Chapter D: D. considers this to relate to King George, and he remarks that the (3)

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.