Nostradamus
The Prophecies of Michel de Nostredame
Passed to posterity under the name of Nostradamus, Michel de Nostredame was born in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on December 14, 1503. He had already learned the basics of medicine and astronomy during his childhood before entering the faculty of medicine of Avignon, then that of Montpellier. Professionally settled in Agen where he is married and has two children, his life is turned upside down when his home succumbs to an epidemic. Leaving alone for Bordeaux in 1539, he decided to become a traveling doctor. His journeys through France allows the hatching of a first legend about prophecies he would pronounce on encounters made along the way. Thus the collective memory has retained the fact that he recognized the future Pope Sixtus V.
About forty years old, Nostradamus returns to his native region where he remarries. He settled in Salon-de-Provence and continues to treat the sick, struck by the plague, traveling through the south of France and Italy. This new life has another break when, in 1555, is published a first book, The Prophecies of Michel Nostradamus. Under quatrains of a tortured style, presented in centuries, Nostradamus reveals his passion for astronomy and his qualities of prophet. He is convinced that the stars, which influence the behavior of the body, are also the instruments of a prediction for the one who has received a gift from his ancestors. His book is so successful that new editions, enriched over the years, follow each other at regular intervals.
Invited to the court of Catherine de Medici, he predicts to her that, exceptionally, her three sons will reign. History will confirm it. The year 1564 is the consecration of the career of Nostradamus: he is appointed advisor and ordinary doctor of the young king Charles IX when he passes through Salon-de-Provence. Until his last breath, Nostradamus is at the service of his patients. He died on the night of July 2 to 3, 1566.
Since their first publications until today, the writings of Nostradamus have provoked sharp criticisms that have made them forget all the intelligence and humanity of this man, a scientist praised by Ronsard and fully installed in his century. It must be admitted, however, that at first reading the quatrains of the prophet appear obscure. Without any respect for chronology and syntax, they require interpretation. It can then easily lead the reader to bring them closer to a personal event. In this case, the stanzas of Nostradamus bear only a universal character. Were the numerous editions of the strophes of Nostradamus a simple commercial operation? Not so sure when we look at certain passages that manage to stir up even the most skeptical minds.
In the fourth quarter of centuria I, Nostradamus predicts, four years in advance, the death of King Henry II:
« Le Lyon jeune le vieux surmontera,
En champ bellique par singulier duelle,
Dans cage d’or les yeux lui crèvera,
Deux classes une puis mourir mort cruelle. »
In these verses can be found the elements of the event of June 30, 1559, during a tournament: the military demonstration of Henry II and the young Gabriel de Montgomery, the spear of the latter piercing the eye of the king and the slow agony of the sovereign.
Has Nostradamus, in these verses, prophesized the assassination of the Duke of Guise, which occurs on December 23, 1588?
« En l’an qu’un œil en France régnera,
La Cour sera à un bien fascheux trouble.
Le grand de Bloys son amy tuera,
Le regne mis en mal et doubte double. »
He announced in one line the death sentence of Charles I by the English Parliament. The King will be beheaded in London in front of Whitehall Palace on January 30, 1649.
« Senat de Londres mettront à mort leur Roy. »
In a very close register, it is the episode of the flight of Louis XVI to Varennes that can be imagined in the fourth quarter of the century IX:
« De nuict viendra par la forêt de Reines,
Deux pars vaultorte Herne la pierre blanche
Le moine noir en gris dedans Varennes,
Esleu cap cause tempeste, feu, sang, tranche. »
Doesn’t the last line evoke the murderous troubles of the Revolution? Moreover, Nostradamus predicted a great transformation for the year following the king's flight. In his letter to Henry II dated June 27, 1558, he wrote:
« L’an 1792 que l’on pensera être une rénovation du siècle. »
Is it not a question of the proclamation of the First Republic? To this one follows the time of the royal executions :
« Le trop bon temps, trop de bonté royale Faicts et déffaicts prompt, subit, négligence, Léger croira faux d’espouse loyale Luy mis à mort par sa bénévolence. »
It is also the character and the career of Napoleon that one believes to discover through three quatrain disseminated in the collection :
« 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. »
« De la cité marine et tributaire
La teste raze prendra la Satrapie :
Chassez sordide qui puis sera contraire.
Par quatorze ans tiendra la tyrannie. »
« De soldat simple parviendra en empire,
De robe courte parviendra à la longue
Vaillant aux armes en église ou plus pyre,
Vexer les prêtres comme l’eau faict l’esponge. »
We find Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Corsica, making himself known during the siege of Toulon, before arriving a few years later in power by tipping France from a Democratic Directory to an authoritarian and bellicose Empire.
Although it is certain that these excerpts are chosen only because they are the most convincing, how can one not be troubled by so many prophecies that history has validated? While some see in Nostradamus's written work only a combination with the future of things of the past, others lend a more attentive ear to the physician's possible parapsychological abilities.
« Le trop bon temps, trop de bonté royale Faicts et déffaicts prompt, subit, négligence, Léger croira faux d’espouse loyale Luy mis à mort par sa bénévolence. »
