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.
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LONDON:
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“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.