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_.