path: root/79378-0.txt

*** 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 ***