le proferé</i> for a thing +placed before, and understands it as being the prenomen +of Bonaparte, viz. Napoleon. But I cannot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>see how that is shown to be the meaning of <i>proferé</i>. +That word, if from the Latin <i>proferre</i>, never was used +for <i>cognomen</i> or <i>prænomen</i>. One of the meanings of +<i>proferre</i> is <i>palam facere</i>, to make public or publish, and +I think it would be safer to render it as I have done. +It will still equally draw attention to the name +Napoleon, in contradistinction to the name of Bonaparte; +because, when he mounted the throne as +Emperor, he adopted the new name and abandoned +the previous one. This selection of a new name +seems to be a natural instinct of humanity on entering +upon a new phase of life. The popes take a new +name on assuming the pontifical rank; monks and +nuns do so on entering the religious life; commoners +leave their name behind when created peers; women +do so when they marry; and here Napoleon does it. +But I do not think it desirable to consider this to be +indicated by the word <i>proferé</i>. Nostradamus says +that it is such a fatal name that the Parcæ themselves +will adopt it. He then repeats that he will lead,—I +think it should be seduce (<i>séduira</i>),—the <i>grande nation</i> +by speech and deeds, and raise a name unrivalled in +the universe. This was certainly true, and the prefiguration +of it is, beyond the denial of prejudice, +marvellous.</p> + +<p>We have now to deal with the word itself, which +will furnish to investigation a few interesting hints. +Of course some may think them intricate and far-fetched. +There is no great importance to be attached +to them perhaps, but they must interest the curious; +and curiosity that is innocent has a value of its own. +Who could see in Sloane’s strange Chelsea gallery +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>the shape, dimension, and value of the museum of +Bloomsbury and its affiliations?</p> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 33.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 208.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hercules Roy de Rome et D’annemarc,⁠<a id="FNanchor_307" href="#Footnote_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De Gaule trois Guion⁠<a id="FNanchor_308" href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> surnommé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trembler l’Italie et l’unde⁠<a id="FNanchor_309" href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> de Sainct Marc,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Premier sur tous monarque renommé.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hercules, King of Rome and Denmark,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Surnamed the triple Giant of France,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall make Italy tremble and the wave of St. Mark,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">First in renown of all monarchs.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There was a Celtic Hercules fabled to draw men +by their ears: <i>Par langue et faict il conduira</i>, as we +have just seen, so that this Hercules means the +Napoleonic dynasty. As to King of Rome, Napoleon +actually assumed that title, and later on he conferred +it upon his son by Marie Louise. In the “Mémorial +de Sainte-Helène,” 1840 [i. 79], by Las Cases, it is +said that during his consulate somebody published a +genealogy connecting his family with the ancient +kings of the north. This Napoleon ridiculed in the +public journals, stating that his nobility dated only +from Montenotte or the 18th Brumaire. Things +were not yet ripe for royal pretensions. The Bonaparte +family in Italy can trace to the thirteenth +century. One branch was settled at Treviso, the other +at Florence, and both held an honourable position; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>a third was at Sarzana, in Genoa. A Charles Bonaparte +settled in Corsica in 1612, and lived in obscurity, +says Le Pelletier, till this family of kings was born. +Taine has discovered that the family was of <i>condottiere</i> +stock, and De Staël and Stendal had, before that, +both of them found Napoleon’s character more +analogous to that, than to any other type known to +them. Taine finds him to be a Sforza or a Malatesta +born belated by three centuries. He is as unscrupulous, +searching, and ambitious as Macchiavelli; +and, curiously enough, the only book⁠<a id="FNanchor_310" href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> he is known +to have ever annotated profusely is Macchiavelli’s +“Prince,” which was found in his baggage at Waterloo, +and has since been published; and an intensely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>interesting book it is; enormously wicked and shrewd, +but diabolically wise in the Devil’s gay antics. It is a +scientific treatise on government without God in the +world. Its moral axiom would seem to be that even +murder should be directed by good sense in the hands +of a craft-master. In this respect I think it is even +superior to the clemency of Cæsar. The “Prince” +evidently fascinated him deeply. He treats his +author quite imperially, as Bentley or any other great +critic might do, and points out condescendingly where +the priest is but a theorist and errs for want of knowledge, +such as can only be gained from the practical +handling of affairs by a man of the Napoleon calibre. +I don’t know that you can read so deep into the very +spirit (for I will not mention heart in the same breath +with Napoleon) of the man of blood and brain, as you +may by the pencil interlineations by him jotted down +in this his Italian <i>vade mecum</i>; from time to time as +he recurs to the book, enlarging in view from general +to first consul, and from first consul to emperor. You +seem to sit with him, as in a magical cave, with +terrible writings that come and go upon the wall +before you, writings which are the words of this book, +and are lit up with a lurid phosphoresence, the light +of which emanates from his own putrescent brain.</p> + +<p>It is not historically true to say, as M. le Pelletier +does, that the family lived in obscurity in Corsica. +The house at Ajaccio was the largest in the place, a +palace even as compared with the other residences. +The title of King of Rome was precious to Napoleon, +as it enabled him to claim succession to the Empire +of Charlemagne. Although Garencières, in his interpretation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>fails of attaching any individual fulfilment to +the words, he is able, from this title, to say that whoever +it belongs to will attain to the Roman Empire.</p> + +<p><i>Guion</i> is equivalent to Terræfilius or Earthborn, and +means giant; in fact, it almost seems a variant of +<i>géants</i>; but why <i>three giants of France</i>? I do not +know that this has ever been explained. Hercules +mythologically was distinguished by three symbols +(Martinii, “Etymologicon,” <i>s.v.</i> <i>Hercules</i>),—a lion’s +skin, key, and three apples. The three apples were, +not to get angry, not to love money, not to love +pleasure. This need only be mentioned for the sake +of the double triplication and as marking so far the +propriety of the term Hercules. Master of Rome, +<i>i.e.</i> Italy; of Venice, <i>i.e.</i> Austria; of Paris, <i>i.e.</i> France; +as ruled over by Napoleon as General, Consul, +Emperor. That he was “the first of monarchs over +all renowned” needs no elucidation.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 61.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 209.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Jamais par le descouvrement du jour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ne parviendra au signe⁠<a id="FNanchor_311" href="#Footnote_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> + sceptrifere⁠<a id="FNanchor_312" href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que tout ses sieges⁠<a id="FNanchor_313" href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> + ne soyent en sejour,⁠<a id="FNanchor_314" href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Portant au coq⁠<a id="FNanchor_315" href="#Footnote_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> + don du <span class="smcap">Tag</span>⁠<a id="FNanchor_316" href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> armifere.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Never shall he in broad daylight</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Reach to the symbol of sceptre-bearing rule.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of all his positions none will be of a settled permanency,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Conferring on the Gallic cock a gift of the armed Legion.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In other words, the Emperor will never enjoy a +settled seat of firmly established government, and he +will confer upon France, either the ruinous legacy or +bequest or gift of the legionary conscription, which +converts Europe into an armed camp,—an evil gift, +indeed; or those who prefer it, may render it as the +gift to France of a huge burial-place in Spain and +Portugal, where so many thousands of men, her best +blood, fell. But conscription is of the wider issue, +and the more permanent evil, as it affects Europe to +this hour. It makes peace an interlude to war, and +very little less costly than war.</p> + +<p>Our next quatrain is a great rarity, for it seems to +be in pure Provençal, and extremely pleasing it is, a +great deal more honied, to the ear in sound than the +present French language; which is excellent for conversation +and the <i>salon</i>, where society grimaces, but +where true souls are struck dumb and poetry has +ceased to be possible; or only possible to rebellion, +such as that of Victor Hugo.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 26.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I.</span> 211]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Lou grand eyssame se lèvera d’abelhos,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que non sauran don te siegen venguddos.</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> <div class="verse indent0">De nuech l’embousq. Lou gach dessous les treilhos,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ciutad trahido per cing langos non nudos.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great swarm of bees shall rise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That none can tell from whence they came.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Night’s ambush. The jay⁠<a id="FNanchor_317" href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> beneath the tiles,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">City betrayed by five tongues not naked.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The bees stand for the Bonapartist army and the +Empire. The second line is understood, by M. le +Pelletier, to refer to the origin of the family, and it +may be so; but I think it refers to the surprising +suddenness with which the rouges, <i>sans-culottes</i>, and +republicans,—in pretended love with equality and freedom,—were +found to welcome tyranny and Rule of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>One, that used to be spoken of as Monarchy. +Guillotined in that form, Frenchmen hailed it as a +sword-saviour in the new dictator. It seems to me to +be the sudden conversion of such opposed principles +to Bonapartism on the night of the 18th Brumaire +[November 9, 1799],—<i>De neuch l’embousq</i>, an ambuscade +of night,—that startles Nostradamus. Certainly +there was no doubt whatever whence the Napoleon +family sprang; a family with a history more or less +traceable for five hundred years can scarcely be +described with propriety as one “whose origin is <i>lost</i> +in the night of time.” Yet this is the meaning M. le +Pelletier would have us put upon it.</p> + +<p>Next, like the jay in the fable, tricked out in +peacock feathers and spoils of the Capetian kings, +Napoleon makes their palace of the Tuileries [<i>Treilhos</i>] +his head-quarters. The city is given over to him by +<i>cinq langos</i>, five prodigious talkers of the long robe. +Far from naked as to words or clothing were they, +but as to principles very nude and bare, quite unable +to cope face to face with the audacity of this unscrupulous +cut-throat, this gunner of Ajaccio.</p> + +<p>The men of no principles and no practice were +simply ciphers before this man of practice, <i>par langue +et faict</i>; this ethnic Hercules of tongue and sword; +this servant, as Daniel has it, of “the God of Forces;” +this fly-pest Beelzebub, man of <i>Vespres et mouches</i>, +grown to a dynamic King. Where men have lost +their virtue, the poor sceptics are given over to believe +a lie of their own making; tongues have they to lie +withal, but never a hand amongst them to furnish +help at need.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century VII.—Quatrain 13.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 213.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De la cité marine et tributaire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La teste rase⁠<a id="FNanchor_318" href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> prendra la satrapie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chasser sordide⁠<a id="FNanchor_319" href="#Footnote_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> + qui puis⁠<a id="FNanchor_320" href="#Footnote_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> sera contraire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par⁠<a id="FNanchor_321" href="#Footnote_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> quatorze ans tiendra la tyrannie.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The short-haired man shall assume authority</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In maritime Toulon tributary to the enemy:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will afterwards dismiss as sordid all who oppose him;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And for fourteen years direct a tyranny.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The English had seized Toulon in the name of +Louis XVII., and held it a few months till Bonaparte +retook it. He overturned the Directory (<i>sordide</i>), and +suppressed its partisans with the Republic, and enjoyed +the tyranny for fourteen years, from 18th +Brumaire, November 9, 1799, to April 13, 1814. +We have already seen (p. 272) that the <i>cité marine</i> is +Toulon. Garencières fancies this to have been fulfilled +when Richelieu made himself governor of <i>Havre +de Grace</i>, where he kept his treasure and tyrannized +for about fourteen years.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 57.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 214.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De soldat simple parviendra en empire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De robbe courte parviendra à la longue:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vaillant aux armes, en Eglise, où plus pire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vexer⁠<a id="FNanchor_322" href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> les prestres comme l’eau fait l’esponge.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">From a simple soldier he will rise to the empire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From the short robe he will attain the long:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Able in arms, in Church government he shows less skill;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He raises or depresses the priests as water a sponge.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a very remarkable quatrain, that Bouys and +Le Pelletier, and I suppose all French commentators, +pronounce to belong to Napoleon; and it certainly +fits him very well. But, with almost as little injury +to historical fact, it may be applied to Cromwell, and +accordingly Garencières does so apply it. He writes:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I never knew nor heard of anybody to whom this stanza +might be applied, than to the late usurper Cromwell; for from +a simple soldier he became to be Lord Protector, and from a +student in the University he became a graduate in Oxford, he +was valiant in arms, and the worst Churchman that could be +found; as for vexing the priests, I mean the prelatical clergy, +I believe none went beyond him.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The circumstances of the French Revolution and +the English Commonwealth times are so much alike +in many respects that it is not surprising that such a +description as this of a soldier who seized power and +afflicted the clergy should fit both the usurpers, +Napoleon and Cromwell, almost equally well.</p> + +<p>Napoleon was a plain lieutenant in 1785, Consul for +life in 1799, and Emperor from 1804 to 1814. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>changed the short robe for the long, is understood by +M. le Pelletier as being the consular robe for the +imperial. There is no need to interpret thus. The +military dress or that of the civilian is the short robe. +Nostradamus takes but little heed, so far as we have +yet seen, of the consular dignity. In the last quatrain +he designates the duration of the tyranny, not as one +of ten years, which would represent the Empire, but +of fourteen, which regards the consulship and empire +as one period. If we take Cromwell’s protectorate, +however, from the death of Charles I. to the death of +Cromwell, the term will correspond with Napoleon’s +imperial career. But the interregnum in England was +a period of twelve years, and that in France under +Napoleon was of fourteen (<i>quatorze ans</i>); hence this +quatrain must not be applied to Cromwell, though it +in other respects is as true of him as of Napoleon.</p> + +<p>Valiant in arms, but in ecclesiastical matters less +successful, still he thoroughly vexes them, penetrating +into every place and corner, as water does into a +sponge. We cannot accept M. le Pelletier’s rendering +of <i>vexare</i> as meaning to raise and cast down. It was +used in the sense of to trouble, <i>cruciare</i>; to anger, +<i>commovere</i>; or to harass with care, <i>curarum æstu +fluctuare</i>; but never to alternately swell and depress, +as in filling or squeezing out a sponge.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 69.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 215.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Roy Gaulois par la Celtique dextre,⁠<a id="FNanchor_323" href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Voyant discorde⁠<a id="FNanchor_324" href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a> de la grand Monarchie,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Sur les trois parts fera florir son sceptre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Contre la Cappe⁠<a id="FNanchor_325" href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> de la grand Hierarchie.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Gallic King by means of the Celtic sword-hand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seeing the discord of the great monarchy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall make his sceptre flourish by restoring the three parts,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As against the Capets, and the Popedom.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Garencières understands as “the Cap of the great +Hierarchy,” Spain in the Netherlands, which was the +great upholder of the Popedom. His application of +this to history is of no value. But if we understand +Cap as Capet, and the ancient connection of the +French crown with the Papal Hierarchy, I think we +elicit a better sense than that of M. le Pelletier, which +makes the Capet and the Hierarchy one. The three +parts restored, M. le Pelletier makes to consist of +clergy, nobility, and tiers état. I feel that the three +parts under Napoleon were Emperor, Senate, and +Chamber of Deputies, which would be head (or Caput +instead of Capet), Senate representing the higher +classes, and the Chambers the people. That would +constitute <i>les trois parts</i> of the quatrain.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 88.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 216.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le divin mal surprendra le grand Prince,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un peu devant aura femme espousée:⁠<a id="FNanchor_326" href="#Footnote_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son appuy et credit à un coup⁠<a id="FNanchor_327" href="#Footnote_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> + viendra mince,⁠<a id="FNanchor_328" href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Conseil mourra pour la teste rasée.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He shall have married a woman just before</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The divine wrath falleth on the great Prince;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And his support shall dwindle in a sudden atrophy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Counsel shall perish from this shaven head.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This divine evil that surprises the Prince a little +after his marriage with Marie-Louise of Austria and +his mean-spirited repudiation of Josephine, is most +excellently rendered by Garencières as “<i>the falling +sickness</i>, called by the Greeks <i>Epilepsia</i>, and by the +Latins <i>Morbus sacer</i>.” Garencières was a Fellow of +the London College of Physicians, and a man versed +in the medical nomenclature of his day; so that <i>le +mal divin</i> should here be rendered epilepsy. It has +never yet been so rendered, except by Garencières, and +he has no application to make of it whatever, though, +as a mere matter of translation, he says, “the construction +of the whole is easie.” It strikes me that +this forecast, thus interpreted, will throw light from +Nostradamus on what history has heretofore overlooked, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>and will necessitate the re-writing of Napoleon’s +life from the date of his wicked prostitution of +the marriage rite. Napoleon, Cromwell, Mahomet, +Cæsar, were all epileptic, and probably Alexander. +But this particular scoundrel first committed, from +the purely sordid motive of self-aggrandisement, a +moral crime, and that brought on the convulsion of +the brain, that practically discharged for ever the +mighty Leyden jar or electric battery, with which this +potent brain-fiend had dealt out merciless torpedo-shocks +to Europe, and death as from the hot wind +Samyel. Inflated vanity, the epileptic stroke, the +reaction of external forces on the weakened centre, +made the cerebral pap, still of gigantic power, entertain +new phantasms huger than ever, with a terribly +diminished power of reason, to bring them to birth +by the practical handling of circumjacent facts and +time-tendencies. Now, said the fool of this western +parable, now am I master of events, and may swim +against the sea,—not with it, as I and common +mortals heretofore have done, but against it, and to +win. Well, he did carry the big dream into Russia, +and as far as the nightmare of Borodino. He also still +found a mighty utterance of lurid glory, with which +to pin that evil minute in letters of fire and phosphorus +upon the curtain of eternity, “Behold the sun of +Austerlitz!” The looming <i>mot d’ordre</i>, the old work, +the old guards, and the old drillings, guided once +again to a Pyrrhic victory; two such will damn a +kingdom. Reader, read Ségur [Comte de Ségur, +“Napoléon et la Grande Armée,” liv. vii. ch. viii. +p. 179], and there perceive the giant unbrained and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>drivelling about his bastard boy called “King of +Rome,” and what else belongs to <i>mon étoile effacée</i>. +“All the supports dwindle,” says Nostradamus, “and +counsel will perish from the shaven head.” Garencières +is right, and the diagnosis true. It is the falling +sickness. It is not Jove fulminant that strikes the +reeling Pagod from without, as with Cæsar ’twas, +but an epileptic withdrawal of electricity from within, +backwards. Emperor and empire will soon roll +together in the dust; man’s posthumous analysis, +and that of all the evil works wrought by him, though +the good live after.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 4.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 127.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par⁠<a id="FNanchor_329" href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> l’univers sera faict un monarque</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’en⁠<a id="FNanchor_330" href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a> paix et vie ne sera longuement:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors se perdra la piscature barque,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sera regie en plus grand detriment.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Throughout the universe a monarch shall arise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who will not be long in peace nor life;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The bark of St. Peter will then lose itself,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Being directed to its greatest detriment.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Emperor Napoleon, reviving pretensions to the +old Roman empire or universe, will neither enjoy peace +nor life for very long. In his time the Holy Seat, <i>la +piscature barque</i>, shall so guide itself to greatest detriment +as to be cast away and lost (under Pius VII.).</p> + +<p>Pope Pius was made a prisoner by General Miollis, +July 6, 1809, and carried to Savone, then to Fontainebleau, +and kept under strict guard by Napoleon till +March 10, 1814, when he was set at liberty. Garencières +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>interprets this as being fulfilled in the time of +Henri II. of France, who was slain by Montgomery +in the tilt yard. Through all his reign he was at war +with the Emperor Charles V. This Emperor sacked +Rome, and Pope Clement VII. was made a prisoner +(<i>vide</i> Garencières, “Tiber,” p. 77).</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 60.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 218.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par teste rase viendra bien mal eslire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus que sa charge ne porte⁠<a id="FNanchor_331" href="#Footnote_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a> passera;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Si grande⁠<a id="FNanchor_332" href="#Footnote_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> fureur et rage fera dire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’à feu et sang tout sexe tranchera.⁠<a id="FNanchor_333" href="#Footnote_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In the shorn head France will have made so bad a choice;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It will be heavier than its force will enable it to endure.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So great fury and rage will make men say</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That he will exterminate the male sex by fire and sword.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The period of the fulfilment of this event M. le +Pelletier gives as extending from 1813 to 1815. It +asks no further interpretation than that afforded by +the translation.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 82.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 219.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Amas s’approche venant d’Esclavonie,⁠<a id="FNanchor_334" href="#Footnote_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’Olestant⁠<a id="FNanchor_335" href="#Footnote_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a> vieux cité ruynera,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Fort desolée verra sa Romanie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis grande flamme esteindre ne scaura.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A troop approaches, coming through Sclavonia;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The destroyer will ruin an old city;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will see all Romania desolated,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor will he know how to extinguish such a blaze.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>A mass of troops is wending from Sclavonia. The +destroyer, Napoleon, will ruin old Moscow altogether, +and see Roumania desolated; such a conflagration +he will not know how to extinguish. It +was Rostopchin, in 1812, fired Moscow to prevent the +French from wintering there, and it settled the fate +of the campaign.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 44.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 220.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’aigle poussée⁠<a id="FNanchor_336" href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> + entour⁠<a id="FNanchor_337" href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> de pavillions,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par autres oyseaux d’entour⁠<a id="FNanchor_338" href="#Footnote_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> sera chassée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand bruit des cymbres⁠<a id="FNanchor_339" href="#Footnote_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> + tube,⁠<a id="FNanchor_340" href="#Footnote_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> + et sonnaillons⁠<a id="FNanchor_341" href="#Footnote_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rendront le sens de la dame insensée.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The eagle, drifting in her cloud of flags,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By other circling birds is beaten home.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Till war’s hoarse trumpet and the clarion shrill,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Recall her senses to th’ insensate dame.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is one of the few quatrains that lend themselves +freely to a poetic rendering. The Napoleonic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>eagle driven back to France with all its retreating +flags about it, or chased by a surrounding of other +eagles, Austrian, Russian, Prussian. The din of +cymbals, trumpets, and clarions restore France to +reason, the insensate dame.</p> + +<p>Garencières’s annotation here is extremely funny, +and should not be unrecorded. He says: “It is an +eagle driven from the tents by other birds, when a +mad lady shall recover her senses by the noise of +cymbals, trumpets, and bells.”</p> + +<h3><i>Century X.—Quatrain 86.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 221.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme un gryphon viendra le Roy d’Europe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Accompagné de ceux d’Aquilon,⁠<a id="FNanchor_342" href="#Footnote_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De rouges et blancs conduira grand⁠<a id="FNanchor_343" href="#Footnote_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a> troupe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et iront contre⁠<a id="FNanchor_344" href="#Footnote_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> le Roy de Babylon.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Like a griffin the King of Europe will come,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Accompanied with those of the north.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of red and white there will be a great number,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And they will go against the King of Babylon.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The King of Europe is Louis XVIII.; shall come +like a griffin (Griffon, γρύψ, γρύπος, a fabulous animal, +with hooked beak: <i>v.</i> Liddell and Scott; <i>v.</i> <i>Griffe</i>, Noël; +<i>Griffeau</i>, Roquefort, Littré, Gwillim, Brunet, etc.), accompanied +with those of the north. He will conduct +grand battalions of red and white uniforms, <i>i.e.</i> English +and Austrian, and they will march as one against the +King of Babylon, which is Paris. Louis, as the descendant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>of Hugh Capet, may be styled the first of +European Kings. The King of Paris is Napoleon, who +ruled the Revolution there, and brought order to confusion +or Babel. But we can bring it home to Paris even +more intimately than this, for the old name of Paris +was Lutetia, or mud-place, where the toads, <i>crapauds</i>, or +Frankish frogs dwelt, and out of whose mud, or <i>bourbe</i>, +came the Bourbon family. So that Paris, their chief +city, <i>en calembour</i>, yields <i>Bourbe ville</i>, <i>Babyl</i>, <i>Babel</i>.</p> + +<p>Garencières thinks to see Gustavus Adolphus here +as the most eminent King of Europe in his day, and +he came from Aquilon, the north, and warred upon +the Emperor, who was King of Babylon, from propping +the popedom, or from the Babel of confusion. He +had regiments red, white, blue, and yellow and green, +in the hope of creating emulation amongst them. If +he had only had regiments red and white we might +have hesitated, and gone further to examine where +the clue would lead to. But what begins by proving +too much is like other overshooting, and misses the +mark entirely.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 89.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 222.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre deux cymbes⁠<a id="FNanchor_345" href="#Footnote_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a> pieds et mains attachés</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De miel face oingt et de laict substanté,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Guespes et mouches, fitine,⁠<a id="FNanchor_346" href="#Footnote_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> + amour, fachés,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Poccilateur⁠<a id="FNanchor_347" href="#Footnote_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> + faucer⁠<a id="FNanchor_348" href="#Footnote_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> Cyphe⁠<a id="FNanchor_349" href="#Footnote_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> tenté.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We have now rather laboriously cleared the way for a</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Between two prisons, bound hand and foot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With his face anointed with honey, and fed with milk,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Exposed to wasps and flies, and tormented with the love of his child,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His cupbearer will false the cup that aims at suicide.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span></p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier renders this: Napoleon, after being +consecrated by Pius VII., and anointed from the sacred +ampulla with honey and milk, underwent a double +imprisonment in Elba and St. Helena. The imperial +bees—for so he translates the wasps and flies—are +desolated as to their love for the child, and his +surgeon, Yvan (<i>pocillator</i>), has falsified the death by +poison, on the night of April 12 to 13, 1814. Now, +as it was not his own soldiers that tormented him, I +think we ought to read it <i>faché</i>: he was desolated by +wasps, flies, his child, and love. His soldiers are +called <i>abeilles</i> before, never <i>guêpes</i>; these are the +enemy tormenting, who will not let him abdicate in +favour of his son (φυτόν). We shall do better here to +follow Garencières’s example, drawn from the life of +Artaxerxes, King of Persia. The Persians used to +punish poisoners by laying them between two troughs, +here called boats, with their face uncovered, bedaubed +with honey to attract the wasps and flies, and fed +them with milk to prolong the torment, which if they +refused, they ran needles into their eyes most persuasively, +and then left them till vermin ate them up. +So that it means: he was tormented between two +prisons bodily and mentally, with the ruin of his +family, insomuch that he would have been glad to have +escaped it all by poison. Whenever Napoleon was +thoroughly frustrated in his plans, he evidently tried +to fall back upon, what he had never deserved, human +sympathy; which in prosperity he had never thought +of nor desired. He first showed this softening, rather +of the brain than heart, at Borodino, as we have said +before.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span></p> + +<p>We will now take the substance of what happened +at the abdication, as given by M. le Pelletier from the +<i>Manuscrit de 1814</i>, by the Baron Faim. He abdicated +[here may we say, “Woe unto him that buildeth a +town with blood” (Habakkuk, ii. 12)] at Fontainebleau +April 4, 1814, reserving the Regency for the Empress +Marie Louise, and his son. He was thrown into +despair when he found the allies to be masters of +Paris, and to reject any such conditions. Baron Faim +was his private secretary, and describes what occurred +on the night of the 12th and 13th of April, before the +day of his unconditional abdication. Fontainebleau +really became a prison under the surveillance of +strangers. There were no terms left to him to save +even his life. Still he let the day close without +yielding.</p> + +<p>For some days previously he had seemed altogether +preoccupied in revolving some design. His conversation +turned always upon the voluntary death that the +great men of antiquity courted when in situations +such as his. The Empress had reached Orleans on +her way to rejoin him, but he had given orders not +to allow her to do so. He dreaded such an interview +as likely to unman him for the resolution he +meditated.</p> + +<p>It was a terrible night of suspense; the long +corridors of the palace resounded with the footsteps +of servants going and coming, the candles were +burning in the private apartments. Doctor Yvan is +suddenly called upon to attend, the Duc de Vincence +is sent for, and they hurry to fetch the Duc de Bassano +from the Chancellory; they are all taken to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>bedroom as they drop in one after another. Sobs +and sighs escape, but not a word is yet dropped to +satisfy curiosity. On a sudden the doctor leaves the +apartment, descends to the courtyard, finds a horse +ready saddled, and quits the place at a hand-gallop.</p> + +<p>All that transpires on the occasion is that, at the +retreat from Moscow, Napoleon had provided himself +with a means of escape, should he fall alive into the +hands of the enemy. Yvan, his surgeon, had given +him a packet of opium, which he had ever since +carried round his neck. The valet heard him rise in +the night, and saw through the half-opened door that +he mixed something in a glass of water, drank it off, +and returned to bed. He quickly felt that his end +was approaching, and had his most trusted followers +called to his bedside, Yvan amongst the rest; but, +when he heard Napoleon complain that the action +of the poison was too slow, he precipitately quitted +Fontainebleau, as we have seen.</p> + +<p>A very heavy slumber supervened, accompanied +with profuse perspiration, and when he awoke the +symptoms had disappeared, the dose having proved +of insufficient quantity, or time had deprived it of +its efficacy. Napoleon, astonished at the failure, +simply exclaimed, “<i>Dieu ne le veut pas!</i>” and professing, +perhaps for the first time in his life, to +yield to Providence, resigned himself quietly to his +new destiny. On board the <i>Northumberland</i> he +strongly reprobated suicide. It would have been +instructive to have heard the arguments employed +by this intellectual giant, merely as a mental acrobat +exhibiting, and as showing how far the intellect may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>be effective in illustrating the path of duty. But on +nothing could Napoleon’s opinion be worth so little +as on a question of morals, where the soul’s instinct +is chief guide. The rats ate his heart, it is said, in +an interim of the medical dissection. I doubt it; he +had eaten it himself long before he left Brienne.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the 13th, Napoleon rose and +dressed as usual. His objections had vanished, and +his next act was to ratify the treaty—a solemn act, +which he took the earliest opportunity that offered to +betray and break.</p> + +<h3><i>Century X.—Quatrain 24.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 227.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le captif prince aux Itales⁠<a id="FNanchor_350" href="#Footnote_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a> vaincu</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Passera Gennes par mer⁠<a id="FNanchor_351" href="#Footnote_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> jusqu’a Marseille,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par grand effort des forains⁠<a id="FNanchor_352" href="#Footnote_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> survaincu,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sauf⁠<a id="FNanchor_353" href="#Footnote_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> + coup de feu,⁠<a id="FNanchor_354" href="#Footnote_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> barril liqueur d’abeille.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The captive prince, conquered, is sent to Elba;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will sail across the Gulf of Genoa to Marseilles.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By a great effort of the foreign forces he is overcome,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Though he escapes the fire, his bees yield blood by the barrel.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He ran the blockade, March 1, 1815, and landed at +Cannes, close to Marseilles, crossing the Gulf of +Genoa, till defeated at Waterloo on the 18th of June, +“seeking death,” says Le Pelletier, “without being able +to find it,” (<i>où il sera sauf de coups de feu</i>). When the +smoke rises from the bottomless pit, “shall men seek +death and not find it; and shall desire to die, and +death shall flee from them” (Rev. ix. 6). Napoleon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>comes out of the island Æthalia, or metallic smoke, +and escapes the murderous artillery that kills his men, +though it were far fitter he should die. His beehive +is not burned with fire, but other liquor than honey +flows freely,—the life-blood of his bees.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 70.</i></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le dard du ciel⁠<a id="FNanchor_355" href="#Footnote_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> + fera⁠<a id="FNanchor_356" href="#Footnote_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> + son estandue,⁠<a id="FNanchor_357" href="#Footnote_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Morts en parlant, grande execution.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La pierre en l’arbre, la fiere gent⁠<a id="FNanchor_358" href="#Footnote_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> rendue,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bruit humain monstre⁠<a id="FNanchor_359" href="#Footnote_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> purge expiation.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The third and fourth lines will neither of them scan. <i>La fiere +gent</i> should be written <i>la fier’ gent</i>, <i>fier</i> being read as one +syllable.</p> + +<p><i>Bruit</i>, in the fourth line, is to be read as one syllable. Garencières +has <i>Brait</i>, which, though it have no meaning, shows perhaps +that it was one syllable.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The thunderbolt shall strike his standard;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He shall die speaking proud words, great is the execution.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The stone is in the tree, the proud nation yields,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The monster purges his human fame by expiation.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The thunderbolt from heaven shall strike down his standard, +and he fails or dies⁠<a id="FNanchor_360" href="#Footnote_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a> uttering haughty words. There is terrible +execution done. The stone⁠<a id="FNanchor_361" href="#Footnote_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a> is in the tree. The proud nation +yields. The hero purges by expiation his human renown.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span></p> + +<p>In spite of all these doubts interposed, this yields us +a quatrain of a sufficiently clear sense, in conveying +two leading ideas; a providential and mighty overthrow +of a giant leader and braggart of swelling words; +and of a proud nation split in battle, as a tree is by +thunder-stroke. The forcible picture is not unworthy +of Waterloo or the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean, as +the French call it; even though it may not be impossible +to find some other battle since the death of +Nostradamus that it might represent almost as well, +if not quite so fully, as the tremendous day of +Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Englishmen seem half +afraid now to mention the day with pride, for fear of +hurting French susceptibilities. To mention it insultingly, +or in a hostile spirit, is unpardonable; but +to speak of it modestly and thankfully, and of +Wellington as a great soldier and benefactor to us, is +only manly and proper. The man who has not the +courage to do this firmly and inoffensively in the +company of Frenchmen is only one of the many +cowards amongst us, who lead the French to think +that, however great things our fathers may have done +in the past, the spirit has fled from us that would +repeat them in the future.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 86.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 230.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Du Bourg la reyne parviêdront droit à Chartres,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et feront près du pont Anthoni pause:</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Sept pour la paix cauteleux comme martres,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Feront entrée⁠<a id="FNanchor_362" href="#Footnote_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> + d’armée a Paris clause.⁠<a id="FNanchor_363" href="#Footnote_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">From Bourg la Reine they shall march on Chartres,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They shall camp close to Pont Anthony:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seven chiefs for peace, cautious as martens,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall enter Paris cut off from its army.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The generals of the seven nations coalesced shall, +under pretext of peace, but really out of jealousy of +France, says M. le Pelletier, and in virtue of the +capitulation of the 3rd of July, enter Paris; now cut +off from her army (<i>clos d’armée</i>), which retreats upon +Chartres, passing by Bourg la Reine and Pont +d’Anthony, where it camps. The quatrain does not +at all obviously read so, but we must suppose that it +is the French army which goes to Chartres. We +are not, however, bound to believe that the marten-like +and cunning seven only pretended to establish +peace out of jealousy to France. All Europe and +France herself sighed for peace; and if, when +victorious, the enemies were inclined to take back +what France had robbed them of severally, that +would not be very wonderful. The seven nations +signatory to the treaties of 1815 were England, +Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal.</p> + +<p>This is a very remarkable forecast, and shows that +although Nostradamus is a national prophet of France, +and nearly all his one thousand quatrains turn upon +her and her interests, he seldom exhibits a particle of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>partisanship, and you would not know he was a +Frenchman from any word that he lets fall. He +strictly limits himself to the utterance of his vision +in the tersest phrase, and the most forcible words that +he can bring to bear for that purpose. I think there +is no other instance known of such inviolable temperance. +A man sits down in his study and prophecies; +commits his visions to paper in prose; turns them +deliberately afterwards, and in cold blood, into the +pithiest poetry he knows how; shakes up in a hat, +as we have previously remarked, all the quatrains +together, and, when he has effectually destroyed all +sequence and order, counts them out into even hundreds; +then, without a word of note or comment, he +sends them forth in type into the world to sink or +swim; be ridiculed or admired, be understood or +mistaken, perish or endure; until such period as their +fulfilment in the centuries of time is realized, and the +sleeping world awakens to the miracle, that has slept +also, beside the sleeping world, till light arose to make +both clear at once.</p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 67.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 232.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le blonde au nez forche⁠<a id="FNanchor_364" href="#Footnote_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> + viendra commettre⁠<a id="FNanchor_365" href="#Footnote_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par⁠<a id="FNanchor_366" href="#Footnote_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a> + la duelle⁠<a id="FNanchor_367" href="#Footnote_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> et chassera dehors:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les exilés dedans fera remettre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aux lieux marins commettant⁠<a id="FNanchor_368" href="#Footnote_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> + les plus fors.⁠<a id="FNanchor_369" href="#Footnote_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The light-haired one will come to blows with the hooked nose</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For the second time, and chase him out:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The exiled will replace him within,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Consigning the strongest of the party to a fortress in the sea.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Louis XVIII. is designated <i>Le blond au nez fourchu</i> +according to Le Pelletier. <i>Le blond</i> is, no doubt, the +sign of the Capets, as shown by several other stanzas +in Nostradamus, but not the aquiline nose, I think; +that, I believe, is intended for Napoleon. So that +Louis XVIII. comes to blows with the hooked nose, +or Napoleon, for the second time and drives him out; +he who was exiled before now replacing him within. +The strongest, that is Napoleon and his officers, are +committed <i>aux lieux marins</i>; which either means to +the English, who go down to the sea in ships, or else +to St. Helena, a prison in the sea.</p> + +<h3><i>Century X.—Quatrain 90.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 233.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Cent fois mourra le tyran inhumain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mis à son lieu sçavant et debonnaire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tout le senat sera dessous sa main,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fasché sera par malin⁠<a id="FNanchor_370" href="#Footnote_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> temeraire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The inhuman tyrant shall die a hundred times;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A learned and debonnaire King shall take his place:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All the senate shall be under his control,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And he shall be grieved by a bold criminal.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Napoleon is the inhuman tyrant to die a hundred +deaths: one his suicidal attempt; another Elba, with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>its cinerary and fuliginous ashes; another Waterloo; +and lastly St. Helena, with its ten times ten remorseful +hours, regrets, and studious falsifications of the +history of his life. <i>Debonnaire</i> is, with Nostradamus, +an epithet of the Capet family, and stands doubtless +for Louis XVIII. put into his place. The King finds +the Senate quite submissive to his will, but he is cut +to the heart by the daring attempt of the criminal +Louvel upon the Duc de Berri, February 13, +1820.</p> + +<p>This is the excellent interpretation of M. le +Pelletier. Bouys (p. 80), writing in 1806 under the +full influence of the demon of Napoleon, gives it a +very different reading. The inhuman tyrant with +him can be nobody but Robespierre, who, with a +pistol shot, endeavoured to put an end to himself +ineffectually, but blew away half his face, suffering +thirty hours of fearful torment, and finally was +dragged to the place of execution amidst the maledictions +of the populace. The <i>sçavant et debonnaire</i> to +Bouys is, of course, Napoleon. The <i>malin teméraire</i> +is a forgotten Georges, whose conspiracy gave a little +momentary anxiety to Napoleon. Here terminate +the oracles assigned to Napoleon by M. le Pelletier. +But Bouys adduces several others, which sufficiently +relate to the Emperor to be enumerated here. It is +painful to see how men manipulate these things to +suit their theories. We will give now a quatrain that +Bouys cites, as he thinks it favourable to Napoleon; +but he carefully omits the one next to it in the same +Century, purely, as it seems, because it is unfavourable +to Napoleon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 29.</i> [Bouys, 82.]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’oriental sortira de son siège,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Passer les monts Apennons voir la Gaule:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Transpercera le ciel, les eaux et neige,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et un chacun frappera de sa gaule.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The oriental will quit his post,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To cross the Apennines and see after Gaul:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will transfix the heaven, the mountain ice and snows,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Striking each of them with his magic wand.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Oriental, <i>i.e.</i> Napoleon in Egypt, will leave his +army behind there, after almost turning Mahometan; +return and cross the Apennines and Alps to look +after the Directory and their doings in France. He +will soon even subdue the elements and Nature by +his marvellous roads over the mountains of ice and +snow, and will strike each as with the rod of Moses, +or the wand of a magician; for the archaic and unusual +word <i>gaule</i> may mean that, as well as a riding +switch. Bouys misses the plainer meaning of the +first line, but is determined it shall represent Napoleon, +so he takes <i>Oriental</i> to be Corsica, as being east of +Toulon. The passage of Mont St. Bernard with +cavalry and artillery he gives rightly enough; the +Alps have to be introduced for the Apennines. The +quatrain following next to this he passes <i>sub silentio</i>, +for the reason above assigned, though it is pregnant +with meaning; and how this should have been overlooked +by M. le Pelletier, I cannot quite understand; +but so it is.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century II.—Quatrain 30.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">II. 45.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un qui les dieux d’Annibal infernaux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fera⁠<a id="FNanchor_371" href="#Footnote_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> renaistre, effrayeur des humains.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oncq’ plus d’horreur ne plus pire journaux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’avint⁠<a id="FNanchor_372" href="#Footnote_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> + viendra⁠<a id="FNanchor_373" href="#Footnote_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> par Babel aux Romains.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">One whom the gods of Hannibal from the lower regions</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shall cause to be born again [shall be], a terror to mankind.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Never will more horror, nor more evil days,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Come upon the Romans. The confusion will be like that before from Babel.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Hannibal and Napoleon are the only great +generals who ever forced their military way over the +Alps successfully; Hannibal, with his <i>acetum</i>, vinegar, +or hatchet, as some have interpreted Livy; and +Napoleon for cavalry and heavy pieces of artillery. +He seemed to be the marvellous Carthaginian born +again out of the shades of Hades, a scourge and +flail of men: Babel itself not worse in the confusion +that fell upon Rome, and the Church of Rome +through him. We have given this before, at <a href="#Page_228">p. 228</a>, +but repeat it here with further enlargement, as it +belongs more to Napoleon than to the Revolution. +Garencières thinks it was fulfilled when Charles V. +sacked Rome. If we consider, as I do, that the two +stanzas are inseparable, they will fit only Napoleon.</p> + +<p>We come now to a quatrain that M. le Pelletier +has overlooked, but which Bouys (p. 83) with some +reason attributes to Napoleon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span></p> + +<h3><i>Century IV.—Quatrain 54.</i></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Du nom qui onque⁠<a id="FNanchor_374" href="#Footnote_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a> ne fut un Roi Gaulois</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jamais ne fut un foudre si crantif.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tremblant l’Italie,⁠<a id="FNanchor_375" href="#Footnote_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> l’Espagne et les Anglois,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De femme estrangiers⁠<a id="FNanchor_376" href="#Footnote_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> grandement attentif.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Of a name that never belonged to Gallic king,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Never was there so terrible a thunderbolt.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He made Italy tremble, Spain and the English.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He wooed a foreign lady with assiduity.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Bouys introduces into his interpretation of this a +good deal of foolish adulation of Napoleon; pretending +that he was not only <i>crantif</i> towards his +enemies, which we must render <i>a cause of terror</i>, but +also that he was himself <i>crantif</i>, very tender of the +lives of his troops. To prove this monstrous proposition, +he quotes the claptrap uttered by him before +the battle of Austerlitz: “I regret to think how many +of these brave fellows I shall lose. I feel for them as +if veritably they were my own children. Indeed I +sometimes reproach myself for this sentiment of +tenderness; I sometimes fear it may end in rendering +me unfit to carry on war.” This was, indeed, an +heroic fear, says Bouys. We are content to let its +heroism wrestle with its hypocrisy; we foresee which +will come by the first fall.</p> + +<p>Garencières translates that the warrior, whoever he +may be, will follow after strange women; and that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>would fit Napoleon, though not specially. But we +think it better to render it with Bouys as indicating +the Empress Josephine, who was of Creole blood, and +therefore foreign; or Marie Louise, equally foreign. +If the latter, <i>Estrange</i> would stand for Austrian +(<i>v.</i> Century I., Quatrain 83).</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 53.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 269.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dedans Bolongne voudra laver ses fautes,⁠<a id="FNanchor_377" href="#Footnote_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il ne pourra au temple du soleil</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il volera faisant choses si⁠<a id="FNanchor_378" href="#Footnote_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> hautes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En hierarchie n’en fut oncq un pareil.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">In Boulogne he would make up for his shortcomings,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But cannot penetrate the temple of the sun.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He hastens away to perform the very highest things.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the hierarchy he never had an equal.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a singularly interesting quatrain. It has +received three different interpretations; all three +somewhat curious. Garencières opens the ball. He +says there are two towns called <i>Bolloin</i>, one in Italy, +one in France; that is, Bologna in Italy, and Boulogne +in France. He thinks Boulogne is intended, and that +Richelieu, a man of high things, and beyond the +hierarchy, vowed, a little before his death, that if he +recovered he would make a pilgrimage to Boulogne; +to the Temple of Miracles there, dedicated to the +Virgin, here described as the <i>Sun</i>, from that passage +in the Revelation, “And there appeared a woman +clothed with the sun;” but the cardinal took the road +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>of death, which led, not through Boulogne, to the +shades below, and certainly not to the Temple of the +Sun. This has an interest of its own, but, as an interpretation, +is utterly wide of the mark. Richelieu on a +repentant pilgrimage to the Temple of the Sun would +have been admirable as a caricature in Rabelais; but, +would be no fitter subject for Nostradamus’s pen, than +if a lady of title went to Aix-les-Bains to take the +waters there. And observe, he had to invent a +Temple of the Sun to send him to, for never was +there such a temple at Boulogne.</p> + +<p>We have also Le Pelletier trying his hand, and he +realizes it in Louis Napoleon, in his escapade of 1840. +When he was made Emperor, his Italian exploit is +represented as a flight to the <i>Temple of the Sun</i>. But +how he could suppose <i>that</i> inferior mortal, to be +referred to in <i>n’en fut oncq un pareil</i>, I cannot divine.</p> + +<p>Bouys and others attribute it to Napoleon, and his +intention to descend upon England from Boulogne in +the flotilla. Is there not a column there, ridiculously +built to commemorate the failure? Is there not also +a Boulogne medal struck (Ford’s “Spain,” i. 272) +with one of the Napoleonic falsehoods (an endless +series) imprinted on its face, which runs, “Descente +en Angleterre frappé à Londres”? These are the +ridiculous touches; but now let us enter on the +serious interpretation and see what that will yield us.</p> + +<p>At Boulogne the Emperor will endeavour to blot +England from the map of Europe, and so redeem all +his previous shortcomings in that direction. He +promises himself the satisfaction of dictating his +terms in London, and possibly entertained, in that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>strange brain of his, some dream that he would be +crowned on that royalty-confirming stone of Scone in +Westminster Abbey; where, tradition tells, the Temple +of Apollo was shaken down by earthquake, <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 154, the +Temple of the Sun. But <i>Il ne pourra au temple du soleil</i>, +says Nostradamus: and history has thought fit in this +as on so many other occasions to endorse the forecast +of the prophet. Bouys adds, “Napoléon finira par +faire la conquête de l’Angleterre;” but Bouys is not +Nostradamus; and Napoleon, like Richelieu, went to +the shades below from St. Helena, and did not go to +the Temple of the Sun nor to the Stone of Scone. He +went away, however, from Boulogne to very great +things, as men count greatness; and was quite +without an equal in the hierarchy of kings.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LOUIS_XVIII_AND_LOUIS_PHILIPPE">LOUIS XVIII. +AND LOUIS PHILIPPE.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>We now come to the Restoration of Louis +XVIII.</p> + +<h3><i>Presage 38.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 235.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Roy salué Victeur,⁠<a id="FNanchor_379" href="#Footnote_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> + Impereateur,⁠<a id="FNanchor_380" href="#Footnote_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La foy faussée. Le Royal fait⁠<a id="FNanchor_381" href="#Footnote_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> + congnu:⁠<a id="FNanchor_382" href="#Footnote_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sang⁠<a id="FNanchor_383" href="#Footnote_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a> + Mathien⁠<a id="FNanchor_384" href="#Footnote_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> Roy fait⁠<a id="FNanchor_385" href="#Footnote_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> + supereateur,⁠<a id="FNanchor_386" href="#Footnote_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De gent⁠<a id="FNanchor_387" href="#Footnote_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> + superbe humble⁠<a id="FNanchor_388" href="#Footnote_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> par⁠<a id="FNanchor_389" href="#Footnote_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> + pleurs venu.⁠<a id="FNanchor_390" href="#Footnote_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is a very crabbed quatrain.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The King is saluted victor and dominator,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The oath falsified: The King makes himself known again:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Grandson of Louis XIV. becomes King,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is called back by the proud people humiliated to tears.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Louis XVIII. is proclaimed King, May 3, 1814, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>but the people take up Napoleon from Elba, March 1, +1815, thus breaking faith. Louis XVIII. (Le Royal) +is again recognized, July 8, 1815; the grandson of +Louis XIV. (<i>sang Æmathien</i>), a name conferred by +Nostradamus on Louis XIV., who assumed the +emblem of the Sun, Æmathien being son of Aurora, +who opens the gates of the morning sun. This grandson +becomes now undisputed King, the humiliated +French nation recalling him with tears.</p> + +<h3><i>Century X.—Quatrain 16.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 236.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Heureux au regne de France, heureux de vie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ignorant sang, mort fureur et rapine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par nom flateur⁠<a id="FNanchor_391" href="#Footnote_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> sera mis en envie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Roy desrobé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_392" href="#Footnote_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a> trop de foye en cuisine.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Happy in the kingdom of France, happy in life,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Free from blood, violent death and angry rapine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will have a flattering name, and be an object of desire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A King retired, with too much faith in the kitchen.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Here we are to take Louis XVIII. as restored to +the throne of France: his life passes happily, without +violent experiences of blood, death, rage, or rapine. +The flattering name was given to him of <i>Désiré</i>, that is +prophetically hinted in the words “<i>il sera mis en envie</i>.” +He will not devote sufficient attention to his public +duties, so that he may be described as <i>desrobé</i>, retired +or retained at home; and he will be too much addicted +to enjoyments of the table,—<i>trop de foye en cuisine</i>. +The gastronomy was proverbial; the obesity consequent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>upon it made him grow inert, so that he +gradually let the affairs of State drift without giving +them due attention.</p> + +<h3><i>Century III.—Quatrain 96.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 238.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Chef de Fossan⁠<a id="FNanchor_393" href="#Footnote_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> aura gorge couppée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par le ducteur⁠<a id="FNanchor_394" href="#Footnote_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> du limier et levrier;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le faict patré⁠<a id="FNanchor_395" href="#Footnote_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> + par ceux du mont Tarpée,⁠<a id="FNanchor_396" href="#Footnote_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Saturne en Leo⁠<a id="FNanchor_397" href="#Footnote_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> 13 de Fevrier.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A prince of Fossano shall have his throat cut</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By the keeper of his hounds and greyhounds:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The attempt will be made by those of the Tarpeian rock,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Saturn being in Leo on 13th February.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Fossana is put, by synecdoche, for Sardinia. A +prince, therefore, of Sardinia shall be stabbed by the +Keeper of the Kennel, instigated by Republicans, +when Saturn is in opposition to the sign of the Lion, +on February 13, 1820. M. le Pelletier, who seems +somewhat learned in the houses of the stars, says +that Saturn was in opposition to, and not in conjunction +with, Leo on this occasion. But Nostradamus +leaves it open. The Tarpeian rock is figuratively +employed to signify the <i>Mountain</i>, or the +demagogues and the Republicans generally. The +Mons Tarpeius was first named from murder, and was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>for ages a scene of murder. Tarpeia, who betrayed +the Capitol to the Sabines, was crushed by their +shields at the gate, and her father, Spurius Tarpeius, +was thrown over the battlements by order of Romulus. +Children ill-formed at birth were flung from its +heights. It was better known as Capitolinus, so called +(<i>caput Toli</i>) from the head of Tolus, found there when +digging foundations for the Temple of Jupiter: thus +the place of the skull, a Golgotha from the beginning +of Rome. Later on criminals were sentenced to be +thrown from it. Many of these deadly associations +were, no doubt, present to the mind of Nostradamus, +and made this mountain of death seem to him fit to +foreshadow the death that should emanate from the +French mountain. To dwell upon this is of physiological +interest, as showing how very closely the +natures of the poet and the prophet overlap each +other; so that, as in the rainbow colours, there is no +line to be drawn as to where one begins or another +ends:—they may be seen, but not severed.</p> + +<p>The Duc de Berri was the son of Marie Therèse of +Savoy, married to the Comte d’Artois, she being the +daughter of Victor-Amédée III., King of Sardinia. +This Sardinian was to have ruled France, and, with +but one intervening, to have followed the Corsican in +the occupation of the throne. Louvel, the murderer, +stabbed him coming from the opera, and wore the +King’s livery at the moment of the attempt. The +forecast is again wonderful in prefiguring every particular +short of the names of the two individuals. +The nationalities are given, the calling of Louvel, and +the day of the month. If all this be Chance, some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span>hare-brained few would prefer it to what they know +of Certainty.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 4.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 240.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le gros mastin de cité dechassé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_398" href="#Footnote_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sera fasché de l’estrange⁠<a id="FNanchor_399" href="#Footnote_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> alliance:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Après aux champs avoir le cerf chassé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_400" href="#Footnote_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le loup et l’ours se donront⁠<a id="FNanchor_401" href="#Footnote_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> defiance.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The great mastiff chased from the city</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will be afflicted by the strange alliance:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When the stag is driven to the fields,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The wolf and bear will commence to mistrust each other.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Duc de Bordeaux is the great mastiff, dethroned +August 9, 1830, by Louis Philippe, in the dog-days, +when the star <i>Sirius</i> is in opposition. <i>Le Grand +Chien</i> burning in the horizon is a synonym for the +<i>gros mastin</i>; the city, of course, is Paris. Charles X., +who was fond of the chase, is turned from the great +huntsman to the stag. The wolf is Louis Philippe, a +name which lends itself to Lou. P. The bear represents, +according to M. le Pelletier, <i>la Montagne</i>, in the +assembly, because bears make their lair in the highest +situations. We need not insist on this resemblance +or characteristic pointed out by Le Pelletier.</p> + +<p>There are six quatrains devoted by Le Pelletier to +the Duc de Bordeaux,—the Henri Cinq that was +never to be,—that Royal Prince whom all the Princes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>should see to be heaven-descended. But as we, who +are not royal, have seen that nothing came of him; +and that, being now dead, nothing can come of him, +we shall pass over the six quatrains in silence. The +quatrains of Nostradamus lend themselves most +kindly to elucidation once you find the clue, but they +most persistently refuse to have a meaning read into +them from without.</p> + +<p>M. le Pelletier has elaborated the meaning of the +six quatrains, about Louis Philippe with so much +ingenious learning that we must give the whole of them, +and let the reader take them at his own valuation.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 84.</i></h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Celuy qu’en⁠<a id="FNanchor_402" href="#Footnote_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> + Sparte Claude⁠<a id="FNanchor_403" href="#Footnote_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> ne peut regner,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il fera tant par voye seductive,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que du court, long le fera araigner,⁠<a id="FNanchor_404" href="#Footnote_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que contre Roy fera sa perspective.⁠<a id="FNanchor_405" href="#Footnote_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">He who will cause that the lame cannot reign in Paris,⁠<a id="FNanchor_406" href="#Footnote_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will effect so much in his seductive way</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span> <div class="verse indent0">That from the short to long he will attain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who has brought to bear his deception against the King.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The meaning of this is that Louis Philippe +d’Orléans will cause the Duc de Bordeaux to be +unable to hold the reins of government in Paris. +The anagrammatic substitution of Sparte for Paris is +doubly ingenious, inasmuch as Lycurgus at Sparta +established a double kingship so-called. Of course +the office could not be that of king at all, but there +was the name if not the fact, and that suffices for this +prince of dexterous analogists, Nostradamus. Louis +Philippe will achieve this by the byeways of seduction, +and will usurp successfully his nephew’s throne +(araigner), putting himself in opposition, says Le +Pelletier, to his lawful King. <i>Faire sa perspective</i> +he renders opposition. I do not think this is the +meaning of the phrase. There is an extract from +Fontenelle (I cannot refer to it in his works at +present), in which he speaks of a perspective that +will make an emperor or a beggar out of the same +figure, according to the point of view from which you +regard it. That is an optical illusion. Descartes, +in his “L’Homme,” mentions the pictures placed at +the end of corridors to cheat the eye agreeably, +and adds, “L’exemple des tableaux de perspective +montre combien il est facile de s’y tromper.” And +then there were those perspectives that Holbein +and his contemporaries used to introduce into their +pictures, of a skull, or death’s head, so painted that +you could not quite tell what it was till you reached +the right point of view, when it would suddenly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>contract and draw its elongated self together to a true +skull by a process the reverse of foreshortening. +By the words <i>sa perspective</i>, I conceive that Nostradamus +meant that Louis Philippe brought his deception +to bear against the King.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 69.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 250.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Plus ne sera le Grand en faux sommeil,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’inquietude viendra prendre repos:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dresser phalange⁠<a id="FNanchor_407" href="#Footnote_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a> d’or, azur, et vermeil,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Subjuger Afrique, la ronger jusques os.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le Grand will pretend no longer a false sleep;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His disquietude will now lull itself in security,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Arrange his army under gold, blue, and red,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Subjugate Africa, gnawing it to the very bone.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Louis Philippe, now King, and so become <i>le Grand</i>, +says M. le Pelletier (though, as applied to the individual, +it looks quite like a misnomer), will now unmask +his designs, and take his repose in security. He will +adopt the tricolour of the Revolution and complete the +conquest of Algeria; Pelissier roasting the refugees +in caves, to the very bone. Everything but the word +<i>Grand</i> justifies the interpretation to a nicety.</p> + +<h3><i>Century I.—Quatrain 39.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 251.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De nuict dans lict le supresme⁠<a id="FNanchor_408" href="#Footnote_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> estranglé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour avoir trop sejourné blond esleu,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par trois⁠<a id="FNanchor_409" href="#Footnote_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> + l’Empire subrogé⁠<a id="FNanchor_410" href="#Footnote_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> + exanclé⁠<a id="FNanchor_411" href="#Footnote_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A mort mettra carte⁠<a id="FNanchor_412" href="#Footnote_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> + et pacquet ne leu.⁠<a id="FNanchor_413" href="#Footnote_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When France shall be dominated by three parties,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The last of the family shall be strangled at night in bed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For having lent too much to the fair Capet.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Put to death because a paper and packet were not read.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span></p> + +<p>When France is dominated by three alternately +(Orleanists, Republicans, Bonapartists), the Prince de +Bourbon, Condé, last of his race, shall be strangled, at +night in his bed, for desiring to follow in the suite of +the Duc de Bordeaux. A new will, duly sealed up, +in favour of the Bourbon, but not read, is the cause +of his death. The “not read” means, not read by the +Duc de Bordeaux, in whose favour it was drawn. +The Baronne de Feuchères, whose interests were +allied to those of Louis Philippe, defeated this by the +murder. M. le Pelletier acquits Louis Philippe of complicity +in the crime, but he remarks that the interest +of the baronne was incidentally that of the King. +Her crime was incited by the desire to do away with +the new will, by which she would be a heavy loser. +It is curious that Garencières considers this quatrain +to have been fulfilled in Philip II. of Spain, who had +his own son, Don Carlos, strangled in bed. The +coincidence of the name Philip is singular, but the +remaining two lines he does not attempt to interpret.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 42.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 253.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par avarice, par force et violence</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Viendra vexer les siens chef d’Orleans;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Près Sainct Memire⁠<a id="FNanchor_414" href="#Footnote_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> assaut et resistance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mort dans sa tante,⁠<a id="FNanchor_415" href="#Footnote_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a> + diront qu’il dort leans.⁠<a id="FNanchor_416" href="#Footnote_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">By cupidity and abuse of power, force, and violence,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The chief of Orleans will come to vex his own;</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Near St. Memire resistance will be made;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dead in his palace he will ever after sleep.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Avarice was always the fault of Louis Philippe. +By extortion and abuse he raised resistance at Saint +Meri; in and near the church he forced the republicans +to submission, <i>dort leans</i> a play upon the name, +never again showed energy, but slept a sleep as of +death in his palace (<i>dans sa tente</i>). The insurrection +that was quelled took place on June 5 and 6, 1832.</p> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 89.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 254.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sept ans sera Philipp; fortune prospere:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rabaissera des Arabes l’effort;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis son midy perplex⁠<a id="FNanchor_417" href="#Footnote_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> + rebors⁠<a id="FNanchor_418" href="#Footnote_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a> affaire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jeune Ognion⁠<a id="FNanchor_419" href="#Footnote_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> abismera son fort.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Seven years will Philip’s fortune prosper well;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will defeat every effort of the Arabs;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In his embarrassed middle period all goes against the grain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Young Ogmion will overwhelm his fort.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Fortune will favour Louis Philippe for the first +seven years. He will repress the Arabs. But in the +middle of his reign the Eastern question will spring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>up, and cover him with disgrace (this culminated +July 15, 1840). For the next seven years all will go +against the grain, and the new Republic (<i>jeune +Ogmion</i>) will overturn his throne and his Bastille; the +Paris he thought he had so strongly fortified.</p> + +<p>Garencières again introduces Philip II. of Spain, +and there seems to exist some analogy between these +two kings. The Spaniard also was prosperous for +some seven years, and in the person of his brother, +Don Juan of Austria, beat the Turks in the Battle of +Lepanto. Garencières reads <i>Barbares</i> for Arabs. +Later on he had to put his son to death, and was +opposed by young Ogmion; the King, Henri Quatre, +of France and Navarre.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 92.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 255.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Après le siege tenu dix-sept ans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cing changeront en tel revolu terme:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puis sera l’un esleu de mesme temps,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui les Romains ne sera trop conforme.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">After the throne has been held for seventeen years,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Five shall change when that term has run out:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then, at the same time, one shall be elected,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who will not be very conformable to the wishes of the Romanists.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>After the reign of Louis Philippe, during seventeen +years, five of his sons lost the throne with himself; +and with much manœuvring have never been able to +reapproach it. They were the Comte de Paris, representative +of Chartres, Duc de Nemours, Joinville, +Montpensier, and Duc d’Aumale. The election that +followed was that of Louis Napoleon, whose mixed, or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span>no policy, suited neither the Revolutionary party nor +the Roman Catholics. There is nothing here but the +seventeen years to connect this with Louis Philippe. +For the five who changed with the revolt would be +six if Louis Philippe himself were counted, and he +certainly ought to be. The concluding two lines are +very vague, and may or may not belong to Louis +Napoleon. I merely cite it, as one of the ingenuities +of M. le Pelletier.</p> + +<p>There are three prophecies cited relating to the +Duc de Chartres, which seem fairly well interpreted; +and very wonderful they would be if they stood alone +or related to any one whose fate was of any importance +in the opening scroll of history. All the little interest +of Louis Philippe is centred in himself, and therefore +I omit the three quatrains relating to his son, not +because they are not curious, if rightly interpreted of +the son, but that, even supposing them to be so, the +Duc de Chartres is a person and a character not +deserving of serious mention in history. The gossip +of a barber’s shop in Nostradamus’s own day would +be even more interesting to any rational investigator +of human affairs.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="REPUBLIC_AND_NAPOLEON_III">REPUBLIC, 1848, +AND NAPOLEON III.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3><i>Century IX.—Quatrain 5.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 261.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tiers⁠<a id="FNanchor_420" href="#Footnote_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> doigt du pied au premier semblera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A un nouveau monarque de bas haut:⁠<a id="FNanchor_421" href="#Footnote_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui⁠<a id="FNanchor_422" href="#Footnote_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a> Pyse et Luques tyran occupera,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Du precedent coriger le deffaut.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The third⁠<a id="FNanchor_423" href="#Footnote_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> shall be a stepping-stone to the throne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To a new monarch from low position to the top;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will as tyrant have taken a military post in Tuscany,⁠<a id="FNanchor_424" href="#Footnote_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And will seek to correct the defects of his predecessor.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The National Assembly of 1848 shall serve as a +foot to Louis Napoleon to step from private +life into a conspicuous position. He had in his youth +been concerned in the Revolution of Tuscany, and +purposed correcting the defect of his predecessor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span></p> + +<p>This might mean that he purposed to guide France +better than Louis Philippe had done, or than in four +years the Republic had done, or, which is most +probable from his <i>Idées Napoléoniennes</i>, to carry to +completion the policy of his uncle Napoleon I. I +cannot think it refers to Napoleon II., Duc de +Reichstadt. The entire application of the quatrain +is neither very clear nor very important.</p> + +<p>The quatrain on Cavaignac, I think, is hardly made +out satisfactorily, so I omit it.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 43.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 265.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Par le decide⁠<a id="FNanchor_425" href="#Footnote_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> de deux choses bastards,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nepveu du sang⁠<a id="FNanchor_426" href="#Footnote_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> + occupera le regne:⁠<a id="FNanchor_427" href="#Footnote_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dedans Lectoyre⁠<a id="FNanchor_428" href="#Footnote_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> seront les coups de dards,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nepveu par peur pliera l’enseigne.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">By the fall or ruin of two bastard things</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The nephew by blood will occupy the empire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In Lectoyre there will be deaths by arrow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The nephew will fold up his standard for very fear.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>By the overthrow of Louis Philippe and the Republic, +two bastard governments, Louis Napoleon +will now succeed to the throne, a nephew by blood +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>of Napoleon Bonaparte; and, what is not generally +known, he was the only one of the Bonaparte family +born in the Palace of the Tuileries. In battle afterwards +at Lectoyre (<i>coups de dards</i> must be taken +simply as battle) the nephew will furl his standard +through fear.</p> + +<p>Writing in 1866, M. le Pelletier particularly remarks +that the epoch is left undetermined, and, as to the +enigma of <i>Lectoyre</i>, nothing can be known till the +event has transpired. It may then be interpreted, he +thinks, in some of the idioms known to Nostradamus—Greek, +Hebrew, Latin, Celtic, Languedoc, etc. He +considers the standard to present a further enigma, +and asks “What standard?” This difficulty I do +not quite recognize. The imperial standard that is +adopted by him, whatever it may be. To furl a +standard is to close and shut it up, so that no one +will rally to it any more. It symbolizes that the +cause it represents is brought to the ground finally, +and that it is no longer flying.</p> + +<p>As to the word <i>Lectoyre</i>, we now know that, if it is +to be interpreted at all, it will have to be found in +connection with Sedan,—the noblest reminiscence +connected with which is that it was the birthplace of +that great soldier and greater man, Marshal Turenne. +He may well be called <i>La gloire de Sedan</i>, whilst as +appropriately may Napoleon the Little be designated +as <i>Cédant de la gloire</i>, with that furled ensign, <i>qu’il +par peur pliera</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_429" href="#Footnote_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a>⁠</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span></p> + +<p>After much difficulty and searching I have at last +come upon two old maps, printed at Amsterdam by +Blaeuw; the one dated 1620 and the other 1650, +styled “Les Soverainetez de Sedan.” In both of +these the embattled town of Sedan is given, as seated +on the right bank of the river Meuse, whilst on the +left bank is shown an extensive territory named +<i>Grand Torcy</i> and <i>Petit Torcy</i>. In another map it is +given as <i>Torsy</i>. These maps give no indication of +the points of the compass. But from another map, +indicating them, the river-bend on which the town is +seated appears to run from east to west; and, if so, +Torcy lies south or south-west of Sedan. In a more +modern map it appears as <i>Le Grand Torcy</i> and is +described as lying “sur la route impériale de Mezieres +à Sedan.” Evidently therefore we are entitled to +place <i>Le Torcy</i> at Sedan. The French must determine +for themselves, by their military bureau, whether +the French camp was pitched in the meadows of <i>Le +Torcy</i>; but nothing can alter the great fact, as now +for the first time made plain, that the <i>Nepveu du +sang</i> furled his standard for ever at Sedan or +<i>Lectoyre</i>, as the oracle gives it. Now <i>Lectoyre</i> is the +precise anagram, letter for letter, of <i>Le Torcey</i>, though +the commoner spelling is without the second <i>e</i>, <i>Le +Torcy</i>. If we are to reckon this as being a chance +coincidence, my only further comment will be, that +such chance as this is quite as miraculous as any +miracle in the world could be.</p> + +<p>As regards the words “<i>nepveu du sang</i>,” there was +a caricature very popular in France at the time of the +candidature for the French presidency, consisting of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span>two pictures. In one the Prince de Joinville was +commending himself to the French people for election, +having the young Comte de Paris by the hand, and +saying, “I am the uncle of my nephew.” On the +other side Louis Napoleon presses his suit by pointing +to a statuette of Napoleon Bonaparte and uttering +the words, “I am the nephew of my uncle;” showing +how characteristically <i>nepveu du sang</i> designates +Prince Louis Napoleon. He may almost be said to +have chosen it himself as a cognomen.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VIII.—Quatrain 44.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 267.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le procrée naturel d’Ogmion⁠<a id="FNanchor_430" href="#Footnote_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De sept à neuf du chemin destorner:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A roy de longue amy et⁠<a id="FNanchor_431" href="#Footnote_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> + au my hom⁠<a id="FNanchor_432" href="#Footnote_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Doit à Navarre fort de Pau prosterner.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>I propose here to make the meaning as clear as I +can without a translation.</p> + +<p>Napoleon III. (<i>le procrée</i>), the natural offspring of +the French Republic (Ogmion), will turn from the +right road for seven or nine years before his fall. Le +Pelletier interprets otherwise. He says that the war +in Italy began in the seventh year of the Empire, +1869, and from that date throughout the nine following +years he changed his policy. I think the line +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>means that from seven to nine years before the end of +his reign he changed his policy. That is to say, from +seven years previous to the close of his reign, when +Charles August Louis, Duc de Morny, died, <i>i.e.</i> in +1865; and even for two years previously to that, +things took a different turn. De Morny no longer +exercised active control, and his was the head that +had guided all along. When he died, all ran to distruction. +The <i>roi de longue</i> and his friend <i>my hom</i>, +Le Pelletier states to be Victor Emmanuel and +Garibaldi; one of long race and one of low birth, the +tallow-smelter. I think it is Frederic William, <i>de +longue vie</i>, and Bismarck, the <i>bi-valve man</i>, which it +becomes, if we read it as <i>my-homme</i>. I have a great +idea that <i>à Navarre</i> is a misprint for <i>le nepveu</i>. +Whether <i>fort de Pau</i> may mean with his health re-established +by staying at Pau or not, I cannot say. +But, anyhow, I think that the two last lines are to be +read together, and that he is to prostrate himself to +the King and his friend. Louis Napoleon’s whole reign +must be represented as a failure, if you read it with +Le Pelletier; mine makes it a failure during the last +seven to nine years. My King and friend bring about +the catastrophe far below the date that his will do. My +emendation to <i>le nepveu</i> certainly clarifies the meaning. +The explanation of Pau is not quite so comprehensible +as I could wish; had <i>Ham</i> been a variant it +would have spoken for itself.</p> + +<p>The Quatrain 53 of Century VIII., which I have +already explained as the flotilla of Napoleon Bonaparte, +M. le Pelletier fixes as the ludicrous Boulogne +expedition of Louis Napoleon, and the Italian campaign +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span>after he became Emperor; but I think he +entirely fails in reading the symbols.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 8.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 270.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sera laissé feu vif, mort caché,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dedans les globes, horrible espouvantable,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De nuict a classe⁠<a id="FNanchor_433" href="#Footnote_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> cité en poudre lasché,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La cité à feu, l’ennemy favourable.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Live fire, hidden death, shall be left</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In bombs, a horrible and frightful thing:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By a band at night the city shall be fired with powder;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The city seems on fire, it helps though intended to destroy.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Fulminating mercury (<i>feu vif</i>) in bombs in terrible +explosion contains death hidden. The city, Paris, will +be startled with powder liberated (<i>lasché</i>, loosed) by +assassins by night. The city will seem on fire. But +the enemy (in spite of himself) will prove favourable +to Napoleon. This, of course, is Orsini’s attempt of +January 14, 1858.</p> + +<p>The next verse follows up the thread.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 9.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 271.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Jusques au fond la grand arq⁠<a id="FNanchor_434" href="#Footnote_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> + demolue⁠<a id="FNanchor_435" href="#Footnote_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par chef captif l’amy anticipé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_436" href="#Footnote_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Naistra de dame front, face chevelue,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lors par astuce duc⁠<a id="FNanchor_437" href="#Footnote_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> à mort atrapé.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When the peristyle is thoroughly demolished</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By the chief prisoner, the friend being taken before,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A plot born of the woman, long beard and hairy face;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then by cunning the leader caught will be executed.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The peristyle (<i>la grand arq’</i>) of the opera shall be +completely shattered. Pieri, the friend of Orsini, the +chief captive, is seized beforehand by Hébert, head +of the detective service, who recognized him in the +crowd. The plot was conceived in the secret lodges +of the Demagoguy [<i>de Dame</i>], whose members wear +the beard and hair long. Orsini, the leader of the +whole, will be surprised astutely by the confessions of +Gomez at the restaurant Broggi, whither he had fled, +and, being taken, will be sentenced to death.</p> + +<p>I do not feel very confident as to this interpretation, +but give it much as I find it in M. le Pelletier.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 10.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 272.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un⁠<a id="FNanchor_438" href="#Footnote_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> chef Celtique dans le conflict blessé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Auprès de cave⁠<a id="FNanchor_439" href="#Footnote_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> voyant siens mort abbatre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De sang et playes et d’ennemis pressé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et secours par incogneus⁠<a id="FNanchor_440" href="#Footnote_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> de quatre.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The Celtic chief is wounded in the strife,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seeing death strike down his friends near the theatre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Surrounded with blood and wounds and pressed by enemies,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He escapes the four⁠<a id="FNanchor_441" href="#Footnote_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> assassins, by unknown aid.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The Emperor, slightly struck in the eye by a fragment +of glass, shall see his people strewn in death +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span>about the entrance of the Grand Opera. Pressed by +the conspirators, four in number, he will receive unknown +help; whether of angels or pure spirits, M. le +Pelletier cannot quite say. We now know that he +had still to see Sedan; but it would be curious if pure +spirits had interested themselves greatly to protect +the cold-blooded murderer of the Champs de Mars +and Coup d’État.</p> + +<h3><i>Century VI.—Quatrain 4.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 273.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le second chef du regne D’annemarc,⁠<a id="FNanchor_442" href="#Footnote_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par ceux de Frize⁠<a id="FNanchor_443" href="#Footnote_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> et l’Isle Britannique,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fera despendre⁠<a id="FNanchor_444" href="#Footnote_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> + plus de cent mille marc,⁠<a id="FNanchor_445" href="#Footnote_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vain exploicter voyage en Italique.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The second of the Napoleonic race in power will +cause England and Hanover to expend 100,000 marks +in fortifications and war material. Fearing invasion +after the Orsini effort, he will then exploit the Italian +campaign, though vainly, as he will not reap the +results he looks for.</p> + +<p>This corresponds so clearly with what happened +that probably most will agree that it is a very remarkable +forecast.</p> + +<h3><i>Century III.—Quatrain 37.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 274.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Avant l’assaut l’oraison⁠<a id="FNanchor_446" href="#Footnote_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> prononcée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Milan prins⁠<a id="FNanchor_447" href="#Footnote_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> + d’Aigle par embusches deceus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_448" href="#Footnote_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a>⁠</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Muraille antique par canons enfoncée,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par feu et sang à mercy peu receus.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Before assault a harangue is pronounced;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lombardy is taken by the eagle, being cut off by ambuscade.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An ancient wall driven in by cannon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fire and blood, but little mercy shown.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Before the declaration of war, the Emperor will +pronounce (January 1, 1859), in the presence of the +diplomatic corps, a threatening discourse against +Austria. Lombardy (Milan, part for the whole) will +be ceded by Austria at the Treaty of Zurich +(October 17, 1859); Austria, an old wall, will yield +to cannon, fire, and blood.</p> + +<h3><i>Century V.—Quatrain 20.</i> [<span class="allsmcap">I. 275.</span>]</h3> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De là⁠<a id="FNanchor_449" href="#Footnote_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> les Alpes grande armée passera</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un peu devant naistra monstre vapin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_450" href="#Footnote_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prodigieux et subit⁠<a id="FNanchor_451" href="#Footnote_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> + tournera⁠<a id="FNanchor_452" href="#Footnote_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a>⁠</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le grand Tosquan à son lieu plus propin.⁠<a id="FNanchor_453" href="#Footnote_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a>⁠</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center"><i>Translation.</i></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A great army will pass beyond the Alps,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A little before a prodigious scamp will come to power;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He will drive the grand Duke of Tuscany</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To his nearer home with astounding suddenness.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In 1859 Napoleon III.’s army will pass the Alps. +A little before a prominent scamp will have come to +the front, who will suddenly and in a most startling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>fashion drive the Grand Duke of Tuscany to seek +refuge in Austria (<i>son lieu le plus propin</i>).</p> + +<p>We have to note here that Nostradamus, whenever +he emerges from the impassibility of the <i>secret estude</i>, +it is to exhibit a profound hostility to the genius of +Democracy and Revolution. There is therefore little +doubt but that the powerful epithet here employed +of the <i>monstre vapin</i> relates to the red-shirted +Garibaldi.</p> + +<p>We have now reached the point which covers the +last of the Oracles of Nostradamus that commentary +has yet been able to lay before the world with its +meaning rendered transparent by the correspondence +of interpretation with an event in history. The number +of such correlations of occurrence with forecast falls +immensely short of the number of the quatrains +themselves. In fact, only about one hundred and fifty-one, +out of a thousand. The rest give no scintillation as +yet, but lie without sign of existence traceable, dead as +a flint, till the iron stroke of Time’s heel shall develop +the spark. <i>Lateat scintillula forsan.</i> One or two +Presages and two or three Sixains have been also +resolved. Enough, we trust, has been opened up to +show what a treasure-house it is that we have entered +into, how rich in curiosity, if in nothing more. What +may still lie perdu in the bulky remainder of eight +hundred and fifty it is impossible to say; whether, +though unidentified, they have been realized already, +or are yet to bud in the future. If nothing more be +ever done with Nostradamus than this book gives, +still the work must for one reason or other hereafter +stand out as the most wonderful book of its kind that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span>was ever written or printed in this world. It has +now to go forth and take its chance, good or evil, of +notice or of neglect amongst the mass of printed +matter, largely rubbish, that deluges our life. It is +certainly calculated, so far as it can secure any attention +whatever, to severely shock the prejudices now +prevalent amongst mankind. The half-educated will +find it troublesome to read, and disturbing, perhaps, to +think about; whilst the scientific may even denounce +it as a locust-cloud of darkness mediæval in its +tendency. Undoubtedly it must have the effect that +Nostradamus in his preface to his son (see <a href="#Page_50">p. 50</a>) says +very graphically it will have, “que possible fera retirer +le front à quelques uns.” Although, as he says +again, the forecasts may be clouded, they will be +understood by men of sense, and they will grow +clearer as ignorance dies out (see <a href="#Page_54">p. 54</a>); which +should be our care now.</p> + +<p>To all objectors I rejoin, gentlemen, investigate, +please, all the points in question as searchingly as +you can; find every fault in my work, and in that of +the other Nostradamic commentators, that you can; +expose all that is weak or illusive, wherever you find +it to be so. Let us see, then, how far all the learning +and acuteness you can bring to bear, coupled with +whatever established prejudice, and its rancour at +being disturbed in comfortable somnolency, can +suggest, to overthrow what other men heretofore, and +I now, have taken so much pains to bring together +and give shape to. Consciously I have not set down +a single word with any other desire than that the +truth should prevail; and if your criticism can establish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span>the opposite, I shall still repeat, “Let truth prevail.” +But I do not think you can do this: and if not, there is +only one other thing, open to the learned and the wise +that can be done,—that is, to rewrite their philosophies, +so as to make room for the reception of this rather +awkward piece of truth that has here got in the way +of our old theories, and cannot be got out of the way +again. To the really competent and candid reader +I have nothing whatever to add beyond begging him +to refer back to the closing words of my preface, as +to him they will be found to contain my whole and +entire message.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX.</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>Referred to at <a href="#Page_178">p. 178</a>.</i></p> + +</div> + +<p>The genuine and spurious portraits of Cromwell are numerous +to such a degree, that they may almost be called innumerable; +for they can never be counted, as no one man can get at them +all to reckon them up. Their main authority is said to depend +upon the works of four artists, Lely, Cooper, Walker, Faithorne. +Samuel Butler, the author of the ever-marvellous “Hudibras,” +is thought to have painted a likeness, but it counts for nothing, +as it is not now to be identified as existing in any collection. +The first-named three are painters, the fourth is a great +engraver.</p> + +<p>In all these, Mr. Frederic Harrison professes to discover +“singular resemblance” [“Cromwell,” p. 32,] but considers that +Cooper’s is the most successful of them all. I find the first to be +a most misleading statement, and one that may be disproved by +anybody who will compare Cooper’s likeness, as given in Carlyle’s +“Cromwell Letters” with the picture by Walker in the National +Portrait Gallery. They differ in every particular,—in character, +feature, temperament, and conformation. Scarcely do they +agree even in the wart. There is nothing to identify them as +representing the same individual. Either Lely copied Cooper, +or Cooper copied Lely, and they accordingly, of course, correspond +with each other; but truth is too much sacrificed to +flattery by both these courtly painters, for us to suppose that +their work corresponds very accurately with the sitter. Such +examples of Faithorne as are readily accessible in the Print +Room at the Museum convey no adequate idea of the man. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span>Neither do they resemble Cooper, Lely, nor Walker’s work. +There is a profile print by Houbraken, an excellent performance, +which is interesting as showing that both the chin and forehead +receded greatly. There is also a very peculiar engraving of +Thomas Simon’s medal, which is very beautiful as a work of +art. But here again the facial angle is simply villainous, with +very mean diminutive eyes, and the dress almost clerical. The +engraving from the Cooper at Sidney College gives the wart on +the left brow instead of the right.</p> + +<p>From such discrepant things it seems to me next to impossible +to derive any correct notion regarding the face of +Cromwell, except that the facial angle of the side face must +have been unusually bad. Yet Mr. Harrison is able to express +himself as follows:—</p> + +<p>“No human countenance recorded is more familiar to us +than that broad, solid face with the thick and prominent red +nose; the heavy gnarled brow, with its historic wart; eyes firm, +penetrating, sad; square jaw, and close-set mouth; scanty tufts +of hair on lip and chin; long loose brown locks flowing down +in waves on to the shoulder. His whole air breathing energy, +firmness, passion, pity, and sorrow.” Carlyle’s fancy version is +given below.⁠<a id="FNanchor_454" href="#Footnote_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a>⁠</p> + +<p>This being derived from a falsity, must itself be false. But is +it not somewhat curious that friends and foes of Cromwell +should alike sit down contentedly before this admirably executed +miniature of Cooper’s without devoting a second thought to +its representative value as a portrait of the man in question? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span>Its artistic felicity should be as nothing to the historical inquirer. +Taken as a mere portrait, this Cooper is as valueless as Veronese’s +presentment of Alexander the Great; or as any fancy portrait +of Oliver would be, if sent in by some skilled modern hand to +the next May show at Burlington House.</p> + +<p>Our sense of surprise increases, when we come to remember +that we possess an authentic original to go by, in the shape of a +mask still extant that was taken at death. Historians draw up +rigmarole pen-and-ink portraits of their own, but are all silent +about this, or make only casual mention of it as “the mask +at the Statuaries,” just as though it corresponded in every +particular with Samuel Cooper’s exquisite pigment-figment. +Romancists delight in coloured detail gathered from history; +and historians revel in romance when it saves them from +searching into dry detail. In this case historical gossip slips in +to illustrate the stringent veracity of Cromwell. When Lely +was to take his portrait, he is said to have ordered him to be +faithful in representing every blemish and defect, to paint warts +and all, or he would not be paid. Lely knew what this meant, +and acted accordingly. All portrait-painters flatter, they must +to secure a practice; but, they ought to select the best aspect +possible, for so far it is what it professes to be, a likeness. +Now the strong point with your court painter is, to throw in +skillfully what is not there. In this Lely and Cooper have +succeeded to admiration.</p> + +<p>Walker, in his several portraits, gives us another set of +varieties. His picture in the Portrait Gallery [Granger, “Biog. +Hist.,” iii. p. 290.] with Cromwell’s son Richard as page tying on +the father’s scarf, has been finely engraved by Pierre Lombart. +In this picture, which is a little wooden, we get an average-looking +gentleman going to battle. A man we should have to look +at three or four times before we should individualize him at all +in the memory. Mr. Nobody riding to nowhere particular is +the impression derived. Of the engraving, however, Evelyn +says, and he knew Cromwell perfectly well, “that it gives the +strongest resemblance of him.” He therein physiognomically +discovers “characters of the greatest dissimulation, boldness, +cruelty, and ambition, in every stroke and touch.” I can say +nothing of this, for I have not seen the Lombart engraving. +The picture does not convey the idea.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span></p> + +<p>How pliantly subservient art was in those days, is well +illustrated in another Cromwell engraving by the same Lombart. +This artist had done, after Vandyke, a “Charles on +horseback,” from which he erased the face, and substituted that +of Cromwell. The slender figure of the king had to do duty +for the heavy-built brewer of Huntingdon. But times change, +and we with them. So Peter reinstated the king. There must +be impressions of this turn-face print in its three states; for no +doubt copies were sold at every stage. The King is dead. +God save the Protector! The Protector is dead. God save the +King! The dead lion is never so good for the crowd as the live +ass; irrespective of the latter creature being far more representative. +A quality much sought after in modern governors.</p> + +<p>There is a portrait of Cromwell affixed to Isaac Kimber’s “Life +of Oliver Cromwell,” which he published anonymously [Granger, +iii. 297]. This is pronounced in the “Letters of Mr. Hughes” to +be most like the authentic family pictures of Cromwell. Vertue +engraved it in 1724 for Rapin’s “History of England,” and when +Granger wrote the picture was in the possession of Sir Thomas +Frankland of Old Bond Street. I suppose this to be still in the +hands of the Frankland-Russells of Chequers Court, who also +possess a plaster cast of Cromwell’s face. By the courtesy of +the family I have been permitted to examine this; but it seems +to me of no value, and it has no history.</p> + +<p>We come now to the terra-cotta bust by Edward Pierce, which +is in the National Portrait Gallery, said to be taken from life. +Pierce was an artist in the second generation. His father, of +the same christian name, was a painter, and assistant of +Vandyke. Our Edward was trained for a statuary, and became +the pupil of Edward Bird: he also acted as assistant to Sir +Christopher Wren, and is said to have built St. Clement +Danes under him. He did a bust of Wren, for the theatre at +Oxford, and also one of Newton. He died at Surrey street in +the Strand, and was buried at the old Savoy. This bust of +Cromwell was, to all appearance, modelled by him from a cast +taken from life, and must therefore, as to measurement and bulk, +be of life size.</p> + +<p>I was kindly permitted by Mr. George Scharf, of the National +Portrait Gallery, to take the dimensions of this bust by measurement, +but practically they are not very useful, inasmuch as the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span>head has a great abundance of short curly hair, which of course +in terra-cotta becomes perfectly solid, and thereby increases +the circumference of the head by many inches.</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>The circumference, hair and all, at his brow is</td> + <td class="tdpg">28²⁄₈</td> + <td>inches.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nape of neck to frontal bone, where it unites with nose</td> + <td class="tdpg">15⁴⁄₈</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Breadth from ear to ear at level of the central hole of + each ear as near as can be approximated</td> + <td class="tdpg">6²⁄₈</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>This last measurement is, I believe, correct, but it is a dimension +that only a large forceps could take with perfect certainty. +It is so small, however, that I feel sure that the other two +dimensions must be very far from giving the true osseous formation, +so that several inches will have to be allowed off them +for the hair. Again, the measurement between the tip of nose +and back of head (9⅝ inches) would also require that deductions +be made for a wad of hair at the back. This measurement +when reduced, and coupled with the third measurement given, +indicates an undersized skull for a broad-built man of five feet +eleven in stature.</p> + +<p>As for the physiognomy, the nose, though far from fine, is +somewhat aquiline, and the best of all the features of the face. +The forehead is low, ill-formed, and mean. The mouth firm, +cruel, deceitful. The jowl and chin sensual and gross almost to +brutality. It is the face of a man of low passions, possibly +ambitious, but of great duplicity, of a low-bred type, the type +as of one sprung from a lower stratum of society than his +history indicates him to have sprung from; and you may +readily suppose that in exchanges of course buffoonery with +the roughest trooper of his corps, he would have been quite +within his own province and at home. His mother’s portrait +shows her also to have been a very masculine coarse-featured +woman.</p> + +<p>It is well perhaps to mention here a bust that Grose in a +letter to Granger in 1774, calls “a masterly and spirited bust of +Oliver Cromwell by one Bannier.” It was then in Mr. Gostling’s +collection. He says it is like that engraving given in Rapin’s +“History.” I imagine it therefore to be a fancy rendering, and +of very small historic value.</p> + +<p>The expert historians, and of course the general public +together with them, are perfectly satisfied with the Cromwell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span>presented to them by Samuel Cooper. I confess that I think it +a most laughable presentment, and of quite impossible credence. +I do not think Pierce’s bust to be satisfactory, but I most +certainly consider that it is the only likeness I have had the +opportunity of examining that conveys even a hint of what can +be supposed to be the real appearance of the man. There is +but one way now remaining to settle this question. It is very +much to be regretted that, with so much pretence of a desire +for historical accuracy, we should have allowed two hundred +and fifty years to elapse without making the least attempt to +settle this question.</p> + +<p>We learn from Breval’s “Travels” that at the Old Palace at +Florence there is a cast preserved of Oliver Cromwell. The +mould was obtained from Cromwell’s face <i>a few minutes after +his decease</i>, “through the dexterous management of the Tuscan +resident in London.” This, or a cast from it, ought immediately +to be secured for our National Portrait Gallery. A copy of it +would cost very little in either time, money, or trouble to secure; +and when secured three or four should be cast in bronze, and +placed in different museums so that one fire could not destroy +all of them at once.</p> + +<p>I feel almost sure that it will be found to confirm the bust +of Pierce, as being more like Cromwell than anything else that +we possess. And further, as Pierce’s work is by no means +a grand achievement in the sculptor’s art, I should hope to find +in the Florence cast characteristic indications that are absent +from Pierce’s work. Grandeur of soul is incompatible with such +a face as Pierce gives us. But I confess that I see no grandeur +whatever that could be expressed by a man whose history is +that of Oliver. His base success the world may worship if it +will. I despise success if it must be obtained by Cromwell’s +methods. I observe that the great in history are always mean +in fact; and I well know that you must say to all the men +who have been triumphant, let no probing moralist come near +you. Pitiable and contemptible is the man who can envy the +great in the greatness of their crimes. I do not expect that +the cast, if procured, will make the reading any better for +Cromwell; but, if it should, I am quite ready to give him all the +advantage of it. At present I hold that the face is villainous, +like the man.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent20">“... ducitur unco,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Spectandus: gaudent omnes. Quæ labra? Quis illi</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vultus erat? Nunquam, si quid mihi credis, amavi</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hunc hominem.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Juvenal</span>, x. 66.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Still, love or no love, we have reached the end; and if we +should confirm Pierce, the flesh and bones of the man thus +revived will also confirm the epithets of Nostradamus, which +first induced me to enter upon this investigation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter f90"> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.”—<i>John</i> iv. 19.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat: cœli scrutantur plagas.”—<span class="smcap">Cic.</span>, +<i>Divin.</i>, ii. 13.</p> + +<p>This granted, a pig is nearest wisdom.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Μάντις ἄριστος, ὄστις εἰκάζει καλῶς.—<span class="smcap">Witsius</span>, <i>Miscel.</i>, p. 14.</p> + +<p>The best analogist is the best prophet.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“L’observation des analogies universelles a été negligée, et c’est +pour cela qu’on ne croit plus à la divination.”—<span class="smcap">Levi</span>, <i>Clef des +Mystères</i>, p. 216.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Μαντεῖον, ἐπὶ χείλεσι βασιλέως, ἐν δὲ κρίσει οὐ μὴ πλανηθῇ τὸ στόμα +αὐτοῦ.—<i>Prov.</i> xvi. 10, LXX.</p> + +<p>There is divination on a king’s lips, and judgment fails not in his +mouth.</p> + +</blockquote> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> This noble and enlarged thought is worthy of Coleridge, +who is the greatest thinker of our century, whether you take him +as poet or philosopher. Nobody has yet claimed for him the +pre-eminence which, I believe, to be his. The peculiar, nay, +unique frailties of the man have blinded the men of his own +time to the super-eminent, intellectual, <i>practical</i>, and imaginative +endowments with which he was so affluently furnished. By the +middle of next century, some hundred or so years from his +death, the fact will have dawned upon the world, if not before. +It will then be recognized that such a personality as his, was “a +great birth of time,” and to be registered as such in the deathless +calendar of genius. Saint, seer, and sage was that man. +Not “spoilt in the making,” as the witty Lamb put it, with all +the lambent malice of a friend jocose. We must admit, of +course, some damage that hindered general currency, as also +the attainment of such now worthless cash-results as fell to +beings distinctly inferior to himself, such as Byron, Southey, +Wordsworth, Moore, great as some estimate them to be; and +this failure shut Coleridge out from social success,—that success +which most of us so ignorantly and greedily covet here, because +it makes the present comfortable. But the chief reason, of any +shortcoming hurtful to success, that may be observable in +Coleridge, no doubt arose from his being far too great to be +adequately measured by any of his fellow-men. Many of them +were, it is true, highly capable men as the world goes. Even +Carlyle, however, who has disparaged him, when placed beside +him, dwarfs to a man of Lilliput. We have to bear in mind +always that excellent remark of La Bruyère, “Celui qui ne +prévoit rien, est souvent dupe; celui qui prévoit trop, est toujours +malheureux.” This is true of all prophets, and especially true +of Coleridge.</p> + +<p>But, another thing there is that helps to diminish Coleridge in +the general estimation. He has not completed work enough, in +well set and fixed form, for posterity to be quite able to render +him adequate, that is to say, resplendent justice. His unexampled +conversational gifts have somewhat barred the way to a +due appreciation of his equally unexampled literary potentialities. +His conversational aptitudes have perished in the +moment of their triumphant display. Being without record in +this respect, he suffers precisely as the greatest actor does. +Triumphs of the table and the salon are like the triumphs of +the stage, we can only revive them in spirit, on the basis of +some felicitously appreciative sentence, chance embalmed in +print, that some competent contemporary has ejaculated. I, for +instance, know the overwhelming power of Kean only through +my mother, and the burning phrases left behind by Byron and +Coleridge. But the next generation can have no cognizance of +him beyond those phrases. It is for this precise reason I indite so +long a note as this on Coleridge, out of the pure respect I bear +him for his stupendous intelligence and incommensurable soul. +I have, indeed, tried to put on record elsewhere my impression +of his poetry; but, I have not yet been able to get it printed. +Should it ever be so, it would at least acquire some value from +the fact of its representing, in a limited and qualified degree, +Coleridge’s vivid influence upon one who may partially stand on +the footing of a contemporary. Coleridge is a spirituality in the +world, and his modes of revealing himself are such as lead the +run of mankind to esteem him visionary; but it will be found +that it is they, not he, that must be reckoned “such stuff as +dreams are made of.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Touching this curse to fall on Napoleon, a somewhat +singular analogy arises in comparing with it the axiom laid down +by Thomasius, quoted in Bruncker’s “Hist. Crit. Philos.,” v. 488. +He says that the spirit is, as it were, resident in the centre of all +bodies, and thence emits rays, so extending matter. But +where it draws back the rays from the circumference of the +material to the centre, it soon dissolves and corrupts the body. +<i>Si vero radios ex circumferentia materiæ spiritus attrahat ad +centrum, resolvitur corpus et corrumpitur.</i> If we suppose this to +have taken place at the epileptic seizure of Napoleon, the mental +attack becomes an image or antitype of the battle of Leipsic, +when the swarm of birds beat back the eagle. An interpreter, +such as Joseph, could have told him the meaning of the dream +or swoon. The defeat was first of all rehearsed in the soldier’s +own brain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Οἱ δὲ τὰ ἄτομα καὶ αἰσθητὰ δημιουργοῦσι</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Καὶ σωματοειδῆ καὶ κατατεταγμένα εἰς ὕλην.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><span class="smcap">Stanley’s</span> “Hist. Chald. Phil.,” p. 43.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> To get one thing, one must always forego some other. +Jupiter did not give prescience to Tiresias till Juno had struck +him blind. And for our own great Milton it was necessary he +should have wisdom at one entrance quite shut out, before, in +“Paradise Lost,” he could make men’s memory a prisoner to +his name for ever, in a willing though perpetual serfdom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> The facts for this life are taken, where no other reference is +given, from a scarce work, entitled, “La première face du Janus +François, par Jean Aimes de Chavigny Beaunois, 1594.” It is +found in the Library at Paris; but not in the British Museum. +Fortunately M. le Pelletier gives an almost literal transcript of +this “Brief discours sur la vie de M. Michel de Nostredame.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> “Archives du Magnetisme Animal,” vol. viii. “Tous deux” +(<i>i.e.</i> father and mother) “appartenaient à une famille Juive,” converted +in the sixteenth century, and of the tribe of Issachar +(“Nouvelle Biog. Générale” [Le Pelletier, i. 16 n.]).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> His grandfather, Moreri tells us.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Moreri assigns this to the year 1525.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> He calls Scaliger in the heyday of friendship “a Virgil in +poetry, a Cicero in eloquence, a Galen in medicine,” and +declares that to him he is indebted for his scientific attainments +(“Penny Cyclopædia,” s.v. <i>Nostradamus</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> “That the great bulk of French society of his day was impressed +by his effusions there can be no doubt” (Chambers’ +“Book of Days,” vol. ii., p. 13).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> Moreri says that nobody knows what his report was.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Garencières, as we have shown, says Nostradamus dedicated +the “Luminary Epistle” to Henri II. in 1557. M. le +Pelletier holds (i. 10) that Henri II. never knew of the dedicatory +epistle written to him by name, and that, as the events referred +to do not concern the House of Valois, they could have had no +interest for him had he known of the epistle. M. le Pelletier +adds a most singular note to this remark, that the epistle is +dedicated “<i>A l’invictissime, très puissant, et très chrestien +Henry Roy de France Second</i>.” This epigraph he maintains +not to be addressed to Henri II., for he remarks that he was +no longer alive when it made its appearance. Now, this is not +so; for the dedicatory letter was dated in print June 27, 1558, +and the king’s death only took place in 1559, so that the +document was even in print before his death. But, had it not +been so, there is no reason whatever why Nostradamus should +not have supplied the king with a copy of the letter and +quatrains in manuscript long before either of them had been +committed to type. Jean de Roux, Curé de Louvicamp, +wrongly suggests that it was intended as a prophetical dedication +to Louis le Grand or XIV. M. le Pelletier thinks it was +not even dedicated to the great Henri Quatre, but to a “<i>Henry, +Roy de France Second</i>”—<i>second</i> being the Latin <i>secundus</i>, or +prosperous, <i>i.e.</i> some king not less illustrious than Henri Quatre, +whose reign is to arise in the future. This it is which furnishes +to the reader the secret purpose of Le Pelletier’s book, which is +to set forth the claims of the Duc de Bordeaux, who would +have ascended the French throne as Henri Cinq. Accordingly, +in the body of the book, he has interpreted five quatrains and +one sixain of the prophecies of Nostradamus as referring to this +glorious King <i>Henri Second</i>, who has never arrived, and who, +being now some years dead, never can. We have seen that the +Curé de Louvicamp could even suppose that Louis XIV. could +stand for “Henry, Roy de France Second.” M. F. Buget, in +his “Étude sur Nostradamus,” has the same idea, that he does +not address Henri II., because he was not of a character +sufficiently great to merit the attribution of such spiritual +authority to him by our prophet, as if the flattery of a dedication +was to be interpreted <i>au pied de la lettre</i>. It could only be +addressed, he thinks, to a really great man, a saint. M. Buget, +in his book of 1862, evidently was another of those who made +the fatal error of interpreting Nostradamus out of the future, +instead of carefully following the enigmas thrown out by him to +find their fulfilment in the past. These gentlemen, if they had +assiduously read the Epistle itself, instead of consulting their +imaginative faculties, would have perceived plainly enough that +Nostradamus was writing to the only king he knew, before +whom he had personally presented himself, and whom, as he +says, he had highly reverenced from “<i>iceluy jour que premierement +devant icelle je me presentay</i>.” The concluding words of +the Dedication are equally plain, and show that he is addressing +a king whom he has individually seen with his own eyes: +“<i>depuis que mes yeux furent si proches de vostre splendeur +solaire</i>.” All the rest is to be set down to the strain of courtly +flattery that was customarily addressed to kings, then and down +to a period full two hundred years later, especially on occasion +of penning royal dedications. The purpose of this long note is +to establish, once and for all, I trust, that “<i>Henry, Roy de +France Second</i>,” stands, without any subtlety at all, simply for +King Henri II., and nothing more. It is vain to endeavour to +make millstones transparent that we may shoot unexpected +rays of light through them. They will answer their purpose +by being left in the dark, and will grind grain the better for it. +Transparency will in such cases represent frangibility.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Aulus Gellius, “Noctes Atticæ,” xv. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> It was really in the sixth month of his sixty-third year that +he died.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> <i>Temple Bar</i>, xli. p. 87, authority for the term of years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> How any could have been written in 1567, I know not, as +Nostradamus died in 1566. But, however this may be, there +are twelve <i>Presages</i>, or one for each month throughout the year +1567. The last one is that which we have already given, as +relating to his own death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> The book was entitled, “Les vies des plus célèbres et +anciens poëtes provensaux, qui ont floury du tems des comtes de +Provence” (Lyon, 1575); a book still sought for, and rather rare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> “In 1566 died that trifler, so famous throughout the world, +Michael Nostradamus, who boasted while he lived that he knew +and could foretell future events by the influence of the stars, in +whose name afterwards many ingenious men have put forth +their imaginings, justifying him who said so aptly, ‘Nostra +damus,’ etc.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Bouys does the same for Napoleon I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> See the ban he utters in Century VI., at the close—“<i>Barbari +procul sunto.</i>” He shows a quite Horatian and +heathen antipathy to the <i>profanum vulgus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Cæsar Nostradamus was born at the beginning of 1555, so +he was but a few weeks old when his father dedicated to him +the first four “Centuries,” published for the first time in 1555, +by Macé Bonhomme, the printer at Lyons. In the name of +this son the epistle is really a dedication to his spiritual sons; +that is, to his interpreters and students in all future ages.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Lymphatics, Garencières (p. 16) tells, were anciently those +who were mad for love; and he absurdly adds that the sign of +it was, that such persons threw themselves into the water,—<i>lympha</i> +meaning water. Varro says that in Greece those who +were mad were called νυμφολήπτους, which means caught by +nymphs. Festus, to fit this, thinks that men went mad by +seeing the image of nymphs in the water fountains. Others +have it that they were afraid of water, as if it were hydrophobia +that possessed them. But <i>nympha</i> and <i>lympha</i> approach each +other so nearly, that when a man is once caught by a nymph +he is, for the time being, mad to all intents and purposes,—“it +is not given to a man to love and to be wise.” Leaving all this +to be settled as it may, there is no question but in the medical +technology of Nostradamus a deep melancholy is what was +understood by the Lymphatic motion,—melancholy being the +temperament most apt for study, poetry, and vaticination. +Garencières invents a word for the occasion, or uses one that +has since grown obsolete. He employs the verb <i>lymphatize</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> “Such alone as are inspired by the divine power can predict +particular events in a spirit of prophecy.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> “Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, +<i>i.e.</i> from the powerful and from kings, and hast revealed them +to the small and weak.” This is Nostradamus’s gloss upon +Matt. xi. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Acts i. 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Nostradamus seems, whenever he alludes to this appearance +of flame as preceding vaticination, to have in his mind the +descent of tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts ii. 3), διαμεριζόμεναι +γλῶσσαι ὡσεὶ πυρός. A flame of fire, be it observed, conveys a +double symbol: it resembles a tongue in form. Its luminousness +and its purifying tendency express the celestial nature of +spirit, as contrasted with matter, and also inspiration. So that +intrinsically and extrinsically it represents prophetic utterance. +Grotius contributes an unusually good note upon this passage, +pointing out that as in Genesis (xi. 9), confusion of tongues +scattered mankind, so here (Acts ii. 3) the gift of tongues was +to bring men again into one brotherhood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> This passage is very difficult to bring to a clear sense in +translation. Garencières has simply evaded it. It seems to +mean that God operates all the great effects in the universe; +that, as He is the Maker, so is He the perpetual operator in the +world,—its cause and life; but that the guardian angels are +good and bad, and are charged with some sort of duty and +office, not as affecting the mechanic frame of the world, but in +respect of mankind. This is in conformity with the Cabala +and Hermetical teaching; but what he precisely means cannot, +I think, be quite absolutely stated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> “He who is called prophet now, once was called seer.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> “For all things are naked and open.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> “I am able not to err, fail, or be deceived.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> “Whence it shall not deviate from age to age.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> “I will visit their iniquities with a rod of iron, and with +blows will strike them.” This somewhat resembles a passage +in the Psalms (ii. 7), but it is not a quotation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> “I will trample them and break them, and not show pity.” +This resembles Isai. lxiii. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> In prose, and not in verse, as the quatrains are. These +prose forecastings have, I am afraid, been altogether lost.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> “When the time arrives for the removal of ignorance.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> “When Minerva was free and favourable.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> “There can be no truth entirely determined for certain +which concerns the future.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> See Joel ii. 28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> Which proceeds from fate, but from God, and nature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> “Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee, to release +the children of death” (Ps. lxxviii. 11).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> “The sea blushed red with the blood of naval fights.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> “Many things, O most potent king of all, of the most remarkable +kind are shortly to happen, that I neither could nor +would interweave them all into this epistle; but in order to +comprehend certain facts, a few horrible destinies must be set +down in extract, although your amplitude and humanity towards +all men is so great, and your piety to the gods, and that you +alone seem worthy of the grand title of the most Christian King, +and to whom the highest authority in all religion should be +deferred.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> Romance tongue, <i>sele</i> for <i>selle</i>, tripod seat, <i>tripode æneo</i>, such +as the priestess of Apollo or Pythia sat on to deliver oracles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Latin, <i>prosperare</i>, to succeed, or realize an experience.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> <i>Qui</i> for <i>ce qui</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Latin, <i>virga</i>, branch or wand.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> Latin, <i>limbus</i>, hem, border, fringe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, in, or through.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> Ex Michaele Psello, <i>de Dæmonibus</i>. Works of Marsilius +Ficinus, ii. 884, ed. 1641, folio.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> This refers to some Good Friday evening on the 10th +Calend of April Old Style, as set forth in the first line of this +quatrain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> This is exhibited in the third line of the quatrain: <i>Le feu +estainct, assemblée diabolique</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> Æneid, iii. 92 and vi. 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Old word for <i>jamais</i>, never.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> Latin, <i>a</i>, by.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> Bouys [<i>Oracles</i>, p. 103] says that the King alone had the +right to a visor of pure gold. I believe this to be pure nonsense. +It would be little stronger than lead. It merely means a gilt +casque, and I think some of the accounts say so in as many +words. If Bouys were right, the King courted death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Greek, κλάσις, breaking or lopping.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> Latin, <i>una</i>, the one or first.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> See also Brantôme, <i>Vie des hommes illustres de son temps</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> <i>Qu’en</i>, for <i>qui en</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Romance, for <i>lutte</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> <i>Porté</i>, pour <i>remporté</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> Latin, <i>subito</i>, suddenly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> Romance, <i>surprins</i> for surpris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Romance, <i>surprins</i> = <i>surpris</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Latin, <i>exspoliare</i>, totally despoiled.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> Romance, for <i>pris</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Romance, <i>hostaige</i>, maison, house, palace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> Romance, <i>tiers</i>, third.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Latin, <i>trucidare</i>, cut the throat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> Latin, <i>inconditus</i>, dispersed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Greek, σάρπος, wooden case, coffin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> <i>Sortiront bas</i>, for <i>d’en bas</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> Latin, <i>infernus</i>, subterranean.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> Romance, <i>vefve</i>, veuve. The word is made here to apply +to the wife, Mary Stuart, whom he leaves a widow without +children. The grammatical effort is somewhat violent; but <i>vef</i> +or <i>veuf</i> is the masculine form, so there is very little choice given.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> In the quatrain this ought to be written <i>eage</i>, as it stands +in the <i>texte-type</i>, or the line will not scan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Près</i>, for après.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> This is how M. le Pelletier renders the last line.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> Italian, <i>piloto</i>, pilot.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> Latin, <i>mandatus</i>, appointed to a charge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Latin, <i>classis</i>, fleet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> Romance, <i>contrebandé</i>, marching in a contrary band.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> <i>Ordo</i> is, <i>Venise craindra une armée de barbares qui viendra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> This line is a foot short. Garencières reads:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le coup volant luy crevera un œil.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> <i>Noir</i>, anagram of roi, cutting off <i>n</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Arcs tendus</i>, arquebus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> Latin, <i>tantum</i>, much.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> The family name of Pope Gregory XIII. was Hugo Buon-Compagni. +On May 13, 1572, he was made Pope. He assumed +the name of Gregory out of respect to St. Gregory Nazianzen. +He caused the Church to encourage the murder of refractory +kings; he promoted the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, +which Sir Paul Rycaut, the historian of the Popes, does not so +much as mention in the life of Gregory. He only says towards +the end that “he may be numbered amongst the good Popes.” +As Buon-Compagni was a good lawyer before he became a good +Pope, he was pre-qualified for a virtuous career in any line of +life. He re-confirmed the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth; +he rectified the Calendar which goes by his name,—the Gregorian. +The Jesuits’ College was finished by him at Rome, +dedicated so oddly—</p> + +<p class="center">Religioni et bonis Artibus.</p> + +<p>In his day Japan was, by Jesuit missionary effort, brought +within the pale of the Church: on which a wit remarked that +Japan varnish was introduced into Europe, and Christian varnish +into Japan. He died at eighty-three, and to the last could +almost mount on horseback without the help of his servants. +His place of retirement, Rycaut says, was Frescati, about ten +miles distant from Rome, where the Borghese Palace now is, +and was then called <i>Monte Dragone</i>—a most fit name for the +residence of the <i>Old Worm</i> of St. Bartholomew’s massacre.—<i>V.</i> +Paul Rycaut, “Lives of the Popes,” ed. 1688, vol. ii. p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Will sound in full volley.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> These letters are interpreted by the old commentators and +Guynaud (p. 107) as meaning the peace concluded with Philip II. +of Spain: V., cinq, S., sucesseur, C., Charles—<i>i.e.</i>, Successor to +Charles Quint.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> Romance, <i>vefve</i> = veuve, widow.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Latin, <i>qui</i>, celui qui.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> Latin, <i>ductus</i>, led.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> <i>Appaiser</i>, for pour apaiser.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> <i>Pourchas</i>, old word, pursuit, active intrigue (<i>proquassatio</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> Razes, tonsured priests and monks (<i>têtes rasées</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Greek, πεσσικός, draught-playing, or gambling. The word +was applied to gaming by the Greeks, as we find a story in +Plutarch [Liddell and Scott, Lex.], exhibiting Hermes as playing +draughts (on the πεσσευτήριον) with Selene, and winning five +days, which he adds to the year. Guynaud (p. 119) reads <i>poche</i>, +which I take to be an abscess, wolf, or devouring ulcer; both +he and Le Pelletier interpret it as meaning Poland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> <i>Plaindre</i>, for se plaindre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> <i>Guiere.</i> Nobody explains this word, and yet it seems to +stand much in need of it. It is given by Roquefort, as from +<i>gubernator</i>, a general. Leader, or we may say <i>dux</i>, for the Duc +d’Alençon. It is really <i>guides</i> or guide. <i>Guber</i>, <i>govern</i>, <i>guide</i>, +being all three cognate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> Latin, <i>decisus</i>, cut off, severed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> This term is applied to Poland by Nostradamus in allusion +to its elective throne, which became purely venal—a thing at +last coming to be played for as a hazard at dice. But, curiously +enough, the less authentic reading <i>poche</i> is almost equally +descriptive—a burning ulcer eating into the body politic till it +destroys it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> Latin, <i>virtuosus</i>; according to M. le Pelletier “vigorous.” +Classical Latin has no such word, and the lower Latin means +<i>probus</i>, <i>bonis moribus et virtute præditus</i>. Nostradamus probably +meant <i>vertueux</i>, in old French, to be equivalent to +<i>robuste</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> <i>Aloi</i>, the quality of the substance of a metal. The battle +of French etymologists is very instructive over this word, as may +be seen in Littré. Of course, however, it comes from <i>à loi</i>, conformable +to law. But I think there is a misprint, and that we +ought to read <i>toute loi</i> = <i>toute la loi</i>. Guynaud (p. 122) reads <i>loi</i> +in the second line for <i>foy</i>. We might suppose that that variant +had been introduced to correct the fourth line, and was only by a +“devil” carried to the second instead, by which that imp of +mischief contrived to leave two errors in place of one. In +confirmation somewhat of this, the <i>texte-type</i> reads <i>tout à loy</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> Latin, <i>ira</i>, anger.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Ordo, deux mourront par ire, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Romance, <i>prins</i>, pris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Romance, <i>joyne</i>, jeune homme.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Romance, <i>cultre</i>, couteau.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> Latin, <i>perpetratio</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> <i>Husne</i>, a small tower, or belvidere.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> Romance, <i>murtre</i>, meurtre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> Latin, <i>pernicies</i>, destruction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Romance, <i>esmues</i>, émus, seditious.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> <i>Tien</i>, for <i>tienne</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> Latin, <i>Lætitia</i>, joy, pleasure, and play on <i>Lutetia</i>, Paris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Romance, <i>cavilleux</i>, cavillers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> <i>Mendosus</i>, anagram of <i>Vendosme</i> (the <i>u</i> standing for <i>v</i> +of course). The <i>texte-type</i> reads <i>Mandosus</i>; but as <i>Mendosus</i> +is the perfect anagram of Vendosme, and makes also the Latin +word’s meaning <i>full of faults</i>, it is best to read <i>Mendosus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> <i>Norlaris</i>, anagram for Lorrains the patronymic of the Guise +family.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> Romance, <i>esleu</i>, <i>élu</i>, chosen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> <i>Cape</i>, for <i>Capet</i>, a descendant of Hugh Capet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Latin, <i>tacite</i>, silently.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> <i>Norlarin</i>, anagram for <i>Lorrain</i>; here it represents the Duc +de Mayenne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> <i>Qu’à</i> for <i>qui à</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> Romance, <i>si</i> for <i>très</i>, very.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> Latin, <i>traditor</i>, traitor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> His body shall be dragged through the streets in the mud +of the gutters.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> <i>Robin</i>, anagram for <i>Biron</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> Romance, <i>sceu</i> for <i>su</i>, known.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> <i>Lafin</i> was the name of the secretary, the accomplice of +Biron.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> The ordo here is <i>dans l’Espagne amye</i> which means, then +at peace with Henri IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> Romance, <i>poste</i>, messenger, postillion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> <i>La plume au vent</i> is supposed by le Pelletier to stand for +<i>currente calamo</i>. I should rather think it means the feather +(wing) to the wind. It was written with a quill, and started on +its way as a bird flies; but <i>irrevocabile semel emissum</i>. We +are to understand this line to relate to l’Oste’s treasonable +complicity with Spain, of which an account will be given further +on. Also, <i>l’escrivain</i>, in the closing line stands for the same +individual.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> We shall see that the two Spanish couriers were arrested +at the post office in Paris. Le Pelletier confuses all this from +not happening to know that l’Oste is the scrivener, so he +applies it to the affair of Lafin, whose messenger, when carrying +Spanish despatches, had thrown them into the river when he +found himself pursued. Unfortunately, when he finds himself +in the difficulty which this involves him in, he glozes till he has +forced the words to fit his erroneous view. He had far better +have stated the difficulty, and said that he could not harmonize +the text. But he very rarely trips thus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> <i>Le Grand Chyren</i> is the anagram of <i>Henri le Grand</i>. +Before mounting the throne, he bore the name of Vendosme, +from his father Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme and King +of Navarre. In the first Quatrain of the series, <i>Henri Quatre</i>, +<i>Vendosme</i> was anagrammatically given as Mendosus; as to +<i>Chiren</i> it is the precise anagram of <i>Henri</i>, as spelt in the +old language <i>Henric</i>, from the Latin <i>Henricus</i>. Numerous +etymologies have been assigned to Henry. Camden derived it +from <i>honore</i>, Verstegan from the Teutonic <i>Han</i>, a haven, and +<i>Rice</i>, Saxon for rich. Killian writes it <i>Heynrick</i>, or <i>Heymrick</i>, +rich home. This is very nearly right, but now it is generally +considered that <i>rick</i> stands for powerful; so chief of a house or +district.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> <i>Los</i>, old word for glory. Latin, <i>laus</i>.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“A la sainte divinité,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Soit <i>los</i>, honeur, et potesté.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Le Mystère des Actes des Apôtres.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> Latin, <i>victor</i>, conqueror.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> <i>Dauffois</i>, for <i>Dauphinois</i> synonym, for <i>Dauphin</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> <i>Portera</i>, for supportera, says Le Pelletier. For my part, it +seems best to leave it to its natural rendering, that he will +carry his colours into Nancy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> Latin, <i>obturare</i>, to shut up in.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> <i>Prouvés</i> is for approuvés.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> <i>Delivré</i>, is for livré.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> This is a play upon words, unrecognized by Garencières, as +he did not know that <i>Clerepeyne</i> was the name of the man who +cut off Montmorency’s head, although, of course, Garencières +is quite alive to the fact that the quatrain refers to Louis XIII. +and the great Montmorency. In Latin <i>clara pœna</i> means +celebrated punishment. Here is another instance of the +mention of a name of an obscure individual that history for +a moment flashes light upon, and then drops him back into the +mud of oblivious ooze for ever,—emblem apt of Fame! This +was written, if not printed, a good eighty years before Clerepeyne +became the midge-mote of a sunbeam upon that late autumnal +day in history, when the night struck chilly on high roofs in +Dauphiny.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> Latin, <i>decisus</i>, suppressed cut off.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> <i>Ne monstres.</i> I think there is a printer’s error here in the +<i>texte-type</i>, and that we should read <i>le monstre</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> <i>Double</i>, diploma, or duplicate of a treaty.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> Latin, <i>ille aquâ ductus</i>, he that is taken by water.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Richelieu, if you examine him by Philippe de Champagne’s +splendid triple portrait of him, hanging in our Gallery, may be +read as if in life by any physiognomist who pleases to devote +the time to it. I have gazed many a time, through long years, +with gifted friends and others, and oftener still alone, into those +heartless eyes, attracted irresistibly (I only now see why) by the +vast discrepancy between the world-wide renown of this French +Minister, and his cynically petty face—sly, vulpine, unfeeling, +unprincipled, spiteful, a coxcomb of feminine manners, of an +egotism and paltry vanity inordinate, but of a refinement, +showing the highest social culture, a tongue that could gloze +with ladies; he might, by <i>lettre de cachet</i>, have shut up a French +Walsingham in the Bastille to prevent his own overthrow; but as +to coping with him or a Burleigh as a statesman, as an equal in any +powerful cabinet in Europe, by force of character, he could not +have done it. Artifice, backed by the force of France, then rising +into unity of action, or helped by circumstances that tied the +hands of his antagonist, he might even throw a giant unawares. +Richelieu was an artificial contriver, not a born ruler, if a +mature face of fifty be any index to the volume or memoir of +a man’s life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Arrange these words, <i>l’animal domestique à l’homme</i>, i.e. +<i>the dog</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> Latinism, <i>fulmen à virgâ</i>, saltpetre; that is, the powder and +ram-rod.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> Romance, <i>si</i>, synonym of <i>très</i>, very.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> Romance, <i>prinse</i>, <i>prise</i>, taken, brought.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> The <i>chien</i> is the cock or hammer of the lock.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> Added to the text in the edition of 1605.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> <i>Paux</i>, plural of <i>pal</i>, <i>pieu</i>, a term of blazonry, stake.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Read <i>cors</i>, horns.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> Æmathien, or Emathion, Le Pelletier says, son of Cephalus +and Aurora, who opened the gates of the morning to the sun. +I do not find this account of him anywhere. Cephalus is the +chaste Joseph of mythology, tempted by Aurora. But Hesiod +makes him father of Phaeton by her. Possibly M. le Pelletier +has mistaken Æmathion for Phaeton. Generally, Emathion +is reckoned as son of Titan and Aurora, and a king of +Macedonia. His connection in some way however with the +sun is certain, and this suffices for the use made of his name +by Nostradamus. Ἠμαθίων is given by Suidas as a proper +name. Now, Ἠμάθιος is <i>daily</i>, with but the change of one letter. +Further than this Ἠμάθιος is Macedonian, and Alexander is +called <i>Emathius dux</i>, as in Milton, “the Emathian conqueror +bid spare;” implying that Louis le Grand should be a counterpart +to Alexander the Great, an impostor who also pretended +birth from Apollo. By which flight of ambition he bastardized +himself by choice, dishonoured his mother, and put his father +outside the door. Shakespeare says, “By this sin fell the +angels;” but a too prosperous fool seems equally ready to +annihilate himself by it, and all belonging to him, of his own act.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, through.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> Romance, <i>emmy</i>, entre, between.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> <i>Phi</i>, for Philip.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> Latin, <i>classis</i>, fleet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> <i>Corseque</i>, Romance for Corsica.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> Romance, <i>esgrongné</i>, or <i>esgruné</i>, pulverised.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Turn this; when Æmathion shall build Hercules.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> Latin, <i>felinus</i>, like a cat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> <i>La barque</i> of St. Peter, the Holy Seat, Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a> Latin, <i>tentare</i>, to assail.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a> <i>Phocen</i> is another reading. Marseilles, founded by the +Phocians, <span class="allsmcap">A.C. 660.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> Old word for west, or sundown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, because of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Voiles</i>, for vessels.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> Latin, <i>classis</i>, fleet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a> Latin, <i>Narbo Martius</i>, Narbonne, in the department de +l’Aude, said to be so called from its founder <i>Martius</i>. [See +<a href="#Page_160">p. 160</a>, <span class="allsmcap">IX. 38.</span>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a> Romance, <i>si</i>, very.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> <i>Cap</i>, for Capet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> Ordo. He who shall succeed to the great monarch dead.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> <i>Faudra</i>, future tense of <i>faillir</i>, fail, or disappear.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> Latin, <i>gens</i>, nation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> <i>Franche</i>, for <i>gent Franche</i>, French nation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, by reason of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> Latin: <i>Aries</i> sign of the Ram.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> <i>Bastarnie</i>, corresponding to ancient Poland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> Romance, <i>nay</i>, <i>né</i>, born.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> <i>Lonole</i>, anagram for Ὀλλύων, destroying, from the verb +ὀλλύειν, to destroy. Destroyer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> <i>Donra</i>, for donnera, will give.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> <i>Topique</i>, flowers of rhetoric, oratory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When hempe is sponne,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">England’s done.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">When Elizabeth was in the flower of her age, Bacon remembered +well to have heard the above; hempe standing for +Henry, Edward, Mary and Philip, and Elizabeth. “Which,” +says he, “thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of +name; for that the King’s style is now no more of England but +of Britain.” Observe the wonderful propriety of the words used +by Nostradamus. He noted at the right spot and instant a +national change of name; a point of precision that nine out +of ten lettered Englishmen would fail to reply to correctly, +in answer to the sudden question, When was England first +called Great Britain? It would be interesting to know the +history of this “trivial prophecy” as his lordship calls it, for it +has a good deal of the true spirit of forecast in it. It certainly +was genuine, as it evidently was known to the narrator as being +in circulation before it was accomplished.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> Romance, <i>dechassé</i>, simply <i>chassé</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, by reason of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> Latin, <i>ira</i>, anger.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> Romance, <i>tracer</i>, follow a road, track.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> <i>Contre</i>, à côté de, opposite, or near to.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a> Italian, <i>macellaio</i>, butcher, from Latin <i>macellum</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> Romance, <i>nay</i>, né, born.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> <i>Pempotam</i>, a shocking word made out of Greek and Latin +πᾶν—<i>potens</i>, all powerful.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a> Latin, <i>Copia</i>, military forces.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> Latin, <i>Lusitani</i>, Portuguese.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> The full title runs: “The Prophecies of Nostradamus concerning +the fate of all the Kings and Queens of Great Britain +since the Reformation, and the succession of his present Majesty +King George, and the continuation of the British Crown in his +most serene Royal House to the last day of the world. +Collected and explained by D. D., 1715.” This book is in the +British Museum. I do not know whether it is scarce or not. +It is not common, for I never meet with it in booksellers +catalogues.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> Hume has very ably handled this important question in his +Seventh Essay (Hume’s “Philosophical Works,” iii. 373, Edinburgh, +1826). He there sets out that it is no modern invention +as some have maintained, for the Asiatics combined against +the Medes and Persians, as Xenophon shows in his “Institutions +of Cyrus.” Likewise Thucydides exhibits the league +formed against Athens, which led to the Peloponnesian war, +as being grounded on this principle. Afterwards, when Thebes +and Lacedæmon disputed the supremacy, Athens always threw +her strength into the lighter scale to preserve the balance. She +was for Thebes against Sparta till Epaminondas won at Leuctra, +and then she immediately changed sides, as of generosity, but +really jealous to preserve the balance. If you will read +Demosthenes, he says, in the Oration for the Megapolitans you +may “see the utmost refinements on this principle that ever +entered into the head of a Venetian or English speculatist.” +On the rise of the crafty Macedonian he again bugled the alarm +to Greece, which brought the banners together that fell at +Chæronea. The principle was right, but the too great delay +had knit Fate’s smile into a frown. Envy (if you like to call it +so, but I call it a jealous prudence) must in a community of +States prevent any one from overtopping, as Athenian ostracism +expelled the citizen who grew too lush and vigorous for a communion +in equality. Hume points out with perspicuous beauty +how England went too far. Her emulous antagonism to France +made her so alert to defend her allies that they could count +upon her as a force of their own. The expenses consequent +upon this imprudent course led to funding, <i>i.e.</i> the <i>National +Debt</i>; and that has led us into an absurd meekness, a dread of +war, and the peace barkings of the Quaker Bright; so that +England dares not fire a howitzer when Russia, contrary to her +most solemn pledges, annexes Merv, Bokara, and Khiva, and +cannot find one word to say when Germany has her foot on the +throat of France. Blunders in extravagant advocacy, blunders +in parsimonious neglect of a principle, do not diminish its +importance; they only emphasize it. With a prophecy out of +dry reason Hume says it will become “more prejudicial another +way, by begetting, as is usual, the opposite extreme, and +rendering us totally careless and supine with regard to the fate +of Europe.” That is how we now stand. In a very recent +French cyclopædia, <i>l’équilibre Européen</i> is said to be quite +a modern idea, with nothing corresponding to it in antiquity. +The writer pretends that it originated with the Church, and that +Podichad the King of Bohemia sent Marini to Louis XI. to +point out the necessity there was for a <i>Parliament of Kings</i> to +adjust matters between the Church and people. This may be +the first form of a Congress. Francis I. carried on the same +policy, and Henri IV. extended it to an idea of a Christian +republic of federated nations, as against a universal monarchy. +This idea enabled Cromwell to meddle as European arbiter, +whereas he ought only to have acted as moderator and equalizer +of parties. Leibnitz called the House of Hapsburgh a continual +conspiracy against the rights of the people, and Richelieu got +the <i>equilibrium</i> established and introduced at the Treaty of +Westphalia, as a principle of the law of nations, though with the +concomitant of <i>Congresses</i>. The princes so assembled plotted +against Poland, as might have been anticipated, and in the +course of seventy years they were enabled entirely to break +up the Balance of Power in Europe. Cromwell, Richelieu, +Napoleon, and Bismark, by force, finesse, chicane, and brutal +bluntness, have overturned the very groundwork of the principle. +The English, having at first stirred up war by means of subventions, +have now tumbled, only too laxly, into the stupid +doctrine of non-intervention. Congresses should never have +been allowed. These “Parliaments of Kings” can only do +mischief, as they have no controlling power to refer to. They +lack a <i>King</i> above the Parliaments, and as that is <i>impossible</i>, +Congresses can only meet for evil. The strongest are irresistible +in such congregations. The weaker can get no justice +and no sympathy. If they take the field, everybody is against +them; if they submit, they are despoiled without hope of a +remedy: whereas, formerly, a wrong done might excite a feeling +of justice in a neighbour, and so induce him to help; or, where +justice was weak, fear of similar treatment might opportunely +bring forth the required aid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> <i>Si</i>, for très.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> Read, <i>Qui mettra les Anglois en déconfiture</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> Observe here how very different is Clarendon’s estimate of +James I. from the trash that Sir Walter Scott indulges in at +the King’s expense, in those romances of his from which half the +world draw their notions of history.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, during.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> Variant, <i>le tertre</i>, the knoll or rising ground.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> D. D. reads here <i>ne dira t-on qu’ouy</i>, and I think the +sense requires it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> Historical discrepancies ought to be chronicled, for they +confuse all investigation, and force every conscientious new +comer to commence the whole work over again. A writer in +the “Book of Days” pretends to be particularly accurate +(ii. 309), noting that “the storm in reality happened on Monday, +August 30, and must have been pretty well spent before the +Friday afternoon, when Oliver breathed his last.” Rosse, in his +“Index of Dates,” says (v. <i>Storms</i>) that there was one on +September 3. Carlyle (“Cromwell Letters,” iii. 457) chronicles +the stormy Monday, but not the stormy Friday. Hume says +a violent tempest “immediately succeeded his death.” Clarendon, +who may be supposed to know better than any of them, +writes (v. 648, ed. 1731:) “And this now was a day (<i>i.e.</i> the +Friday) very memorable for the greatest storm of wind that had +ever been known, for some hours before and after his death.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a> This, of course, is “living on barley bread,” as everybody +translates it. I think, however, it has reference to the phrase +<i>faire ses orges</i>, to enrich one’s self unscrupulously at the expense +of others. If that be so, it becomes excellently applicable in +the present context. [Noël.] He had sown his wild oats, and +now began <i>à faire ses orges</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> <i>Tant</i>, should, I think, be <i>temps</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> Greek, κόπτειν, to strike = <i>coup</i>; it may even stand here for +a <i>coup d’état</i>. [Borel.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> Construction is <i>mettant à des plus grands le pied sur la +gorge</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a> <i>Foudre</i> metaphorically, saltpetre, here fireballs. The belief +at the time was that the fire was the work of incendiaries, +and it has never been disproved, though it has been ridiculed +by those who set up for liberty and enlightenment. The +Illuminati will not allow London to have been thus burnt by +others; and it is quite certain that they themselves will never set +the Thames on fire. What Nostradamus asserts here, history +has asserted. That is enough for the present purpose.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> <i>La dame.</i> Garencières takes this for St. Paul’s, once +dedicated to Diana, who is the ancient dame. We may take +it for the mother Church, if we like; and it would not be using +much violence if we read <i>le dome</i>, for that might very well mean, +as in the Latin, <i>doma</i>, house or church, as St. Jerome uses it—<i>Domus +Dei</i>, in fact.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> <i>Cherra</i>, future of the verb <i>choir</i>, tomber, to fall.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> <i>Secte.</i> By this Garencières thinks is meant the eighty-seven +churches that were burnt with St. Paul’s, belonging to the same +Protestant sect. We might read <i>sorte</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> <i>Luite</i>, Romance for <i>lutte</i>, battle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> Variant, <i>Luy, satallites la mort degousteront</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> Esleut, or <i>esleu</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a> Romance, <i>dechassé</i>, driven away.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> <i>Versée</i>, for <i>renversée</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> In this high-wind of revolution men will mask their countenances +with the cloak of hypocrisy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a> Latin, <i>vexata</i>, troubled.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> <i>Oncques</i>, never, <i>nunquam</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> Romance, <i>ne</i>, <i>ni</i>, nor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a> The order is “<i>Qu’avint oncq’</i> plus d’horreur ni plus pire à +Babel qu’il n’adviendra aux Romains par les journaux.” This +is M. le Pelletier’s reading, and he interprets it of Voltaire, the +encyclopedists and journalists of the seventeenth century, who +assailed the faith and the Church of Rome. But surely the one +like Hannibal was Napoleon, and the <i>journaux</i> in this old +speech does not stand for <i>journals</i> and newspapers that had no +existence, and therefore no name in the time of Nostradamus. +<i>Journal</i> meant a day’s work, such as could, in ploughing, be +done by a man with two oxen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, whilst.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> Latin, <i>pro</i>, for.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> <i>Cruches</i> = urns, Cinerary urns. Garencières read <i>urnes</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> <i>Sainte Dame</i> I take to be equivalent to our English <i>Halidom</i>, +consisting of <i>Holy</i> and <i>Dome</i>—a terminative seen in kingdom +and Christendom, and signifying rule or lordship. It has also +been written as <i>Holidame</i>, as if referring to the Virgin Mary. +Of course, if that were the correct etymology, it would furnish +the exact rendering of <i>Sainte Dame</i>: but, as it is, it is equivalent. +A voice feigning that of the Blessed Virgin may well be represented +by a voice feigning that of religion and faith. I take this +from Garencières, and not the <i>texte-type</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> <i>Sublimis</i>, high, elevated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a> Latin, <i>obnubilare</i>, to cloud, obscure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Romance, <i>comprins</i>, <i>compris</i>, contained in.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> <i>Sens</i> = <i>sans</i>, without.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a> <i>Chief</i> = <i>chef</i>, God.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> Latin, <i>munimen</i>, rampart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> Rapis, anagram, for <i>Paris</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> Latin, <i>nunquam</i>, never.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> <i>Arroi</i>, for <i>desarroi</i>, disorder.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> “On désigne quelquefois sous ce nom un habitant d’Alexandrie +dont le véritable nom est Néopol, qui fut martyrisé sous +Dioclétien. Outre ce Saint, dont la vie est complètement inconnue, +les bollandistes font mention d’un Napoléon, brillant +cavalier, neveu de Cardinal Fossa-Nuova, qui se tua en tombant +de cheval à Rome en 1218. Saint Dominique, temoin de la +douleur du pauvre cardinal, ressuscita le jeune homme. Napoléon +reconnut ce bienfait en menant une vie fort chretienne et, quand +il fut mort pour tout de bon, l’Église le béatifia. Toutefois, il +n’avait pas sa place fixe dans le calendrier. Ce fut Pie VII. qui +lui assigna pour sa fête la date du 15 août, dans le but sans +doute de plaire à Napoléon Bonaparte.”—“Grand Dictionnaire +Universel du dixneuvième Siècle,” par M. Pierre Larousse, tom. +xi. p. 804. Paris: 1874.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> Latin, <i>tantum</i>, so much.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> Romance, <i>outre</i>, beyond.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> Latin, <i>castula</i>, tunic. It was a kind of petticoat worn by +women next the skin, and fastened under the breasts, which it +left exposed. It stands here for the goddess of Republican +Liberty, which is generally represented in this dress of the +Roman virgins.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> Latin, <i>incerta</i>, uncertain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> <i>Par</i> = <i>per</i>, Latin, by reason of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> A variant is <i>trombe</i>. We are told that the modern commentators +find in this word the anagram of <i>Rome</i>, by syncope +of <i>t</i> and <i>b</i>. So you might in <i>rompu</i>, by substitution of <i>e</i> for <i>p</i> +and the elision of <i>u</i>. But as no good comes of doing either, I +should suggest to leave them alone.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> <i>Le part</i> is the same word as in the last quatrain, and stands +here for the husband.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> <i>Solus</i>, Latin for <i>seul</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> <i>Mary</i>, or <i>marri</i>, is from the old word <i>Marrir</i>, <i>s’affliger</i>, and +means afflicted, full of grief.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> <i>Trahyr.</i> <i>Trahitor</i>, <i>trahiter</i>, from Latin <i>traditor</i> = <i>traître</i>, +English traitor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> <i>Coutaux</i> M. Le Pelletier takes as soldiers. <i>Par coutaux</i> = <i>per +custodes</i>. They betrayed him into the hands of guards. I think +it may also mean <i>coustiller</i>, a soldier armed with the <i>coustille</i>, +a short, straight cutlass.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> <i>Avons</i> = <i>avus</i>, grandfather.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> A variant reads <i>pour</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> Construe <i>Trop de bon temps</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> <i>Legier</i>, for légèrement. Romance language.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> <i>Par</i>, for Latin <i>per</i>, because of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> <i>Tantum</i>, Latin, very.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> <i>Venustus</i>, Latin, comely.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> <i>Faict</i>, Latin, <i>factus</i> made.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a> <i>Face</i>, Latin, <i>fax</i> torch.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> <i>Aduste</i>, Latin, <i>adustus</i> burnt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> <i>Chef</i>, head.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> “Le corps et la tête placés dans un panier d’osier sont à +l’instant même portés au cimetière de la Madeleine, jetés +aussitôt dans une fosse profonde de douze pieds, ouverte de six, +garnie et recouverte de chaux vive, et dissous immédiatement. +On l’inhume auprès des personnes qui avaient péri le 20 mai, +1770, jour de la fête donnée par la ville de Paris, à l’occasion de +son mariage, et auprès des Suisses morts dans la journée du +10 août.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> <i>Ergaste</i> is <i>estrange</i> in Pierre Rigaud’s edition. Ἐργαστήρ +is a workman, and M. le Pelletier says <i>Ergaster</i> is Latin. It may +be, but I do not find it in Facciolati, though <i>ergastulum</i>, a +workhouse, is there given. When Marie Antoinette was in the +Temple, she was reduced to working with her hands, like a +workwoman (<i>ergaste</i>). But <i>ergaste</i> is the anagram of <i>estrange</i>, +the one letter <i>n</i> excepted. Probably <i>estrange</i> is the preferable +reading, inasmuch as Marie Antoinette was an Austrian, and so +<i>étrangère</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> <i>Prins</i>, Latin, <i>prensus</i>, taken, captive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> <i>Pellix</i>, Latin, <i>pellex</i>, prostitute.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a> Qui = Latin <i>cui</i>, to which.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> Alquiloye = <i>Aquilæ lex</i>, law or rule of the Imperial Eagle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> <i>Subit</i> stands for <i>subito</i>, suddenly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a> <i>Tiers</i> = third.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> <i>Vuidez</i> = Latin, <i>videte</i>, see.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> <i>Que</i> = how much.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_269" href="#FNanchor_269" class="label">[269]</a> <i>Forneron</i> = Latin, <i>fornax</i>, furnace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_270" href="#FNanchor_270" class="label">[270]</a> <i>A</i> is the Latin <i>a</i>, privative.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_271" href="#FNanchor_271" class="label">[271]</a> <i>Cappe</i>, is put for <i>Capet</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_272" href="#FNanchor_272" class="label">[272]</a> <i>En bref</i>, <i>temps</i>, understood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_273" href="#FNanchor_273" class="label">[273]</a> <i>Ne</i>, again used for <i>ni</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_274" href="#FNanchor_274" class="label">[274]</a> <i>Sacrés</i>, for <i>consacrés</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_275" href="#FNanchor_275" class="label">[275]</a> <i>Prime</i>, Latin, <i>prima</i>, first.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_276" href="#FNanchor_276" class="label">[276]</a> <i>Gofres</i> is deep, profound.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_277" href="#FNanchor_277" class="label">[277]</a> <i>Cultements</i>, Latin, <i>cultus</i>, worship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_278" href="#FNanchor_278" class="label">[278]</a> <i>Tiendront fort</i>, will struggle hard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_279" href="#FNanchor_279" class="label">[279]</a> <i>Detranchés</i>, Romance for <i>tranchés</i>, <i>tête</i> understood.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_280" href="#FNanchor_280" class="label">[280]</a> <i>Infelice</i>, Latin, unhappy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_281" href="#FNanchor_281" class="label">[281]</a> <i>Le</i> to be understood before <i>conjoindra</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_282" href="#FNanchor_282" class="label">[282]</a> <i>Marrit</i>, afflicted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_283" href="#FNanchor_283" class="label">[283]</a> <i>Scome</i>, Latin, <i>scomma</i>, gibe, taunt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_284" href="#FNanchor_284" class="label">[284]</a> <i>Istra</i> = <i>ira</i>, will go, or will go forth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_285" href="#FNanchor_285" class="label">[285]</a> <i>Mont</i>golfier, the inventor of ærostatics.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_286" href="#FNanchor_286" class="label">[286]</a> <i>Qui</i>, Latin for who, a man who.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_287" href="#FNanchor_287" class="label">[287]</a> <i>Prins</i>, taken.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_288" href="#FNanchor_288" class="label">[288]</a> <i>Sext</i>, for <i>sextus</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_289" href="#FNanchor_289" class="label">[289]</a> <i>Mansol</i>, <i>man</i>, <i>sol</i>. <i>Manens solus</i> means celibate, or priest +under vows.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_290" href="#FNanchor_290" class="label">[290]</a> Latin, <i>incitatus</i>, agitated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_291" href="#FNanchor_291" class="label">[291]</a> <i>Pont</i>, pour Pontificat, or Pontifex.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_292" href="#FNanchor_292" class="label">[292]</a> πολύς, grand, considerable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_293" href="#FNanchor_293" class="label">[293]</a> <i>Man. sol.</i>, <i>manens solus</i>, as before.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_294" href="#FNanchor_294" class="label">[294]</a> The ordo is, les deux prochains destrois fuiront le tarasc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_295" href="#FNanchor_295" class="label">[295]</a> <i>Prochain</i> = proche parent, who partakes in a heritage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_296" href="#FNanchor_296" class="label">[296]</a> ταραχή = tumult.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_297" href="#FNanchor_297" class="label">[297]</a> Romance, <i>destrois</i>, afflicted, dejected.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_298" href="#FNanchor_298" class="label">[298]</a> <i>Mars</i>, god of war.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_299" href="#FNanchor_299" class="label">[299]</a> <i>Augur</i>, for Roman priest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_300" href="#FNanchor_300" class="label">[300]</a> <i>Gens</i> is Latin for <i>nation</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_301" href="#FNanchor_301" class="label">[301]</a> <i>Boreas</i> is north wind, or north.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_302" href="#FNanchor_302" class="label">[302]</a> <i>Classis</i>, Latin, is a body of men, used here as army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_303" href="#FNanchor_303" class="label">[303]</a> The ordo is, [où elle] aura poussé son armée trop loin vers +le nord.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_304" href="#FNanchor_304" class="label">[304]</a> <i>Seur</i> = sœur.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_305" href="#FNanchor_305" class="label">[305]</a> <i>Fatum</i>, Latin, fate, destiny.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_306" href="#FNanchor_306" class="label">[306]</a> <i>Duira</i>, for conduira.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_307" href="#FNanchor_307" class="label">[307]</a> Δαν-αρχή, Princedom of Dan. The old Kings of Denmark +pretended to derive from Dan, seventh son of Jacob, it is said.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_308" href="#FNanchor_308" class="label">[308]</a> Γῆς υἱός, son of earth. <i>Terræfilius</i>, giant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_309" href="#FNanchor_309" class="label">[309]</a> <i>Unda</i>, wave, <i>onde</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_310" href="#FNanchor_310" class="label">[310]</a> The title of this book is “Machiavel Commenté par Nᵒⁿ +Buonaparte,” 1816, published by H. Nicolle, 12, Rue de Seine. +I have a copy, but there is none in the British Museum. The +Preface and the Introductory Discourse on Macchiavelli are +full of ability. The translation of the “Prince” in French +occupies the left-hand column of each page, and seems well +done; on the right-hand column are given the emperor’s annotations, +where they occur, otherwise it stands blank. They are +severally initialled G., R. C., or E—General, Republican Consul, +Emperor,—according to the period at which Napoleon may +be supposed to have written them. Some of the remarks are +clever, but perhaps scarcely show the grip of Napoleon; which, +whether right or wrong, was always that of an iron vice. I +now imagine it to be an ingenious forgery, but it is quite curious +enough to merit further inquiry. This footnote, it will be seen, +does not correspond with what I have said in the text. I wrote +that under the impression that the document was genuine, and +it would be just, if the book were true. But I leave it as it +is, though it tells slightly against myself, as the contrast, between +the first and second thoughts seems to me instructive. It +shows that, let a man walk by right faith or by wrong, he must +steer by the belief that is present with him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_311" href="#FNanchor_311" class="label">[311]</a> <i>Signum</i>, ensign, standard, or perhaps symbol of rule or +domination.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_312" href="#FNanchor_312" class="label">[312]</a> <i>Sceptrum ferre</i>, sceptre-bearing, reigning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_313" href="#FNanchor_313" class="label">[313]</a> <i>Siége</i>, position, situation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_314" href="#FNanchor_314" class="label">[314]</a> <i>En séjour</i>, permanent, durable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_315" href="#FNanchor_315" class="label">[315]</a> <i>Coq</i>, the Gallic cock.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_316" href="#FNanchor_316" class="label">[316]</a> <i>Tago</i>, or <i>tango</i>, to touch or take, le Pelletier says; but it +does not yield very good sense. Perhaps τάγμα, a regular body +of soldiers, in Dion Cassius it stands for the Roman <i>legion</i>. +Garencières reads here <span class="smcap">Tag</span> <i>à misère</i>, “The <i>tag</i> to misery,” and +says it is wretchedness to come from Portugal to France, <i>Tag</i> +being the <i>Tagus</i>, on which Lisbon is situated. This might be +interpreted well to mean the mischief arising to the empire +from the successes of Wellington in the Peninsular war.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_317" href="#FNanchor_317" class="label">[317]</a> The jay, of course, is Esop’s Fable of that bird, tricked out +in finer feathers than its own. The elegant rendering by La +Fontaine [iv. 9, Ed., 1838] of <i>Le Geai paré des plumes du Paon</i> +had, when Nostradamus wrote, not then taken shape. The +original is so accessible, that it may suffice to give here the +English version.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“A peacock moulted, and a jay.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Assumed the feathers fine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And, strutting in a peacock-way,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thought ‘now I look divine.’</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The first who met him laughed outright;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Others he found to sneer;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The peacocks voted him a fright,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His brother jays all quizzed ‘the sight,’</div> + <div class="verse indent2">But none would have him near.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Of biped jays like this, there are</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thousands from here to Zanzibar;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">We call them ‘plagiarist!’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But hush! For setting souls ajar</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Is not my line, I wist.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_318" href="#FNanchor_318" class="label">[318]</a> This curious phrase manifestly points to Napoleon wearing +short hair, in military fashion, as distinguished from the flowing +locks of the line of Capet,—shaven as contrasted with bewigged. +This is one of the many coincidences that connect the Commonwealth +of England with the French repetition of it at the Revolution. +Croppies, or Roundheads, distinguished the sanctimonious +insurgents of the Commonwealth from the cavaliers +with their flowing locks. The Tory cavaliers wore wigs; the +Whigs undermined the bewigged.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_319" href="#FNanchor_319" class="label">[319]</a> <i>Sordide</i> should be written <i>sordid’</i>, and <i>teste</i>, <i>test’</i>, if we wish +the line to scan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_320" href="#FNanchor_320" class="label">[320]</a> <i>Puis</i>, for <i>depuis</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_321" href="#FNanchor_321" class="label">[321]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, pendant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_322" href="#FNanchor_322" class="label">[322]</a> Latin, <i>vexare</i>, raise, inflate, according to Le Pelletier; but +Facciolati gives no such meaning. “Vexed Bermoothes” gives it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_323" href="#FNanchor_323" class="label">[323]</a> <i>Dextera</i>, Latin, right hand, or sword hand.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_324" href="#FNanchor_324" class="label">[324]</a> <i>Discorde</i> should be <i>discord’</i>, or the line will not scan. +These may be minor matters, but those who think them unimportant +are not wise. It is an excellent rule in literature to let +nothing remain wrong that can be set right by a little scholarship +and industry. In the world it is very different; there you +should never put anything right, for everything wrong has a +host of latent friends, that will fight very savagely in its defence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_325" href="#FNanchor_325" class="label">[325]</a> <i>Cappe</i>, for Capet, says M. le Pelletier. The texte-type gives +a variation here as <i>la Chappe</i>. This yields no help at all, except +as showing by the variant that there is something wants altering. +The line will not scan as it is. I think it should be altered to +<i>le Cap</i>. If it stands for Capet it is masculine, and when it +occurred before, in Quatrain 20 of Century IX., it was given as +<i>Esleu Cap</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_326" href="#FNanchor_326" class="label">[326]</a> These two lines furnish an hyperbaton and will be best +transposed, that the great Prince will have married a woman +before the divine wrath falls upon him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_327" href="#FNanchor_327" class="label">[327]</a> This is equivalent to <i>tout d’un coup</i>, suddenly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_328" href="#FNanchor_328" class="label">[328]</a> This line is too long by a foot; <i>appuy et credit</i> mean the +same thing, and one should be omitted. The line should be +corrected thus:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Et son appuy à un coup viendra mince.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_329" href="#FNanchor_329" class="label">[329]</a> Par is Latin, <i>per</i>, throughout.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_330" href="#FNanchor_330" class="label">[330]</a> Equals <i>qui en</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_331" href="#FNanchor_331" class="label">[331]</a> The texte-type furnishes <i>porter</i>, with <i>porte</i> as a variant. M. +le Pelletier embodies this in his text. I should replace the +word that he excludes. Further, I should regard <i>passera</i> as +being a form of the Latin <i>patior</i>, and the French <i>pâtir</i>, and +therefore read <i>pâtira</i>. <i>Porter pâtira</i> will then mean suffer it +to bear. <i>Charge</i>, for the scansion, should be <i>charg’</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_332" href="#FNanchor_332" class="label">[332]</a> <i>Grande</i> should be <i>grand’</i>, for the scansion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_333" href="#FNanchor_333" class="label">[333]</a> <i>Tranchera</i> should read <i>il tranchera</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_334" href="#FNanchor_334" class="label">[334]</a> <i>Esclavonie</i> is put for modern Hungary.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_335" href="#FNanchor_335" class="label">[335]</a> <i>Olestant</i> is another variation of the nom fatidique de +Napoleon, p. 171, from ὄλλυμι, to destroy, ὀλέσθαι.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_336" href="#FNanchor_336" class="label">[336]</a> <i>Poussée</i>, for <i>repoussé</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_337" href="#FNanchor_337" class="label">[337]</a> <i>Entour</i> should be <i>entour’</i>, for <i>entouré</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_338" href="#FNanchor_338" class="label">[338]</a> <i>Entour</i> here is for <i>entourage</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_339" href="#FNanchor_339" class="label">[339]</a> <i>Cymbres</i>, κύμβη, cymbals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_340" href="#FNanchor_340" class="label">[340]</a> <i>Tube</i>, <i>tuba</i>, trumpet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_341" href="#FNanchor_341" class="label">[341]</a> <i>Sonnaillons</i>, literally, bell-ringing, but perhaps clarion may +serve.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_342" href="#FNanchor_342" class="label">[342]</a> This line cannot be scanned; we must read <i>de l’Aquillon</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_343" href="#FNanchor_343" class="label">[343]</a> This requires, for both grammar and scansion, <i>grande</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_344" href="#FNanchor_344" class="label">[344]</a> The <i>E</i> in <i>contre</i> must suffer elision, thus: <i>contr’</i>. It is right +in Garencières’s.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_345" href="#FNanchor_345" class="label">[345]</a> κύμβη, is a cup, usually, in Greek. M. le Pelletier gives κύμβος +as a cavity or precipice. I find no such meaning as precipice. +There is a great difficulty to settle the meaning here. Κύμβη +means a cup, a boat, a wallet, and also, is like κύβη, the head. We +should perhaps simplify the issue by confining ourselves strictly +to the Latin word, <i>Cymba</i>, which is boat or skiff. Always +a light boat, as in the Georgics, i. 136, where the little boats +were made of <i>alnos cavatas</i>, the riverside alders hollowed out. +It is rather a craft for a small lake than for the sea; as Ovid +charmingly puts it:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Non ideo debet pelago se credere, signa</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Audet in exiguo ludere cymba lacu.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">But, then, what sense would it yield, “a man being between two +boats, tied hand and foot?” Between two abysses, M. le Pelletier +interprets; but, then, we do not find that, either in Greek or Latin, +the word yields that meaning. He interprets it of Elba and +St. Helena. But was an island ever called an abyss; I think as +seldom as ever κύμβη meant one. Hesychius gives κοῖλος μυχός, a +hollow recess, the penetralia of the women’s apartments, and he +adds also βυθός, the depth of the sea, to explain κύμβος. In +Martinius’s “Lexicon Etymol.,” there is a very curious quotation +from Isidore, Bk. 19., which makes the <i>cymba</i> to be the space +occupied by a ship in the displacement of the water beneath it. +I think out of all this we may extract a meaning for the <i>deux +cymbes</i>. As two places, or recessed prisons, hollowed out of the +sea, he shall be put, bound hand and foot. The line, to scan +correctly, should have the word <i>et</i> left out.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_346" href="#FNanchor_346" class="label">[346]</a> <i>Fitine</i>, φυτόν, plant, scion, child.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_347" href="#FNanchor_347" class="label">[347]</a> <i>Pocillator</i> is cupbearer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_348" href="#FNanchor_348" class="label">[348]</a> <i>Faucer</i> is fauser, to trick.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_349" href="#FNanchor_349" class="label">[349]</a> <i>Scyphus</i>, cup. There is a singular appropriateness in this +word, whether intended or not by Nostradamus, for Athenaeus +describes the Bœotians as first using huge silver drinking-cups, +or scyphi, which were denominated Herculean, because Hercules, +who was very fond of feasting, used such, and first invented the +cry of “no heel taps!” <i>ut libantes nihil in calice vini relinquerent</i>. +The reader will bear in mind the <i>Hercules de Gaule</i> of a former +quatrain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_350" href="#FNanchor_350" class="label">[350]</a> <i>Itales</i>, <i>Ætalia</i>, Elba.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_351" href="#FNanchor_351" class="label">[351]</a> <i>Par mer</i>, Gulf of Genoa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_352" href="#FNanchor_352" class="label">[352]</a> <i>Forains</i>, Latin, <i>foris</i>, strangers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_353" href="#FNanchor_353" class="label">[353]</a> <i>Sauf</i>, Latin, <i>sabous</i>, English, safe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_354" href="#FNanchor_354" class="label">[354]</a> <i>Sauf de</i> coup de feu.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_355" href="#FNanchor_355" class="label">[355]</a> <i>Le dard du ciel</i> is the thunderbolt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_356" href="#FNanchor_356" class="label">[356]</a> Latin, <i>ferire</i>, to strike.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_357" href="#FNanchor_357" class="label">[357]</a> <i>Estandue</i> is standard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_358" href="#FNanchor_358" class="label">[358]</a> Latin, <i>gens</i>, nation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_359" href="#FNanchor_359" class="label">[359]</a> Latin, <i>monstrum</i>, prodigy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_360" href="#FNanchor_360" class="label">[360]</a> <i>Morts</i> should be read <i>Meurt</i>, perhaps, as referring to +Napoleon, who showed great delight, it is said, when he found +that Wellington intended to fight him. It cannot refer, as Le +Pelletier would have it to do, to the celebrated <i>mot</i> of Cambronne +or General Michel, as it has been proved that it was never +uttered at all, but manufactured by a wit <i>après coup</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_361" href="#FNanchor_361" class="label">[361]</a> The stone is in the tree. Le Pelletier would here understand +<i>silex</i>, the flint axe of primitive ages. This seems to me to be +very far fetched, and I would rather read, with Garencières, +the stone into thunderstone or aerolite, which seems to be far +less forced.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_362" href="#FNanchor_362" class="label">[362]</a> Hyperbaton: the construction is <i>feront entrée a Paris clos +d’armée</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_363" href="#FNanchor_363" class="label">[363]</a> Latin, <i>clausus</i>, shut, cut off from the French army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_364" href="#FNanchor_364" class="label">[364]</a> <i>Forche</i>, fourchu, or forked. Latin, <i>furca</i>, hooked.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_365" href="#FNanchor_365" class="label">[365]</a> <i>Commettre</i>, ellipsis for <i>se commettre</i>, to come to blows with +any one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_366" href="#FNanchor_366" class="label">[366]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, through, or by means of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_367" href="#FNanchor_367" class="label">[367]</a> Latin, <i>duo</i>, a second repetition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_368" href="#FNanchor_368" class="label">[368]</a> Consigning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_369" href="#FNanchor_369" class="label">[369]</a> <i>Plus fors</i>, read <i>plus forts</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_370" href="#FNanchor_370" class="label">[370]</a> <i>Malignus</i>, Latin, a criminal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_371" href="#FNanchor_371" class="label">[371]</a> <i>Fera</i> should be <i>feront</i>, I think.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_372" href="#FNanchor_372" class="label">[372]</a> <i>Avint</i> I take to mean <i>avant</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_373" href="#FNanchor_373" class="label">[373]</a> <i>Viendra</i> for <i>viendront</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_374" href="#FNanchor_374" class="label">[374]</a> <i>Onque</i> should be <i>oncq’</i>, to scan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_375" href="#FNanchor_375" class="label">[375]</a> <i>Italie</i> is the reading of the <i>texte-type</i>. Bouys reads <i>Itale</i>, and +then the line will scan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_376" href="#FNanchor_376" class="label">[376]</a> <i>Estrangiers</i> was probably pronounced as of two syllables +only, but it is difficult to make this line scan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_377" href="#FNanchor_377" class="label">[377]</a> <i>Fautes</i>, to be taken as shortcomings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_378" href="#FNanchor_378" class="label">[378]</a> <i>Si</i>—very.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_379" href="#FNanchor_379" class="label">[379]</a> Latin, <i>victor</i>, conqueror.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_380" href="#FNanchor_380" class="label">[380]</a> Latin, <i>Imperator</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_381" href="#FNanchor_381" class="label">[381]</a> Latin, <i>factum</i>, action, act.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_382" href="#FNanchor_382" class="label">[382]</a> <i>Congnu</i> = connu, known.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_383" href="#FNanchor_383" class="label">[383]</a> <i>Sang</i>, son or grandson.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_384" href="#FNanchor_384" class="label">[384]</a> <i>Mathien</i>, Æmathien.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_385" href="#FNanchor_385" class="label">[385]</a> Latinism, <i>factus</i>, made, become.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_386" href="#FNanchor_386" class="label">[386]</a> Latin, <i>superator</i>, rule, dominator.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_387" href="#FNanchor_387" class="label">[387]</a> Latin, <i>gens</i>, nation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_388" href="#FNanchor_388" class="label">[388]</a> <i>Humble</i> = humiliated, perhaps <i>humblée</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_389" href="#FNanchor_389" class="label">[389]</a> Latin, <i>per</i>, by reason of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_390" href="#FNanchor_390" class="label">[390]</a> The order is, “venu à cause des pleurs de la superbe +nation humiliée.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_391" href="#FNanchor_391" class="label">[391]</a> The original text is corrupt here, but this yields the best +sense.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_392" href="#FNanchor_392" class="label">[392]</a> <i>Desrobé</i>, withdrawn, or shut up.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_393" href="#FNanchor_393" class="label">[393]</a> Fossano is the alternative reading, a town in the Sardinian +States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_394" href="#FNanchor_394" class="label">[394]</a> Keeper of the hounds and greyhounds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_395" href="#FNanchor_395" class="label">[395]</a> Latin, <i>patratus</i>, done, committed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_396" href="#FNanchor_396" class="label">[396]</a> The Tarpeian rock at Rome.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_397" href="#FNanchor_397" class="label">[397]</a> Latin, <i>Leo</i>, the astronomical sign of the Lion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_398" href="#FNanchor_398" class="label">[398]</a> <i>Dechassé</i> = chassé, chased away.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_399" href="#FNanchor_399" class="label">[399]</a> <i>Estrange</i> has again the meaning of foreign, or out of the +family.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_400" href="#FNanchor_400" class="label">[400]</a> The order is <i>après avoir chassé le cerf aux champs</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_401" href="#FNanchor_401" class="label">[401]</a> <i>Donront</i> = <i>donneront</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_402" href="#FNanchor_402" class="label">[402]</a> <i>Celuy qu’en</i> = <i>Celuy qui fera qu’en</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_403" href="#FNanchor_403" class="label">[403]</a> Latin, <i>Claudus</i>, lame. This Le Pelletier has before endeavoured, +with surprising dexterity, to show to be the Duc de +Bordeaux.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_404" href="#FNanchor_404" class="label">[404]</a> This whole line is difficult. <i>Araigner</i>, in the Romance +language, is said to mean to plead and gain a cause against +another. The <i>court</i> and <i>long</i> we had before, in Century VIII., +57, applied to Napoleon, as rising from a soldier to the long-robed +Emperor; here he had to refer to Talma to teach him +how to carry it. Now, again, it means the rise from a mere +dignitary to Kingship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_405" href="#FNanchor_405" class="label">[405]</a> Latin, <i>qui</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_406" href="#FNanchor_406" class="label">[406]</a> <i>Sparte</i> = Paris. The letters <i>te</i> may be considered as one +letter, the <i>e</i> being mute. It will then convert, according to the +rule of the anagram.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_407" href="#FNanchor_407" class="label">[407]</a> <i>Phalange</i>, flag, standard, writes M. le Pelletier. As far as +I can discover anything, this statement appears to be entirely +erroneous. The word “phalanx,” as connected with matters +military, always signifies a body of men in military order. It +may in the plural even stand indefinitely for armies. In the +singular it is very confusing. It may stand for a party of twenty-eight +men or eight thousand (Potter’s “Antiquities,” ii. 56). +Danet says six thousand men. Gibbon introduces one of his +constantly recurring slovenly phrases about it,—absurd in fact, +but philosophic in form. He is comparing the legion with the +phalanx (i. 22), and tells us, “It was soon discovered by reflection, +as well as by the event,” that it could not contend with +the legion. It is obvious here, that if it had been discovered by +reflection it would never have been tried by the event. This +somewhat justifies the sarcasm of Porson, that schoolboys ought +to be set to translate Gibbon into English. As a pleasing +variety, Smith sets the number when complete at about sixteen +thousand men. One feels inclined to say that these classical +guides are conveying us to that ditch, which is never far to seek, +when the blind are leading the blind. Martinius, in his curious +“Lex. Phil.,” cites Pliny to show that the Africans first fought +the Egyptians <i>fustius</i>, with staves, which they called <i>phalanges</i> +in the plural, or <i>phalanx</i> in the singular, so that it is an African +word. פלג, in Hebrew <i>phalag</i>, is a staff. Also there is a spider +called <i>phalangion</i>; and as the pikes of the first five ranks in a +<i>phalanx</i> were interlaced, they were somewhat like a web of +staves. Many may regard all this as extremely useless; perhaps +they will concede that it is curious; if so, I shall consider it to +be useful. I have long found that whatever is very curious is +useful. It sets the mind agreeably in movement, and often +throws a new light on things that previously had no interest +and seemed obscure. At any rate, we have now established +that <i>phalange</i> is not to be rendered <i>standard</i>, but troops, army.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_408" href="#FNanchor_408" class="label">[408]</a> Latin, <i>supremus</i>, the last.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_409" href="#FNanchor_409" class="label">[409]</a> The order is, “Quand l’Empire sera exanclé par trois +subrogés.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_410" href="#FNanchor_410" class="label">[410]</a> Latin, <i>subrogatus</i>, substituted; read <i>subrogés</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_411" href="#FNanchor_411" class="label">[411]</a> <i>Exancillatus</i>, subdued to, under the yoke of.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_412" href="#FNanchor_412" class="label">[412]</a> Latin, <i>charta</i>, paper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_413" href="#FNanchor_413" class="label">[413]</a> Romance, <i>ne leu</i>, not read.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_414" href="#FNanchor_414" class="label">[414]</a> <i>Sainct Memire</i> is the anagram of S’Meri. To make this +pass, M. le Pelletier drops one <i>m</i> and one <i>e</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_415" href="#FNanchor_415" class="label">[415]</a> <i>Tante</i> is to be read <i>tente</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_416" href="#FNanchor_416" class="label">[416]</a> <i>Leans</i> is an old word for <i>là dedans</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_417" href="#FNanchor_417" class="label">[417]</a> Latin, <i>perplexus</i>, troubled.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_418" href="#FNanchor_418" class="label">[418]</a> <i>Rebors</i> = <i>rebours</i>; <i>à rebours</i> is against the grain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_419" href="#FNanchor_419" class="label">[419]</a> <i>Ognion</i> is <i>Ogmius</i>, the Celtic Mercury or Gallic Hercules. +It has figured in 1792, 1848, and again after the German war, +1872. At the two first periods they put the figure of this +Hercules on their five franc pieces, with that idle exergue, +<i>Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité</i>. This vocable, <i>Ogmion</i>, is equivalent +to <i>Oignon</i>, onion, or bulbous root of the lily. If there could +be any doubt at all about this, Nostradamus has taken care to +remove it, calling it <i>le grand mercure d’Hercule fleur de lys</i>, in +Century X. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_420" href="#FNanchor_420" class="label">[420]</a> <i>Tiers</i>, pour <i>le tiers</i> État. The third order now claiming to +govern itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_421" href="#FNanchor_421" class="label">[421]</a> <i>De bas haut</i>, for <i>de bas en haut</i> elevated from a low to a higher +and conspicuous position.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_422" href="#FNanchor_422" class="label">[422]</a> Latin, <i>qui</i>, he, who.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_423" href="#FNanchor_423" class="label">[423]</a> The third estate will serve, as a toe of the foot to the first +rank, a stepping-stone to place.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_424" href="#FNanchor_424" class="label">[424]</a> Lucca and Pisa stand for all Tuscany, where, in 1831, Louis +Napoleon and Charles Bonaparte, his elder brother, had, with +one cannon served by himself and a few Italian partisans, +possessed himself of <i>Civita-Castellana</i>, in the Pontifical States.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_425" href="#FNanchor_425" class="label">[425]</a> Latin, <i>decidium</i>, a word not of classical usage, signifying ruin, +or a fall.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_426" href="#FNanchor_426" class="label">[426]</a> Romance <i>sang</i>, family.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_427" href="#FNanchor_427" class="label">[427]</a> Latin, <i>regnum</i>, empire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_428" href="#FNanchor_428" class="label">[428]</a> <i>Lectoyre</i>, a town in France, in the department of Gers. +Garencières adopts the variant Lectoure, which he says is a town +in Gascony. The word occurs again, Century VII. 12, and there +he says it is a city of Guyenne. <i>Lectora</i> was the Latin name. +It was a place of great strength, and picturesque; but, unless we +can find it to be an anagram, there is nothing to connect the +town in any way with the fortunes of Louis Napoleon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_429" href="#FNanchor_429" class="label">[429]</a> The word <i>pleira</i>, is of course, only an archaic transposition +of <i>pliera</i>. The line here can in no way be made to scan, being +two syllables or one whole foot short. I would suggest it be +read Nepveu (du sang) par peur pleira l’enseigne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_430" href="#FNanchor_430" class="label">[430]</a> <i>Ogmion</i> has been explained already to be the symbol of the +French Republic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_431" href="#FNanchor_431" class="label">[431]</a> The <i>texte-type</i> reads <i>et amy au</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_432" href="#FNanchor_432" class="label">[432]</a> <i>My-hom</i>, Le Pelletier says, is <i>demy-homme</i>, a man of low +birth, and Roy <i>de longue</i> = <i>de vielle race</i>. I prefer to read <i>de +longue vie</i>, and understand the King of Prussia; and <i>my-hom</i> +I take to be the bivalve-man, or Bismarck.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_433" href="#FNanchor_433" class="label">[433]</a> Latin, <i>classis</i>, band; à classe, by a band [sic?]. It might +be better here to render <i>classe</i> as “crash,” κλάσις, <i>brisure</i>. <i>De +nuict la classe</i>, a crash by night.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_434" href="#FNanchor_434" class="label">[434]</a> Latin, <i>arca</i>, chest, or dam.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_435" href="#FNanchor_435" class="label">[435]</a> Latin, <i>demolitus</i>, demolished.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_436" href="#FNanchor_436" class="label">[436]</a> Latin, <i>antecaptus</i>, seized beforehand.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_437" href="#FNanchor_437" class="label">[437]</a> Latin, <i>dux</i>, leader.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_438" href="#FNanchor_438" class="label">[438]</a> Latin, <i>unus</i>, the first.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_439" href="#FNanchor_439" class="label">[439]</a> Latin, <i>cavea</i>, theatre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_440" href="#FNanchor_440" class="label">[440]</a> Romance, <i>incogneus</i>, unknown.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_441" href="#FNanchor_441" class="label">[441]</a> The four were Orsini, Pieri, de Rudio, and Gomez.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_442" href="#FNanchor_442" class="label">[442]</a> Greek, Δαν-ἀρχή, as we had it before (<i>v.</i> <a href="#Page_289">p. 289</a>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_443" href="#FNanchor_443" class="label">[443]</a> <i>Frise</i>, Hanover.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_444" href="#FNanchor_444" class="label">[444]</a> Latin, <i>dependere</i>, to weigh out, spend.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_445" href="#FNanchor_445" class="label">[445]</a> M. le Pelletier calculates that the golden mark was equal +to 250 grammes, or 100,000 marks = 10,000,000 francs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_446" href="#FNanchor_446" class="label">[446]</a> Latin, <i>oratio</i>, harangue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_447" href="#FNanchor_447" class="label">[447]</a> Romance, <i>prins</i>, <i>pris</i>, taken.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_448" href="#FNanchor_448" class="label">[448]</a> Latin, <i>decisus</i>, cut off.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_449" href="#FNanchor_449" class="label">[449]</a> <i>Delà</i>, for <i>au delà</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_450" href="#FNanchor_450" class="label">[450]</a> Italian, <i>vappa</i>, scamp.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_451" href="#FNanchor_451" class="label">[451]</a> Latin, <i>subito</i>, suddenly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_452" href="#FNanchor_452" class="label">[452]</a> <i>Il tournera</i>, for <i>il fera tourner</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_453" href="#FNanchor_453" class="label">[453]</a> Latin, <i>propinque</i>, at hand, near.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_454" href="#FNanchor_454" class="label">[454]</a> “Stands some five feet ten or more; a man of strong solid stature, and +dignified, now partly military carriage: the expression of him valour and +devout intelligence,—energy and delicacy on a basis of simplicity. Fifty-four +years old, gone April last; ruddy-fair complexion, bronzed by toil and age; +light brown hair and moustache are getting streaked with grey. A figure +of sufficient impressiveness;—not lovely to the man-milliner species, nor +pretending to be so. Massive stature; big massive head, of somewhat +leonine aspect, ‘evident workshop and storehouse of a vast treasury of +natural parts.’ Wart above the right eyebrow; nose of considerable blunt +aquiline proportions; strict yet copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, +and also, if need were, of all fierceness and rigours; deep loving eyes, call +them grave, call them stern, looking from under those craggy brows, as if +in life-long sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, thinking it only labour, +and endeavour:—on the whole, a right noble lion-face, and hero-face.” +(Carlyle, “Cromwell Letters,” ii. p. 435).</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_359"></a><a id="Page_360"></a><a id="Page_361"></a><a id="Page_362"></a><a id="Page_363"></a><a id="Page_364"></a><a id="Page_365"></a><a id="Page_366"></a><a id="Page_367"></a><a id="Page_368"></a><a id="Page_369"></a><a id="Page_370"></a><a id="Page_371"></a><a id="Page_372"></a><a id="Page_373"></a><a id="Page_374"></a><a id="Page_375"></a>[375]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX.</h2> + +<p class="center">“’Tis the compass that you steer by through a book.”—Οὔτις.</p> +</div> + +<nav> +<ul> + +<li class="ifrst">A</li> + +<li class="indx">Abb’s Head, St., <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Abraham, astrologer, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, habitation of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Achem in Sumatra, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Adriatic, <i>Austria</i>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Advent, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Vulgar_Advent"><i>Vulgar</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Æmathion">Æmathion, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Napoleon, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Louis XVIII., <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ætalia Elba, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Itales, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Africa, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agen, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agoult, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aix, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ajaccio, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Albanins, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Albanois, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Albert, Jeanne de, mother of Henri IV., <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alexander, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">son of Apollo, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Algeria, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Algol Caput, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Almanacs, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aloi, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alphabet, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alps, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Alquiloye">Alquiloye, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Aquilon"><i>Aquilon</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">American, the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Amiens, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ampulla, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Anagram used as mask, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">various, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Anagramme Herne, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Nicole = Lincoln, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Angels, evil, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">angeli, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Angles, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Angoulême, Duc de, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Anthoni pont, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Antichrist">Anti-Christ, reign of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">empire of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, second antichrist, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">infernal prince, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, moon symbol of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Saturne, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Faith"><i>Faith</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Antwerp, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Apennines, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Apollo Philesius, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Apollyon, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">April, Calends of, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aqua solis, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Aquilon">Aquilon, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Alquiloye"><i>Alquiloye</i></a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#North"><i>North</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arabs, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aristotle minced, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">understanding, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arles, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Armada, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Arras, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Artaxerxes, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Artiste en pronostics</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Artois, Comte de, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Assembly, <i>v.</i> <a href="#National"><i>National</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Assignats, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Astrologers too much faith, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">astrologi, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">astrologue, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Gauric, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, La Brousse, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— César, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Astrology needful to medicine, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">judicial, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, nocturnal calculations, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, revolution of stars, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Atheism">Atheism, atheistic democracy, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, levelling spirit of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Fifth_Monarchy"><i>Fifth Monarchy</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Atomic theory, <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— atoms, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Augur = Pope, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Augustus, climacteric, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ausonius, poet, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ausonne, League at, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austerlitz, sun of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Borodino, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">claptrap, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austria, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Austrians, white, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Adriatic, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Aventine, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Avénement, commun, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Vulgar_Advent"><i>Vulgar Advent</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Averroes, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Avicenna, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Avignon, Nostradamus, at school, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Azostains, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">B</li> + +<li class="indx">Baalzephon, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Babylon, Paris, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new Babylon, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Babel, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bacchantes, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">fury, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— la maynade, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bacon, Lord, death Henri II., <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">hempe, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Balance of power, regne de, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Hume on, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Balloon, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bannier bust, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barabbas, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barbaroux, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barcelona, Mons Jovis, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Barselonne, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">George I., <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barque of St. Peter, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barreaux, Des, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Barricades, quatrain on, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bartholomew’s Day, St., quatrain on, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Favin on, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Henri IV., <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">knife of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bassano, Duc de, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bastard, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bastarnan, Poland, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Basharion, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bastille tournament, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Louis Philippe, Paris, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bates on prayer, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beachy Head, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bear at Bridge Foot, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Béarnais, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beelzebub, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bees, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Abeilles, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">liqueur des, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Wasps"><i>Wasps</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bernard, Mont St., <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berri, Duc de, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Berthier, General, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bethune, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Beza epigram, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bibliography of Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bird, Edward, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Birds, strange; Imperial eagles, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Biron, sixain, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bisance, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bismarck, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Black for white, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blaye, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Blois, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Château de Blois, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bonanni, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">family, thirteenth century, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Charles, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Napoleon"><i>Napoleon</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Books burnt by Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bordeaux, Duc de, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">gros mastin, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Claude, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bordeaux, Ausonne, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boreas, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#North"><i>North</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Borodino, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boscobel, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bosphorus, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bouillé, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bouillon, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boulogne, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">medal struck, <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bourbon, Cardinal de, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>mot</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bourg la reyne, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bourges, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bottomless pit, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Bouys">Bouys, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, + <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bowels, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Branchidæ, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Branchus, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brantôme, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Breda, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Breval’s Travels, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Brevity">Brevity, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">mitré, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bright, Quaker, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Britain">Britain, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Great Britain, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brocksburn, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Broggi Restaurant, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brompton, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brosse, la, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brumaire, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brussels, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Brutus, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burnet, Thomas, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Butler, Samuel, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Buckingham, Duke, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Buget, F., <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Burns, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Butcher, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Butler, Bishop Thomas, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">C</li> + +<li class="indx">Cadiz, Bay, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Gaddir, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cæsar, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cagliostro, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Caiaphas, <a href="#Page_x">x.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Calendar, Gregorian, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">rectified, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">California, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cambresis Treaty, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cambronne, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Campan, Madame, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Camisards, War of, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Caniga, Don B. de, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cannes, Napoleon lands at, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cap. le grand, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">État du Caput, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Cap. Esleu, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Capet, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">blonde, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Debonnaires, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Fair Capet, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Capitolinus, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Captif,” <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Carlyle less than Coleridge, <a href="#Page_ix">ix.</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">hero, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Cromwell portrait, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Carlos, Don, strangled, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Carpathian thread, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Casau, Charles de, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cases, Las, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Castulon, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Catholics">Catholics, Roman, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Church"><i>Church</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cavalier, Jean, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cavaignac, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Causes, knowledge of, <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii.</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Celibacy, mansol, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Marriage"><i>Marriage</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Celique, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Celtique for France, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Centuries” begin, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="indx">César, Astrologer, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chaldaic oracles, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Champagne, Philippe de, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Chance">Chance, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Duc de Berri, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Coincidence"><i>Coincidence</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles I., <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi.</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain on, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, sold, £400,000</li> + +<li class="indx">——, Quatrain, execution, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">trial, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles II., wit, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Breda, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">crowned (1654), <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Worcester, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">restoration, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles V., Emperor, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sacks Rome, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles IX., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Condé, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">character, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles X., <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">he hunts, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charles X., Cardinal Bourbon, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charms, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">rites, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chartres, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Duc de, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chavigny, J. Aimes de, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">studies Nostradamus twenty-eight years, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chequers Court, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cherra, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chien, or gun hammer, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Children excluded from prophecy, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Christianity of gold, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Chronology, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Time"><i>Time</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Church">Church persecuted, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">clergy, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">state of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— suppressed, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">monks, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">temples, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Priests, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, sponge, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Catholics"><i>Catholics</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cicero, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cinq Mars Conspiracy, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cipher, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Civil War (1557), <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Civita-Castellana, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Clairvoyance">Clairvoyance, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Table-turning"><i>Table-turning</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clarendon, Earl, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Classis, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clement VII., <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clement Danes, St., <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clément, Jacques, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">le doux, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clerepeyne, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clèves, Princesse de, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Climacteric, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cock-moon, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Cock, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Cogito ergo sum,” <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cognac, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Corn’ et cry</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Coincidence">Coincidences, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Henri IV., <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Philip II., <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Le Torcey, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Chance"><i>Chance</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coleridge as poet, <a href="#Page_viii">viii.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Jews, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Truth, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coligny, Admiral, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Colours">Colours, red and purple, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">French flags, <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">green, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Flag"><i>Flag</i></a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Red"><i>Red</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Commun Avénement, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Vulgar_Advent"><i>Vulgar Advent</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Communion, Henri III., <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Clément, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">traitor at prayers, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Compiègne, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Confession, auricular, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conciergerie, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Condé, Prince, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">strangled, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congress, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conspiracy, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Cinq Mars, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conscription, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tag, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Classis, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Convention, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cooper, Samuel, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Copperspath, Pass at, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Corinth, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Corsica, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Charles Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon born, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Covenanters, £400,000, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Service-book and Solemn League, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cowper, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cranfield, Lionel, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cretans, the two, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Crisiaque, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Critics, <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lines on, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cromwell, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi.</a>, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">belies himself, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Lonole, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">bastard, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Nostradamus on, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Protectorate, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">butcher, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">portraiture of, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">dissolute, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">well-born, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Church lands, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">funeral, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">arbitrates, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">slaves, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>soldat simple</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death quatrain, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Protector, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Fox, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">saint, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">epileptic, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">bust, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">success, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cromwell, Robert, father of Protector, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Curious">Curious, the, <a href="#Page_xxvi">xxvi.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">astrology of D. D., <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Macchiavelli’s “Prince,” <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— strangeness, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Coincidence"><i>Coincidences</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— episode, sound, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">phalanx, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Book of Oracles, a curiosity, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cymbes, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cyphe, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cyprus, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">D</li> + +<li class="indx">Dame, the great, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">St. Paul’s, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Sainte Dame, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Government, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">insensate dame, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, republic, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dantisco, N. G. A., “Rerum in Galliâ,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Death sought and not found, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">fear of, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Debonnaire, Capets, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dedications, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">to his son, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">“Luminary Epistle,” <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Deluge, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Democracy, beast, <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">atheistic, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Demon">Demons corporeal, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>lingua demonum</i>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">speech of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Guardian"><i>Guardian</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Demosthenes, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Denis, St., <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">violated, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Denmark, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Departments for Provinces, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Descardes, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Descars, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Descartes, <i>cogito</i>, etc., <a href="#Page_xxiii">xxiii.</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Diamond necklace, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Didyma, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Directory, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Disorder, method of the book, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Doon hill, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Doria, Charles, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Drake, Cadiz Bay, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dubarri, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dunbar battle, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Duphot, General, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dutch war, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">E</li> + +<li class="indx">Eagles, Imperial, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">aigle poussée, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Earthquake, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">East wind, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">l’oriental, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Sultan of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eastern kings, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Soliman II., <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Eastern Question, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ecclesiasticus, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ecstasy, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Edinburgh quatrain, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Education, board schools, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Edward, VI., <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Égalité, Duc d’Orléans, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Egypt, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Oriental, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elba, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">place of the air, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Itales, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elias, tradition of, <a href="#Page_xxiv">xxiv.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elizabeth, Queen, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">excommunicated again, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Elizabeth, Madame, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Embalming, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Emmanuel, Duke Savoy, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— I., Victor, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— IV., Charles, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Emperor, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Encyclopædists, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">England, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">seven governments, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bouillé on, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">English red, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Envers à l’, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Epaminondas, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ephesus, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Epigram on Condé, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Epilepsy, Herculean, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in general, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>divin mal</i>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Episode, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Curious"><i>Curious</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Epistle, Luminary,” to Henri II., <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ergaste, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Escurial, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Essex, Lord, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Estrange, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Austrian, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>État l’, c’est moi</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eternity, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Être Suprème</i>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Eugène, Prince, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Evelyn, Cromwell portrait, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Evil predicted, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Eye">Eye is not sight, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Soul"><i>Soul</i></a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Visible"><i>Visible</i></a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">F</li> + +<li class="indx">Fact, <a href="#Page_xii">xii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Faithorne, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Faim, Castle of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Baron Faim, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fairfax, General, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Faith">Faith, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Nihilist, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Antichrist"><i>Antichrist</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fame, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fanchese, Don, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fate, Fates, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Feuchères, Baronne de, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ferrare, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ferrière’s, la, squadron, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ferte sous Jouare, la, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Fifth_Monarchy">Fifth Monarchy, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Atheism"><i>Atheism</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fire, flame of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">subtle, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">fire, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of London, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Firearms, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fireballs, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Flag">Flag, tricolour, <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">eagles, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">phalange, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">white, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">gold, blue, red, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Colours"><i>Colours</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Flame, thin, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">flambe exigue, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of fire, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">missive, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">human flame, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Fleurs-de-lis</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Ognion, <a href="#Page_334">334</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fleurus, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Floods (1607), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Florence, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bonaparte family, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li> + +<li class="indx">—— Bust of Cromwell, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fontaine, la, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fontainebleau, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">abdication at, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fontenelle, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forces, God of, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forehead, lifted up, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fossan, Sardinia, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fossen, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">France, kingdom of Libra, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">dame insensée, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Francis I., <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">François II., <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Frankland, Sir Thos., <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Frederic William, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li class="indx">French vanity, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Rex Christianissimus, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>grand peuple</i>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">language, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>fière gent</i>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">gent superbe, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Friday, Cromwell dies, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Good, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fronde, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Futurity, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Prophecy"><i>Prophecy</i></a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">G</li> + +<li class="indx">Gaddir, Cadiz, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gallic, Ogmion, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Ogmion"><i>Ogmion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Garencières’ primer, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">vapin, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gand, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Gauche, jugement à</i>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gaul for France, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gaule, switch, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gauric, Luc, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Genelle, Anne Ponce, second wife, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Genius, guardian, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">familiar spirit, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Genoa, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Gulf of, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_vii">vii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">George I., James I. his great-grandfather, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Quatrain on, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">peace, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li class="indx">George’s, St. Day, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">George, conspiracy, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gibbon, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Girondists, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Glaive, cité au, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">God withdraws, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in history, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">operating, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Godwin, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gog and Magog, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Gold">Gold, Christianity, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">corruption by, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">England, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">wealth, <a href="#Page_xxix">xxix.</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Riches"><i>Riches</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Golden Age, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Golgotha, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gomez, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gospel, Boulevard of Rochelle, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gostling, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Government ends with George I., <a href="#Page_223">223</a> (La Dame)</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Grand peuple</i>, French, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Grande cité</i>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Paris"><i>Paris</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grêlet, Michel, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Great Britain, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Britain"><i>Britain</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Green colour, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gregory XIII., <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Greigne, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grogne, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Griffin, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grose, Captain, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Groslot, Jérôme, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grotius, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Guardian">Guardian angel, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Demon"><i>Demon</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Guespes et mouches</i>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Vespres"><i>Vespres</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guillotin, Dr., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>couperet</i>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guion, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Ogmion"><i>Ogmion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guise, death of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">family, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gustavus Adolphus, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Guynaud, “Concordance Nostradamus,” <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">queer criticism, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">H</li> + +<li class="indx">Hair white in a night, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Halidom, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hannibal, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hanover, House of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hapsburgh, House of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Harrison, Frederic, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Haslerig, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Head shaven, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hébert, <a href="#Page_344">344</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hegira (<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 621), <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Helena, St., <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hempe, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Henri II., <a href="#Page_xv">xv.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">a patron, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">killed, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">“Luminary Epistle,” <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— III., <a href="#Page_xv">xv.</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">murder, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">civil war, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Poland, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— IV., <a href="#Page_xv">xv.</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Béarnais, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">popularity, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Ogmion, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">abjures, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sixains, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— V., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Henriade, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Heptades, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hercules, Celtic, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Scyphus, cup, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Ogmion"><i>Ogmion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Herne, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hero, Carlyle’s, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Herod, a sort of prophet, <a href="#Page_x">x.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">a god, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Herschel, <a href="#Page_xi">xi.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Highlanders, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>haut lieu</i>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Royal Army, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hières, Island of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Historical fragments, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">History, Philosophy of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">happy country, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">predicts evil, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lies, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">re-written to meet Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hodgson, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Holbein, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Holland, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Holy Spirit, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Honesty, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Honnorat, St., Island, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Houbraken’s Cromwell, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> + +<li class="indx">House of Commons, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Babel-room, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Howard, Lord, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hughes, Letter of Mr., <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hume, on balance of power, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">miracles, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hungary, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Husne, tower, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">I</li> + +<li class="indx">Idées Napoléoniennes, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">If, Château d’, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ignorance, letters will suffer, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Immortality">Immortality of man, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Impeachment, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Imposture, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Inspiration, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">melancholy, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Interpretation, no interpreter of the quatrains, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, more might be interpreted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">mode of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ireland, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">discontent, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Isle, Roget de l’, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Itales, Elba, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Italy, Ausonne, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">emperor born, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">J</li> + +<li class="indx">Jacobine Clubs, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jamblicus, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">James I., <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">great-grandfather George I., <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">wisdom, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— II., <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jansenism, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jant, Chevalier de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Janus Gallicus, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Japan, Christian, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jarnac, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jay, fable of, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Talma teaches Napoleon, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jesuit College motto, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Jesuit clubs, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Charles Emmanuel IV., <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jews, Coleridge, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">prophets, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jodele epigram, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Joel, Punic chronicle of, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Joinville, Prince de, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Josephine, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Joubert, Étienne, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jovialists, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Journaux, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">simply days, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Jury, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Justice, Court of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">K</li> + +<li class="indx">Kean, Edmund, <a href="#Page_ix">ix.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">King’s evil, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">parliament of kings, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">king of French, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Kimber, “Life of Cromwell,” <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">L</li> + +<li class="indx">Lafin, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lamballe, Princesse de, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Landmarks, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Languedoc Canal, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lasche, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Latin race to triumph, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">world, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Launay, Seigneur de, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Laud, Archbishop, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Laurel, forked rod of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Law, the speculator, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Law Courts, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lawyers, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Gregory XIII., <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">League, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lectoyre, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Leibnitz, Egypt, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">House of Hapsburgh, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lely, Sir P., <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">“Warts and all,” <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lenthall, Speaker, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lepanto, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lerma, Duke, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lesley, General, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Levelling spirit, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Libertat, Pierre, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Liberty, leap of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of conscience, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">phantom, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Castulon, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">cap of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Nantes, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1" id="Liberty">tyranny, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Libra, France, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Light, cerebral and latent, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lion-sun, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Liturgy, English, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Livy, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lombardy, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lombart, Pierre, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Long and short robe, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li class="indx">London, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">senate of, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">fire of, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">thirty of, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lonole, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Los, <i>laus</i>, glory, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louis XIII., Montpellier, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the Just, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— XIV., son, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">king, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Canal, Languedoc, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Æmathion"><i>Æmathion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— XV., chapter on, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— XVI., <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a> (1792), <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">people rise, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">flight, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">mitré, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Captif libère, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain portrait, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quicklime, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— XVII., Toulon taken in name of, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— XVIII., <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Roy d’Europe, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">blond, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Duc de Berri, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Désiré, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>foye en cuisine</i>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louis, St., Day, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Louis_Philippe">Louis Philippe, coincidence, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">wolf, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">six quatrains, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">seventeen years, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louvicamp, Curé de, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louvel, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Love of near things, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Luc, St., <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Luciennes, Château de, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lucky day, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Luminary Epistle,” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">translation, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lusitanians, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Portuguese"><i>Portuguese</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lymphatics, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lyons, Plancus, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">M</li> + +<li class="indx">Macchiavelli, Prince, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Macelin, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Madelaine, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Magic, occult process, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">books burnt, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">formula, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mahomet, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Mahometical dreams, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Malta, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mammon, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mansol, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mansuetus, St., Day, September 3rd, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marlborough, Duke, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marcellinus, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marguerite, St., Island, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marie Louise, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Therèse, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Antoinette, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marine cité, <a href="#Page_272">272</a> (Toulon), <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maritime cité (London), <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mark’s, St., Venice, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Marriage">Marriage, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">republican, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mars, heroical, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marseilles, St. Hières, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">taken by Spain, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Phocen, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon’s return, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Marseillaise sung, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">de l’Isle, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mary, Queen, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Massacre of Protestants, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mastiff, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">mastin le gros, Sirius, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Materialism, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mathien, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Æmathion"><i>Æmathion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maurepas, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mayenne, Duc de, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Maynooth grant, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mazarin, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Medici, Catherine de, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">curious arts, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">quatrain on, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">regency, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Guise, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Medina, Duke of, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Menade, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mendosus, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Menehould, St., <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Meri, St., <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Meslée, infelice, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mesopotamia, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Metaplasm, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Herne, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Method, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">disorder, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Order"><i>Order</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Metz, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Michel, General, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Middle Ages, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Milk and honey, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Millenary, seventh, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Milton, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii.</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">contrary to Cromwell, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Minerva, favouring, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mines, Spanish-American, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ministers, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in eighteen years, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Miollis, General, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Miracle on Miracle, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mirror, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mithras, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mitre, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mob, triumphant, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#People"><i>People</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Molière, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Monarchy, decline of French, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Fifth, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Monks, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Church"><i>Church</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mons Jovis, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mont, St. Jean, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montagnards, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montagne, la, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tarpeian rock, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montenotte, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montesquiou, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montfauçon gibbet, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montgaillard, de, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montgolfier, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montgomery, Earl, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">arrest, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montmédi, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montmirail, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montmorency, Lord Constable, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the great, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Montpellier, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moon, blue, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Morals, soul’s instinct, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Morny, Duc de, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moscow, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Motret, M., <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Munster, Terburg, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">My-hom, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">N</li> + +<li class="indx">Names anticipated, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new names, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">names of rank, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nancy, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nantes, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Napoleon">Napoleon, abdication, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Æmathion, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Analogues, Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Charles V., <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Hannibal, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Apollyon">—— Apollyon, Olleon, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Destroyer, <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Guion, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Hercules, Gallic, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi.</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Bonaparte, dropped for Nap, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Brumaire, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Butcher, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Condottiere stock, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Conspiracy, Georges’, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Consecration and torment, quatrain, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Eagle, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Epilepsy, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Epithets, butcher, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Jupiter, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Mastiff, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Hercules, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Apollyon"><i>Apollyon</i></a> above</li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, King of Babylon, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— —— Nom farouche, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, Oriental, l’, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— —— Tête rasée, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>Étoile mon</i>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Guespes et mouches, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, male sex destroyed, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Bouys, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Bouys"><i>Bouys</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, chapter on his rule, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— family, thirteenth century, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, King Paris, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, King Rome, Denmark, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Lieutenant, Consul, Emperor, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Napoleonism seventy-three years, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Nobility, Montenotte, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, quatrain on, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">a weight on France, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, rats eat his heart, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>soldat simple</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— <i>Nez fourchu</i>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, pyramids, forty centuries, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— sympathy, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Talma, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— <i>Vespres et mouches</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Waterloo quatrain, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, St., August 15th, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— II., Duc de Reichstadt, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— III., Boulogne, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Idées Napoléoniennes, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Nepveu du sang, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— quatrain, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, St., August 15th, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Narbon Camisards, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Count, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="National">National Assembly, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Assignats, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— departments, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Saulce, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Convention, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, chapter on, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— decree, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nature, voice of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">overcome, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Navarre, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nelson, <i>rubuit æquor</i>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Trafalgar, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Néopol, St., <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nepveu du sang, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nero, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Newton, Sir Isaac, bust, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nicole = Lincoln, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Neil, O’Phelim, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nîmes, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Noll, old, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Non-intervention, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Norlaris, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Normandy, Duke of, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="North">North, two Lords of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, boreas, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Aquilon"><i>Aquilon</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, ignorance of the, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, kings of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Russia, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nose, a curious phrase, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nostradamus Almanacs, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, appearance, personal, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>artiste en pronostics</i>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— birth, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— brevity, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Brevity"><i>Brevity</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— brothers, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Charles IX., <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— dates, mode of stating, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— death, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, democracy against it, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, equal he has none, <a href="#Page_vii">vii.</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— epitaph, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— fame, future, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— familiar spirit, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— family, Jewish, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Gold, two hundred crowns, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Gout, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, history to be re-written for, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, horoscope princes, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— imposture, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii.</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— integrity, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">good faith, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— made celebrated by Henri II.’s death, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— marriage, second, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— medicine, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Method">—— method, <a href="#Page_xii">xii.</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sequence, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Order"><i>Order</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— name known, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— oracles published, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, opinions on, have been omitted, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, passivity of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">no partisan, <a href="#Page_314">314</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— primer, oracles used as, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— prophecy begun, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">not like Hebrew, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— —— presage, capable of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ——, pig prophecy, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— psychological interest, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, publish, slow to, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Sommerive, Earl, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, spirit, his, described, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— spiritual sons, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— style, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Method"><i>Method</i></a> above</li> + +<li class="indx">——, time, no sense of, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— visions, see by, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— year (3797), <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nostradamus César, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">préface à mon fils, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">O</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Obedience">Obedience, veneration, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, reverence in England, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, must work and serve, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, revolt under Louis XVI., <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Obscurity and prophecy one, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Œdipus, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ognion, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Ogmion"><i>Ogmion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oignon, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Ogmion"><i>Ogmion</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Ogmion">Ogmion, Gallic, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Henri IV., <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Olestant, Olleon, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Pit"><i>Pit</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Olleon, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Cromwell, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Omens not done, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li class="indx">O’Neil, Phelim, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Opinions on Nostradamus not treated of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oracles, French king’s study Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— ceased not on Good Friday, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Oratory">Oratory, Napoleon’s, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, England beware of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, orators, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Speech"><i>Speech</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Order">Order, sequence, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, method, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">disorder, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Orges <i>faire ses orges</i>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Orleans, Duke of, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>dort leans</i>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Orsini, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oste, l’, Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oxygen, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">P</li> + +<li class="indx">Pagan tendency of Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pampotan, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">England, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>rubuit æquor</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pan is dead, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pancras, Old, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Paper money, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Paris">Paris, siege (1590), <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">city of sword, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, great city, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, cité à feu, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Jesuit clubs, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Babylon, New, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in disarray, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, assault of, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">entered, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">dechassé, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Sparte, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bastille, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Rapis, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ship, emblem of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, allies in, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Paris, Comte de, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parma, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parliament, impeachment, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pascal on opinion, <a href="#Page_xxviii">xxviii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Patience of an interpreter, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pau, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Paul’s, St., burnt, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pavillon, Lord, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peace, the great, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pelissier, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pelletier, M. le, secret purpose of book, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pellix, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pempotam, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Pampotan, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Penance, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pentecost, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="People">People “blood be on us,” <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, democracy, antichrist, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">revolution, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— eaux, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idiots, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— earthquake, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">intoxicated, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, many-headed, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, mob, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, tyrant comes, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Perouse, chef, Sixtus V., <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Perspective, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Peter the Great, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his will, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Peter">Peter, St., ship of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Pierre, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">piscature, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phalanx, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philip II., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">coincides with Louis Philippe, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— III., <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— IV., <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— V., <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">overthrown, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philippe d’Orléans, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philippe, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Louis_Philippe"><i>Louis Philippe</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philo Judæus, <a href="#Page_vii">vii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philosopher, Plato Pry, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Philosophy">Philosophy in doubt, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">in history, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, sentimental, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Rousseau"><i>Rousseau</i></a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Science"><i>Science</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phocen, Marseilles, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Photius “Amphilochia,” <a href="#Page_ix">ix.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">heretical, <a href="#Page_x">x.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phrygian bonnet, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Piedmont, Adriatic, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pierce, Edward, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pierre, en l’arbre, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pillar pulled down, Vendôme?, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Piracy, literary, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Pit">Pit, bottomless, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Pius">Pius VI., chapter on, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— VII., <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plague, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">powder, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">plague London, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plancus, Lyons, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poetry, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">poets to be well fed, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">poet and prophet, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poitiers edict, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poland and Henri III., <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bastarnan, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">partition, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Polymarch, the Theban, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ponant = west, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pont = pontificate</li> + +<li class="indx">Pope, vicar of cope, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Pius"><i>Pius</i></a> VI., and others under name;</li> + <li class="isub1">deposed, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">augur, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— regicide, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Peter"><i>Peter, St.</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Porphyrius, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Porson on Gibbon, <a href="#Page_331">331</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portrait painters, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Portraiture, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Appendix, <a href="#Page_351">351</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Portuguese">Portuguese, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pourceau, Cape, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prayer, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Préface à mon fils, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prejudices, or auricular fancies, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Press, <i>journaux</i>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pretender, rebel, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Charles Edward Stuart reads “Oracles,” <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prince, a child, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Privilege abolished, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Proferé, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Proper names anticipated, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Prophecy">Prophecy, astral, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, afflatus, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, by basin, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Bouys, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>cité au glaive</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, desirable, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, emotional effusion, <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, evil, like history, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Grêlet’s, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, hempe spun, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Henri II., <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, honest man a prophet, <a href="#Page_vii">vii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, imaginative impression, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>infelice meslée</i>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, inherited gift, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, lies, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, maddens, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, mitré, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, millenary, seventh, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, more might be interpreted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Nostradamus not a prophet, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, obscure always, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, patience interprets, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, power of, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, reasoning it is not, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, secret idiom of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, sixth sense, <a href="#Page_viii">viii.</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, spirit of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, tripod, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, true prophecy, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, —— language of, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, unintelligible before event, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Pretender, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">to relatives of Nostradamus, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— year (3797); up to, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Prophecies of Nostradamus by D. D.,” <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prose, <i>solutâ oratio</i>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Protectorate, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Provençal quatrain, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Providence shapes history, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pry, Plato, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Prussia, King of, <a href="#Page_341">341</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Psalm, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Psellus, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Punic chronicle of Joel, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Puntales Castle, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Puritans, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Purpose of this book, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pyramids, battle of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pyrenees, peace of, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">crossed, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pythagoras, <a href="#Page_xi">xi.</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Q</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Quarterly Review</i>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Quatrains, Nostradamus would like to give dates to, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Quicklime, Louis, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi.</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">head, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">R</li> + +<li class="indx">Radstadt, peace of, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Raimond, Lord Florimond de, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Raleigh, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rapin’s, “History,” <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rapis = Paris, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Rasée, tête</i>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ratonneau, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ravaillac, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reader, the capable, <a href="#Page_xxv">xxv.</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Reason">Reason, goddess of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, human understanding, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, words an apoplexy of, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Science"><i>Science</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rebel, Pretender, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">new fruit, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Red">Red, rouges republicans, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— cardinals, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Cardinal de Bourbon, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, English red-coats, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, kill each other, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, reds and whites, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, rouges abandon purple, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Colours"><i>Colours</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Regicide popes, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Religion">Religion, loi saincte, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Renatus or René king, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Renée, Nostradamus’s mother, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Republic, beggars brawl, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— of 1848, chapter on, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, philosophic, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, tempered by daggers, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Restoration (1660), <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Retz, Cardinal de, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Revelation, inspired, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Revolution, French, earthquake, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, 1688, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>tiers état</i>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Vulgar Advent, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii.</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rheims, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rian, Jean de, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Richelieu, Cardinal, Boulogne, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Cinq Mars, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">congress, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Havre de Grace, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">malevolent, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">vulpine, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Riches">Riches despised, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">love not, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Gold"><i>Gold</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rights of man, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">phantom, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Riquet, Paul, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Robespierre, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rochelle, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rochepot, Lord, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Rod">Rod magic, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Moses, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, sibyl, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, winchel, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Roman de la Rose</i>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rome, city of the sun, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Golgotha, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Hannibal’s curse, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, King of, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Napoleon, King of, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Pius VI., <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Romanie, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Romains, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, sacked by Charles V., <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— taken, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rosne, or Rhone, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rostopchin, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rota, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rouen, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rouges, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Red"><i>Red</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roundheads short hair, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Rousseau">Rousseau, red-head, <a href="#Page_xx">xx.</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roux, Jean de, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Roy-Roy, Henri III., <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Russia, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Russell, Lord John, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rhythm, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">S</li> + +<li class="indx">Saints, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">saint worship, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Salic law, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Salon de Craux, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Salt exorcised, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Samuel, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sang</i>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sardinia, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Fossan, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sarzana, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Saturn, age of gold, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, frenzy, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">saturnine, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Saturnians, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>v.</i> <a href="#Antichrist"><i>Antichrist</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Saulce, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sauts, kick of gun, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Savone, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Savory, Strand, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scaliger, J. C., <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Sceptics">Sceptics, haphazard, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Science"><i>Science</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scepticism, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">interpretation, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Atheism"><i>Atheism</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scharf, Mr. George, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Schools, board, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Science">Science, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">encyclopædists, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— illuminati, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— method, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, Montpellier, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">self-sufficiency, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Sceptics"><i>Sceptics</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, study of nature, <a href="#Page_xxii">xxii.</a> <i>v.</i> <a href="#Reason"><i>Reason</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, telescope, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Philosophy"><i>Philosophy</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, wisdom of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scotch, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Scotland, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Church of Scotland, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scone, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Scott, Sir W., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sea, the, Pempotam, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sebastian, St., Castle, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sedan, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ségur, Comte de, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Seine, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Sele</i> = selle, tripod seat, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sense, a sixth, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anticipatory thought, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sentiment, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Religion"><i>Religion</i></a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Senate of London, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Septante, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Septenaries, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sepulchre, Holy, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sequence, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Order"><i>Order</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Serfdom, George I., <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Servus servorum</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Seventeen-92 (1792), <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Seventy-three years, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Sext</span>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sforza, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ship of St. Peter, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Shipton, Mother, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Short robe, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sibyl, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sicily, Trinacria, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sidney College, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Simon, <i>cordonnier</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Simon, Thomas, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_352">352</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sixains, presented to Henry IV., <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sixth sense, <a href="#Page_viii">viii.</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sixtus V., <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Slaves, Highlanders sold for, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Solaires, les</i>, Christians, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Solar pass, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">order, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Soldat simple, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Solemn League, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Soliman II., <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Solis Templum</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Solitude, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sommerive, Earl, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Somer’s Town, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sons, spiritual, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Soul">Soul, comfort to, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— eye, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">eye and soul, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— immortal spirit, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, indivisible unity of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— morals, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— prophecy, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Immortality"><i>Immortality</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sound, conveyed, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">South, King of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spain, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Spanish succession, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">slow, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sparta slow, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Sparte</i> = Paris, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Speech">Speech, Napoleon, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">five talkers, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Oratory"><i>Oratory</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spirit of man, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">drawn to centre, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi.</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Soul"><i>Soul</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spiritual sons, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spond, Lord, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sponge, Church treated as, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stael, Madame de, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stars, revolution of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">intelligence, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">withdrawal, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stendal, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stomach, <i>estomac intercluse</i>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Kitchen, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stonehenge, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Storm, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stafford, Earl, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stuart dynasty, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stuart, Henry, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Stuart, Mary, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Success, despicable, <a href="#Page_356">356</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Suicide, Napoleon, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sully, Duc de, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sumatra, Isle of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sun = Church or Christianity, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Louis XIV., <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">temple of, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sunlight kissed, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Surrey Street, Strand, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sword-saviour, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>sabreur</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Paris, city of, <i>Cité au Glaive</i>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Symbol, double, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sympathy, craved, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">T</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Table-turning">Table-turning, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv.</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">little table, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Clairvoyance"><i>Clairvoyance</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Tag</span>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tagus, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Taine, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Talma, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tarasc, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tarpeian rock, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Telescope, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Temple, Miss, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Temples, desecrated, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">celique, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Temple, Paris, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Terburg’s, Munster, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Terseness, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Brevity"><i>Brevity</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Teste rase, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thames, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Theodorus, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Theodosius, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thiers, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thinkers, solitary, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thomasius, spirit drawn to the centre, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thou, de, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Thrasibulus, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tiers état, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Time">Time, Nostradamus no sense of, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">date quatrains, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, future = past, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, <i>Neron</i>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li class="indx">——, order, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tiresias, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Toledan art, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tolentino, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tongue, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Torcy, le, <a href="#Page_340">340</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Torné-Chavigny, Abbé, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Torrington, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tory, Taurer, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tories, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Tory cavaliers, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Toulon, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Toulouse, Hotel de Ville, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tourzel, Madame de, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trafalgar, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tranche, guillotine, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Dr. Guillotin, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trèves the Elector, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Treviso, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trévoux, Dictionnaire de, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tricolour, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Flag"><i>Flag</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trimmer, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trinacria, Sicily, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tripod, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Truth, Vauban, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">let it prevail, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Coleridge, <a href="#Page_xxvii">xxvii.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tuilleries, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">secret gate of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">stormed, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">rebuilt, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon III. born in, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Treilhos, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turenne, Marshal, <a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turin, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Turk, Sultan, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Byzantine sails, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Soliman II., <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Lepanto, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tuscany, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Duke of, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tuxis, ambassador, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tyranny, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Olestant, <a href="#Page_xix">xix.</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Liberty"><i>Liberty</i></a> (same thing)</li> + +<li class="ifrst">U</li> + +<li class="indx">Utrecht, peace of, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Unity, to divide it, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">V</li> + +<li class="indx">Valence, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Valens, Emperor, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Valois, extinction of family, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Vapin monstre</i>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Varennes, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vauban, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vaudreuil, de, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vaultorte, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vendée, la, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vendôme (pillar pulled down?), <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Veneration, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Obedience"><i>Obedience</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Venice, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">St. Marks, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Venus, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vervain, the prospering plant, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Vespres"><i>Vespres et mouches</i>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vicar of the cope, pope, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vienna, treaty of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Villars, Marshal, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Villeroy, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Vin et sel</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Vincence, Duc de, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Virgil, earthquake, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Virgin Mary, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Virginia, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Visible">Visible world, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Eye"><i>Eye</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Visions, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">dissolving views, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of night, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">names heard, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Voltaire, Henriade, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Vox populi</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Vulgar_Advent">Vulgar Advent, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>vulgus</i>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">dogs, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">chapter on, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">W</li> + +<li class="indx">Walker, Cromwell, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">likenesses vary, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></li> + +<li class="indx" id="Wasps">Wasps and flies, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Water magical, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">basin, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">waters = people, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Waterloo, quatrain, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Napoleon’s baggage, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wax, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wellington, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li class="indx">West, Napoleon, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Westminster Abbey, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—— Hall, King’s trial, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Westphalia treaty, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Whig, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Whitby omits “Book of Revelation,” <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">White, <i>blancs</i> (royalists), <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Austrians, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">whites, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">black for white, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Whitehall, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> + +<li class="indx">William III., <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">revolution, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wine, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>sel et vin</i>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Winchel-rod, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <i>v.</i> <a href="#Rod"><i>Rod</i></a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wit, on Japan, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Assumption, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Witches’ sabbath, <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Women Aix, modest, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sœurs, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">naked, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Worcester, battle, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Words, master in, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">loquacity, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">not understood, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">World, age of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">creation, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">unseen, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wren, Sir Christopher, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wrong to be let alone, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Y</li> + +<li class="indx">Young, Dr., poet, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ydiaques, Don, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ypres, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Yvan, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Z</li> + +<li class="indx">Zurich, treaty of, <a href="#Page_346">346</a></li> + +</ul> +</nav> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" aria-hidden="true"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ENVOY">ENVOY.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>“He that knows anything worth communicating and does not communicate +it, let him be hanged by the neck.”—<i>Talmud, Sucah</i>, +p. 58.</p> + +</main> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79378 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79378-h/images/cover.jpg b/79378-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b23218 --- /dev/null +++ b/79378-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/79378-h/images/leadenhall1.jpg b/79378-h/images/leadenhall1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8660ad5 --- /dev/null +++ b/79378-h/images/leadenhall1.jpg diff --git a/79378-h/images/leadenhall2.jpg b/79378-h/images/leadenhall2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b99a8e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/79378-h/images/leadenhall2.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, 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