In the Twentieth Century BU NOSTRADAMUS

CHAPTER THREE

In the Twentieth Century

As THIS LAST CHAPTER IS BEING assembled with the horrid word "deadline"--Oh, anathema to writers!--ringing in the author's ears, one portion of her attention is on the radio, one on the newspaper, and the rest on the ancient quatrains, written so long ago, and yet so full of meaning for those who live in the present day. Today's news is in the prophecies of the Centuries. Russia and England are now fighting on the same side, while war rages in the Orient, just as Nostradamus predicted. Before this book is off the presses, more striking predictions may have seen fulfillment. And perhaps there will be verses, omitted here because their meaning was not yet clear, which will have become clear through the rapid onrush of events. It is difficult to indicate chronological sequence in events of the future, and any interpreter's confusion on this point in unavoidable. Nostradamus may have juggled order to further mask identification and meaning. Also many of the quatrains had to be omitted for lack of space. Those most pertinent to our time, and to the development
p. 338
of the future, are given first consideration here.
The final chapter of the historic cycle of the Nostradamus predictions is naturally the most exciting to us who live in the midst of its predicted alarms and tragic drama and can foresee, in part, some of the fearsome days of the future. Nostradamus has given in the course of the Centuries many dates, both actual years and astronomically stated times. He has not given, directly, the date for the emergence of France from her yoke of bondage. But in the opinion of this author he has given it in the number of his verses, one of the cryptic methods which he enjoyed using for his half-concealments. The final edition of his work contained ten Centuries which by right should have totaled a thousand quatrains. There were but nine hundred and forty-four. If one takes these two facts as giving the elements of a historic date, and adds them, the date is 1944.
This is not to be taken, however, as the date for the crowning of a new king of France, but rather perhaps of his coming to the fore, or raising the royal standard, together with a new attitude in France. In other words, it is the turning point. Several verses indicate that the stabilization of Europe, and the fullness of a new king's power will not come until 1952-3.
The present Pretender to the French throne is Henri, Duc de Guise. He corresponds in the facts of his life to the description given by the prophet of the coming king. The last king of his line, he would be the
p. 339
first to bear the name Henry since the founder of the Bourbon dynasty, Henry of Navarre, and would complete the cycle of the house of Bourbon-Orleans, whose first ruler was born within the lifetime of Nostradamus.

1914 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

A horrible war in the Occident draws near.
The year following its outbreak there will be a scourge
So powerful and terrible that young, old and livestock will be affected.
There will be blood and battle when Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are in France.

In March, 1915, the second year of World War I, these three planets were in conjunction in Pisces; the Sun, in the chart of the Third Republic, is in the ninth degree of Virgo, the opposing sign to that of the conjunction. The full Moon of that month, occurring March 1st, on the day of the second battle of Ypres, fell on nine of Virgo, exactly on the Sun of the Republic.
The new Moon of the 15th of March fell in Pisces, thus giving emphasis to the other planets in that sign which, since it is opposite Virgo, is the house of enemies of the government, and of war. It is in the precision of such details as this that the vision of Nostradamus seems the most fabulous. For vision it was. No
p. 340
astrologer on earth, lacking the chart of the Republic (and it was then of course unborn), could have made a forecast based upon it.

VI-81

A bridge made of small boats will be quickly built (pontoons)
To attack the great Prince of the Belgians.
There will be fighting in trenches not far from Brussels,
They (the enemy) will outstrip him, putting seven at a time to the sword.

III-18

After a considerable period of plenty (forty-four years)
The sky will touch the country around Rheims.
Oh, what bloody conflict raging around the people of this locality, draws near.
Nor fathers, nor sons, nor rulers will dare go near it.

Around Rheims, center of the two battles of the Marne, the artillery duel developed such clouds of smoke that the sky seemed to touch the land, and the horror of so many dead deterred even relatives and officials from the agony of the place. The prophet's picture is as accurate as it is harrowing.
p. 341

VIII-61

Never shall the day dawn to attain the flag of rulership
Until the seats of government are returned to their proper places
And it will be the armed Cock (France)
Who shall bear the gift of Der Tag.

III-7

Fugitives, aerial warfare above the bayonets,
Sportive ravens neighboring the conflict,
The cry goes up from earth for heavenly aid and rescue
When the fighting comes close to the walls (of Paris).

III-6

A cannon shot shall enter within a closed church.
The citizens within shall be killed in their refuge.
Horses, cattle, and men shall suffer. The swelling wave will touch them,
Hunger and thirst will deplete them, even the weakest will be under armes.

In 1917 a shot from a Big Bertha killed people in a church in Paris. The Seine was very high that year, at times touching the walls.

VIII-48

Saturn in Cancer, Jupiter with Mars,
A university professor, wise as a Chaldean seer, under p. 342 the aegis of a vigorous young nation, with the fullest round measure will save the country in February.
There will be the fall of Château-fort, and assault on three fronts.
The conflict will take place near Serbia. It is a mortal war.

Saturn was in Cancer throughout the first six months of 1917, leaving the sign at the end of June. On the 3rd of February Woodrow Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. In June Mars and Jupiter came to conjunction when the first American contingent of troops sailed for France. Nothing could be more precise than this astronomical timing of the period from the first cheering announcement to France of the break which meant this country was coming in, to the sailing of the first troops of the A.E.F. to "save the land."
Nostradamus made use of a triple anagram to characterize President Wilson, which is a triumph of ingenuity and condensation.

III-71

The inhabitants of the isles (Britain) will be blockaded for a long time.
They will summon their vigor and might against the enemies.
Those outside shall die, defeated by hunger.
They will experience a greater hunger than they have ever known.

p. 343

IX-100

A naval battle will be won in darkness.
The fight will be disastrous to the Occidental navies.
A new ruse will be employed, that of coloring the ships,
There will be wrath toward the vanquished, and the victory won in a drizzle of rain.

X-2

The galleys will screen the ships of the line.
The grand fleet will draw forth the lesser one.
The ships will maneuver to encircle the opponent.
The great navy, which is vanquished, will draw off and reassemble its scattered units.

The battle of Jutland is very well indicated in these two verses and the device of camouflage is duly observed by the prophet.

IV-12

The larger of the countries will be routed and put to flight.
It will hardly be pursued beyond the frontiers (of France).
The country will be reconstructed and a region regained,
Then all of the invaders will have been driven outside of France.

Alsace-Lorraine was regained by this war.
p. 344

II-82

Through hunger the wolf (Germany) will become the captive of its prey.
The assailant will be driven to great distress.
A man of high birth (the Kaiser) will arrive at his end.
The great leader will not avoid the central pressure.

X-1

The enemy, which is always the same enemy, faithless to its word,
Will not stand fast, nor keep its captives. Its people will be captives.
Taken, overwhelmed, its people dead or stripped to their shirts,
They will give all they have left to be helped.

VII-25

The whole army will be exhausted by long war.
There shall not be found money enough to pay off the troops.
Money will be devalued to the worthlessness of stamped leather.
The ancient Gaulish coinage will shrink (from full moon size) to a crescent.

An illustration in the Jour, for the 26th of February, 1937, showed coins of 1914 as a full moon, those for 1918 as half moon, those for 1936, a quarter
p. 345
crescent, and those for 1937 as a thin crescent. (Extrait du "Jour," Georges Lachapelle, Les Finances de la III^e République.)

VI-72

By frenzy feigning divine emotion
The wife of a great and powerful man will suffer transgression.
The judges desiring to condemn such teachings
Will sacrifice her as a victim to an ignorant populace.

The Czarina of Russia and the influence of Rasputin.

I-14

The Slavic nation will sing songs and chants, they will present their petitions.
Their Princes will be captured and their Lords imprisoned
At the coming into power of brainless idiots
Who will be accepted as if they were divinely inspired.

This is a clear picture of the Russian Revolution.

X-22

For being unwilling to agree to separation,
He will be recognized thereafter as unfitted and
The King of the Isles will definitely be driven out p. 346
And another will occupy the throne when he will no longer sign himself King.

VIII-38

When the kingdom is divided and quarreling over the brothers,
One of them will take the arms and name of Britain.
The English title (of the other) will be tardily considered.
Night overtaking him, he will leave for France.

These are the events around the abdication of Edward VIII.

*

V-49

Not from Spain but from ancient France
Shall be he who is elected to guide the tossing barque of the Church.
He will have trust in the enemy,
Who during his reign shall become a great scourge.

In the papal elections of 1922 many thought that the papacy would go to the Spanish cardinal, Merry del Val. It was given instead to Monsignor Ratti, Pius XI, who though Italian, came from what was anciently Cisalpine Gaul.
p. 347

V-92

After the elevation to the papacy, which will last for seventeen years,
Five will change in the revolution of this term,
Then one will be elected from the same time
Who will not be very conformable to the Romans.

Pope Pius XI reigned seventeen years. The five governments which underwent changes in his time were Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Spain. Pius XII is not too "conformable" to Mussolini's ideas.

*

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

V-13

Near Lake Leman there will be a house of prostitution
Presided over by a foreign woman, who will seek to betray the city.
Before she is murdered by the Germans, there will be a great flight.
Then those from the Rhineland will begin their invasion.

The house is the League of Nations, run by foreign policies. Nostradamus, as we have seen, in earlier quatrains here included, did not trust the League.
p. 348

X-49

The garden of the world where is the New City (Geneva),
Situated in the corridor between two mountains,
Will be seized and plunged into the vat
And forced to drink the envenomed, sulphurous waters.

I-47

At Lake Leman the preachments will cause irritation.
Days will drag into weeks,
Then months, then years. Then they will fade away completely
And the Judges will condemn their empty laws.

IX-92

The King will desire to enter into the New City
But his enemies will eventually drive him out.
A captive, he will be free. False things will be spoken and perpetrated.
The King, living outside, will keep himself aloof from his enemies.

The captive king is Haile Selassie.

II-64

The gentry of Geneva will be parched with hunger and thirst. p. 349
Their closest hope will eventually fade away.
The imposition of the law will have the Genevese trembling on the point of war,
But the fleet will not be able to protect itself in the great port (Toulon)

Yes, that was the time they imposed the Italian sanctions and the British fleet backed down.

I-100

For a long time in the sky a gray bird will be seen Near
Dole and the land of Tuscany
Holding in its beak a green branch.
Soon the great man will die and he will conclude the war.

The reference to the dove and the olive branch of the League of Nations seems to close with a reference to the death of Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps the exigencies of rhyme induced the prophet to mention his concluding war, after the man "will die". The meaning is clear enough, but cart-before-horse.

II-23

The palace birds will be driven off by another bird (German eagle)
Soon after the prince (Hitler) comes into power.
How many times that enemy (Germany) has been driven back across the river (Rhine). p. 350
Caught outside its own country the tether of the bird has been seized and held.

I-87

The central fire of the earth which causes temblors
Will make a trembling around the new city.
Two great boulders will for a long time make war (England and Germany)
Then Arethusa's fountain will be red with a new flood.

II-39

A year before Italy is in the conflict
The Germans, French and Spanish will be struggling for power.
The schoolhouse of the republic will fall (League of Nations)
It and its people stifled to death.

IV-59

Two will be besieged with burning anger.
They will quench their thirst in two level cups,
To the strong man who has had the edges of his power filed off, and to the old dreamer.
And to the Genevese, will be exhibited the track of the Aryan country.

The two besieged, or limited, by the League, are Hitler and Mussolini quenching their thirst for power
p. 351
with Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia. The strong man is Daladier; the dreamer, Chamberlain.

*

1940

II-40

A little later, but no great interval,
By land and sea will come the great tumult.
Naval warfare on a scale greater than ever
With explosions and guns will increase the onslaught.

V-85

The Germans and their neighbors
Will be in a war for the control of the regions of the clouds.
The country will suffer from marine locusts and from gnats (hydroplanes and airplanes),
The faults of Geneva will be laid bare.

III-12

Through the tumult that reigns along the Ebro, the Tagus, the Tiber, and at Rome
As well as at Geneva and around the man who is like Aretino,
The two great headwaters and the cities of the Garonne will be affected, p. 352
Captives, dead and injured, the human booty will be divided up.

One can only say that the comparison of Mussolini to Aretino is unflattering to the early journalist and satirist.

*

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION

The Greek dame of despicable beauty
With her lucky achievement of innumerable civil processes,
Will be imported into Spain,
Where she will be captured and perish miserably.

Because of the Greek ideas which characterized the French Revolution and Directorate, foreseen by Nostradamus, he usually calls a government la dame, and uses throughout the Centuries the Greek Woman, or Castula to signify it. Here he sees the importation of democratic principles into Spain, crystallized in the Spanish Republic.

I-19

When they shall complete the area of the Coffin
The Spaniards will make trouble for their aristocratic blood.
Their population will be greatly decimated, p. 353
Their leader will be in flight, hidden by the troughs of blood.

The author has seen a newspaper reference to the flight of the late ex-King, Alfonso, in a boat carrying a cargo of fresh-killed meat, but cannot cite the reference.
The reference to the Coffin area is fascinating. Bertina Harding, in The Phantom Crown, tells how young Maximilian visited the tombs of his ancestors while in Spain in 1856. "The mystery of Philip II's oracle confronted him. In the octagon-shaped chamber, at the center of the mausoleum, the eccentric monarch had fitted out a permanent abode for his embalmed ancestors. That was not all. After providing accommodation for ten defunct forebears, he had added with dreadful insight, space for as many crowned successors to himself as he deemed probable. Tier on tier the marble coffins stood, thirty in all. And only three were empty . . . but the Queen, Isabella II, was fitting up a nursery in her palace at Madrid for this expected heir, Alfonso XII. Would there then be but one more Alfonso? A thirteenth? The Archduke fell into uncomfortable reflections while a phlegmatic guide rattled a bunch of keys.
"'When they are quite full', the man said, pointing at the coffins, 'we will get the Republic.'"
The construction of the tombs (the Coffin) was probably begun by Philip II during the lifetime of Nostradamus.
p. 354

X-48

In the southernmost part of Spain the standard will be raised
And will go out to the end and the confines of Europe.
The revolution will touch closely the bridgehead of the Aisne.
It will be defeated by the great expedition of a coalition.

It is generally recognized that Franco's revolt was the real beginning of the present world war.

VI-64

No one will keep any treaties of peace.
All who accept them will agitate through deceit.
While peace and truce are protested by land and sea
At Barcelona the fleet will be caught in its activity.

III-75

Pau, Verona, Vicence, Saragossa (throughout Spain and Italy)
There will be the long swords, the lands humid with blood.
The corruption of the great granary will be so great
That though help will be near, the remedies will be very far off.

p. 355

VI-10

For a time the Church will follow its colors,
Black and white, the two will be intermingled.
The reds and yellows will seem to be like their own.
The land will suffer blood, scourge, hunger, battle and will be maddened by revolution.

The robes of nuns and of the priesthood are black and white. Red and yellow are the Spanish colors. Franco's party will have the confidence of the Church for a while, because ostensibly the Franco revolt is on behalf of royal restoration.

X-14

The Republic of Valencia, without guidance, and by reason of its nature
Will be hardy and timid by turns. Seized by fear, it will be conquered.
Accompanied by its pale prostitutes
It will be convicted in the prisons of Barcelona.
In place of the wife, the daughters will be killed.
Murdered by a criminal fault which will not be allowed to endure.
Little clad, within trenches they will be overwhelmed.
The wife will quench her thirst in the Italian Sea.

The wife is the royal government whose principles will survive, though her children are murdered.
p. 356

VI-19

The true flame will engulf the government
Which wished to put to death the innocents.
Near the time of assault the at my will become inflamed,
And one will see a prodigious thing in the Bull of Seville.

III-62

Near the Douro, the sea of Cap Cires not having been cut off,
The great mountains of the Pyrenees will be pierced.
The man with the short hand and the pierced tongue (a criminal; meaning the survivors of the Republic)
Will carry his plots into the south of France near Carcassonne.

IV-70

Contiguous to the Pyrenees
A leader will raise a great force against the eagle (Italy),
Exposed and futile forces will be exterminated.
The leader will be pursued as far as Navarre.

p. 357

III-19

In the south of Spain both blood and prosperity will be spent.
A little before they change their proconsul
There will be great scourge and war; famine and thirst will be seen.
Their prince, their great warden, will die away from his own land.

The recent death of Alfonso XIII confirms his prophecy for Spain's "great warden."

*

THE SECOND GREAT WAR

II-56

When corruption and massacre have not put a stop to the situation
And there is death in the bomb-craters struck from high heaven,
The head of the Church will die when he sees the ruin
And those who are shipwrecked clinging to the rock.

The death of Pius XI in 1939 six months before the outbreak of war.

I-91

The myths acting in human guise
Will be the authors of this great conflict. p. 358
Before serene heaven, sword and lance
Will be a less mighty affliction than will be the trend toward the left hand.

The meaning of this is that the old gods and myths revived will dominate human action. Such a revival has been seen in Germany, and Hitler's belief in his relationship to the figures in Wagnerian drama is well known to all readers of magazines and newspapers today. The left hand meant in the prophet's day, not Communism but peace or pacifism. This verse, from a man of peace, is a powerful indictment of the prewar policy of his country.
Interesting is the phraseology of a New York Times editorial (June 22, 1941) on the subject of myths, commenting on a speech by President Conant, of Harvard: "President Conant's new nihilists are the people who believe in the Myth as the great motive force in history. To stir the masses you don't need to tell them the truth. Just tell them anything that gets them excited."

III-26

The kings and the princes will raise up chimeras.
There will be empty prophecies and divination will be exalted.
The golden horn of plenty will be a victim, and from the heaven of the cruel
Will come the interpretations of the oracles.

p. 359
Everyone has heard that Hitler uses astrology and other occult methods to guide his life and activities as well as the destiny of Germany.

VII-14

Natural topography will come to be falsely abandoned.
The monuments created for posterity will stand as open as pitchers.
Factions will multiply, philosophy will be proclaimed.
Black will be put for white, and green wine drunk for ancient vintage.

Presage 27

Aerial warfare will be over the shores of the Occident,
And of the Midi, rushing even to the Levant.
About half the people will die without being able to take root.
This third age shall belong to Mars the Warrior.
The Firebrands will make their appearance to light the fires,
It is the age of the Firebrand, and its end is famine.

X-99

The end of the wolf, the lion, the bull, the ass
And the timid deer will be with the dogs.
No more will sweet manna fall to them.
The watch-dogs will give more vigilance and guardianship.

p. 360

*

ITALY AND SPAIN

VII-32

Born in a hovel and elevated to a regal height
Is he who, empty and vain, will come to tyrannize over the land.
He will raise a force for the march from Milan,
He will exhaust Fayence and Florence of men and money.

This is Mussolini, even to the "march," by train, from Milan.

VI-36

It is not by earthly battle that good or evil
Will rule the confines of the Perusian plain (Italy).
Pisa and Florence, through revolution, will see the birth of misfortune.
The King wounded by night will be lifted up on his mule and set upon a black saddle-cloth.

The wounding of Victor Emmanuel is metaphorical, as is the black saddle-cloth of Fascism.

II-65

The calamity of a declining economy will afflict
Spain and there will be disaster for Italy. p. 361
The Church will be inflamed, there will be corruption and captivity
When Mercury is in the sign of the Archer and Saturn becomes a usurer.

Saturn in Aries is associated with acquisitiveness. The prophet appears here to indicate the period of January 1938, when Saturn entered the sign and Mercury became direct in Sagittarius, to January of 1939 when Saturn turned direct preparatory to leaving the sign, and again Mercury was in the Archer's sign. Nostradamus pays close attention to the times when the planets change from retrograde to direct motion, as did all of the older astrologers who would have noted these details in the prophet's mention of astronomical timing. This time was a period of new and grave economic problems for both Italy, which had not then entered the war, and for the United States whose economic policy, born of the war, was not then fully formulated. The death of a pope during this period would have been felt by Nostradamus as a further deep affliction to Italy.

VII-20

Agents speaking the Italian language
During April and May will cross the Alps and travel overseas.
He of the Calf will explain in a harangue
That he is not coming with the purpose of wiping out the life of France.

p. 362
This verse seems to describe 1940 in the spring, when Mussolini's agents were active on all fronts before his entrance into the war. He of the Calf is Hitler born under Taurus, sign of the Bull, Ox or Calf. The prophet here implies that he is not only Taurus, but the Golden Calf as well. He, Hitler, was, as one recalls, busily explaining that he had nothing against the French--only their government.

IV-35

When the virgins are faithless to their trust the home-fires will become extinct.
The largest number will join the new league (Hitler's new order).
Rulers alone will have in their keeping the means to make war,
Etruria and Corsica will become a fiery gorge by night.

VI-33

The last army raised by bloody Saul
Will not have power to guarantee the sea.
Between two rivers he shall dread a military power.
The black one of wrath will repent his actions.

Obviously a reference to Mussolini, the dark man with his black-shirt legions. The land between the two rivers, referring to the Po and the Tiber, is Italy. The defeat of the Italians, so recently, is clearly given.
p. 363

IV-20

The proclaimed union (Axis) will not last a great while.
The greater of the two will make changes and reforms.
When the nation is paralyzed in its ships,
Then Rome will have a new Leopard.

It was the Mediterranean defeats of the Italian navy which paralyzed the power of Italy and threw her at the mercy of Britain, causing Hitler to move in and take control.
Leopards were the famous device of the Plantagenets, and Richard I, the Crusader, carried them to the Orient. This provides one analogy to the present crusade of England, and the fact that the Mediterranean battles were fought for control of the Eastern bases.

III-68

The leaderless people of Spain and Italy
Will see death and defeat within Italy.
Their leader (Mussolini) will be betrayed by his irresponsible folly.
Blood will flow everywhere across the latitude (of Spain and Italy).

VII-30

The sack approaches with battle and a fire and a great shedding of blood. p. 364
Along the Po and the other great rivers, the initiative will be held by ox-tenders.
After expecting it for a long time, Genoa, Nice, Fossano, Turin, all the way to Savillano will be captured.

Ox-tenders is a play on words referring to Hitler's birth under Taurus, and also is a reference to the low, or ordinary, parentage of Hitler and Mussolini.

IX-76

The Rapacious leader, dark and bloody,
Issued from the hide of inhuman Nero,
Will have his left wing defeated between two waters (Po and Tiber).
He will be destroyed by a young man who will reorganize everything.

Dictatorship organized by Mussolini eventually defeated by the coming Henry V.

VI-98

Ruin to the Italians in terrible plight through the power of fear.
Their great city will be captured, a corrupt deed.
Monarchy, populace and temples will be violated.
The Po and the Tiber will flow reddened with blood.

p. 365

II-54

By a foreign nation quite different from the Romans
Their great city (Rome) will be affected after they
have already gone through a powerful revolution.
The government (Fascist) without forces, because of a different country,
Will see their chief captured for lack of a burnished sword.

It has all been reported in the newspapers. First the Fascist revolution, then the coming of Hitler. Italy helpless, her sword in a beautiful scabbard, but dull and rusty when drawn.

X-20

All the friends who held together the party (Fascism)
Will be pillaged and put to death for their harsh uncivilized propaganda.
Their effects will be declared confiscated,
For never will the people of Rome have been so outraged.

V-21

The death of a Latin monarch
Will involve those whom his rule has assisted.
The fires will be lighted, the booty divided,
There will be public death for his hardy associates (Fascists).

p. 366

V-14

When Saturn and Mars are (conjoined) in Leo, Spain will be captured,
The African leader will be trapped in the conflict.
Near Malta there will be an engagement. Herod will be taken alive,
The scepter of Rome will be struck down by the Cock.

This warlike conjunction will occur on November 12, 1947. It would seem to indicate General Franco, whose prestige has always been bound up with his African influence; it was from the coast of Africa that he planned and led his invasion of Spain. It also specifies the final overthrow of dictatorial power in Italy. Exit the Fascists and Falangists.

IV-34

The great leader will be led captive in a foreign land.
In chains of gold he will be offered to King Henry.
He who in Italy at Milan will lose the war
With all his host will be put to fire and sword.

Since there was nothing in the rule of Henry of Navarre corresponding with this verse, it must apply to the coming Henry V and the downfall of the Italian dictatorship. Fascism is particularly associated with Milan.
p. 367

III-54

A man of very high rank will flee into Spain
After the blood-letting of the long wound.
Armed forces will cross the high mountains
Devastating everything, after that he will reign in peace.

The heir to the Spanish throne, Don Juan, or another?

III-21

In Italy, on the Adriatic coast,
There shall appear a horrible fish.
It will have a human face and an aquatic fin,
It will be taken outside on the hook.

Just what this means is uncertain, except that the fish in Nostradamus’ writings indicates an heretical religion or ideology.

VII-49

Saturn in Taurus sporting with revolution, Mars in Sagittarius,
The sixth of February will be a day of mortality,
Those of the north of Italy will make a great breach in the walls of Brussels
While at Ponteroso the Barbarian leader dies.

This prediction refers to February 6th, 1971--for readers of another day to check!
p. 368

*

THE COMING OF HITLER

III-76

Germany will give birth to divers creeds
Strongly resembling a happy paganism.
But the heart will be prisoner and there will be little profit.
The people will return to their payment of the true tithe.

II-45

Even the heavens will lament when the Androgyne is born.
Near to those same heavens human blood shall be shed.
Through death too late will a great people be renewed (the French).
Late though early the expected succor will come.

The bi-sexual interests of Hitler have been frequently commented on in the press. Late and early refers to the long interval elapsing between the fall of the monarchy and this modern restoration, which will begin early in the great struggle (1944).

IX-68

From the Aryan height there shall arise one who is both elevated and obscure.
His evil will affect the country at the junction of the Saone and the Rhone (Lyons). p. 369
On the Day of Saint Lucia (December 13) his soldiers will be hidden in the woods
Of him who has the most horrible throne ever known.

X-46

In life, destiny and death he will be a base, unworthy man of gold,
But he will not be the new elector of Saxony.
From Brunswick will come the token of affection,
The hypocritical seducer will pose as the restorer of the peoples' rights.

Hitler will not be a second Martin Luther, nor the patron of Luther, the Elector of Saxony. His "reform" movement will not be lasting.

V-5

Under the holy pretense of giving freedom from servitude
He will himself usurp the power of the people and the city.
He will be able to do his worst because of the falsity of the young prostitute (French Republic).
The treacherous, pre-eminent one will read his book to the country.

Probably no one will need to have it pointed out that the dramatis personae of this verse are Hitler, France and Mein Kampf.
p. 370

X-10

Stained with murder and enormous adulteries,
The great enemy of the entire human race,
Who will be worse than his forefathers, his uncles and his fathers
Will be, in fire, battle and revolution, bloody and inhuman.

This sounds like what a large part of the world thinks of Adolf Hitler today, and recalls to the frivolous, "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts etc."
IV-66

Under the protective coloration of seven revolutionaries
Divers experimenters will sow their seed.
Pits and fountains will run with poison,
These human devourers will be inspired by the power of Italy.

It has been noted that Hitler, who was inspired by Mussolini's success, has consistently surrounded himself with seven leaders who carry out his orders and develop his ideas. Whether this is happenstance or related to some of his ideas on occultism is not known, but the number seven has some association with the occult in the minds of many and its legends are very ancient.
p. 371

II-9

Nine years the vegetarian will hold his power in peace
Then he will meet downfall in a thirst so bloody
That on account of him a great people without faith or legality
Will be destroyed by one who is more easy-going.

1933 + 9 = 1942 unless the time should be counted from Hitler's rise in 1932.

V-18

The besieged peoples will strain at their agreements
A week after they are faced with the cruel issue.
Blood will flow in their repulse. Seven will get the axe
When the government which wove the fabric of the peace is itself a captive.

This very well describes conditions after the fall of France. The author does not know the exact number of members of the former government now dead or imprisoned at Rion; but it is close on seven. France, through Clemenceau, was responsible for the peace of Versailles.

VIII-13

The crossed brother maddened by lust
Will kill Bellerophon because of Praytus. p. 372
The enraged woman whose fleet has sailed for a thou-sound years
Will drink bitter brew, thereafter both shall perish.

This verse is as puzzling as it is intriguing. The Bellerophon was the ship that took Napoleon to Saint Helena. Here it is a symbol of England. Classically, Bellerophon was a hero who retired after involuntarily causing the death of Praytus, his friend and hunting companion, while both were guests in the house of Praytus' father-in-law. The meaning could be that England allied with a government of France, the Republic (which is not the true son of France but an in-law), while both are guests of France, will meet tragedy; that England (at Dunquerque) will be responsible for the death of (Praytus) the French government.
Then the symbolism changes, and seems to indicate Britannia, "for a thousand years" a sea-going power from the days of William the Conqueror, will taste defeat, and thereafter both Britain and her antagonist, Germany, the crossed brother, will perish.

VI-99

The efficient enemy will turn about in confusion.
The great country, sick, will be defeated by ambushes.
Spain and Western Africa will refuse to play along (with Hitler) p. 373
There will be defeat near the river where are the remains of antiquity (Tiber).

This appears to be a forecast of the eventual defeat of Italy and Germany, "the efficient enemy."

VIII-90

When among the crossed ones there shall be found a man with a troubled mind,
Then in the Holy Land shall be seen the horned bull.
The home of the Virgin will be filled with swine,
No ruler will be able any more to sustain order there.

Rudolf Hess is said to have fled because his mind was troubled at the thought of occupation and war in the Holy Land which shocked his Catholicism. The horned bull is Hitler, the Taurean, who has brought the war to the Holy Land.
When the Robin Moor was sunk the New York World-Telegram carried a story from the survivors which stated that the submarine hoisted no flag, but was painted with the large device of a red bull. So that it would seem that not only the forces of Hitler, but also his actual astrological insignia are in evidence in the far places.

VI-77

By reason of the fraudulent victory of the leader who shall be cut down, p. 374
The two sides will be in battle, when the cycle is closing in Germany.
The leader and his governmental offspring will be destroyed in home territory,
The monarchy and the papacy will be pursued in Rome.

This seems to mean Hitler's destruction by his own people.

VI-18

In the course of events the Great Ruler will be forsaken, and
The Inebriate, drunk not with art but with power, will be no more of this life,
He and his class having been pushed into such high power,
Pardon will be given to the race who hated Christ.

*

ENGLAND AND HER ALLIES

IV-50

Libra will see the rise to domination of the Western hemisphere,
From heaven to earth the Monarchy (of France) will hold its power.
The forces of Asia will not have perished.
Only seven more will hold the Hierarchic rank.

p. 375
Many people interpret the old prophecies concerning the popes to mean that the present pope is the prophesied Pastor Angelicus. Libra is England, so called because of her policy of the balance of power.

II-89

One day the two great masters will become friends, (Hitler and Stalin).
When their grand power will be greatly augmented.
The new world will be at the height of its development,
The bloody one will make an accounting of its resources.

IV-56

The rise of him who will spread fear on a great scale will be sudden
And the principles in the affair will be well concealed;
The red government will no longer be in the public eye,
Little by little the important leaders will become displeased with it.

Joseph Stalin is an ally of England as this goes to press, but here and elsewhere his passing, along with Communism, is predicted.

X-81

The treasures kept within a building by the citizens of the West (Hesperus)
Shall be withdrawn into a secret place. p. 376
The building shall open its fastenings to the starving.
Closed up again, it will be ravished, a horrible prey to the populace.

This may refer to the gold hoard of the United States; or it may have reference to Spain, known to the ancients as Hesperus, and often so designated by Nostradamus.

III-3

Mars, Mercury and the Moon in conjunction
Will produce extreme scarcity throughout the south of Europe.
In southernmost Asia the earth will quake (or there will be revolt).
Corinth and Ephesus will then be in a quandary.

This triple conjunction last occurred September 2nd, 1940, just before the invasion of Greece.
Nostradamus lived too near the time of Jeanne d’Arc, and he was too passionately French, to feel other than jealousy and distrust of England, a power which he saw steadily expanding through centuries to greater possessions than his own nation. From early times a prophecy of the downfall of England had been handed down from the Welsh prophet, Merlin. Eustache Deschamps, the French bard of the early fifteenth century, used the Merlin prophecy in one of his satiric poems. Nostradamus has come very near to
p. 377
copying it. Both of these troubadours hoped Merlin was right, and, because of that, one may perhaps discount something of the gloom that hangs about Nostradamus’ forecasts for England. The lines of Deschamps are these.

According to the prophet of the Isle of Giants,
Which has since been called Albion,
The people were tardily converted to a belief in God.
The Isle will be completely desolated.
Through their pride will come their day of hardship
Concerning which their prophet Merlin
Predicted their dolorous end
When he wrote: "you will lose life and land."
When that has happened, men will point out to foreigners and those from neighboring countries
Where in former times there was England.

Nostradamus elaborates on the theme in the following verses. No specific dates are indicated in these prophecies for England, some of which may be quite distant.

X-100

England will be a great empire,
The all-powerful land surrounded by water will endure for more than three hundred years.
Her commerce will traverse sea and land,
The Portuguese will not be satisfied with that.

p. 378
Portugal was the great maritime rival of Britain at the time Nostradamus wrote this. There is something deeply symbolic in the fact that this verse is the closing one of the Centuries. It is as if there were an implication that the end of England would be the end of the world as we know it. It is like the old saying about Rome: "While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand, when falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall, and when Rome, falls the world." The civilized world today has a similar feeling about England and her relationship to all that is held free and precious.

III-70

Great Britain taken together with England
Will become indeed overwhelming on the seas.
The new Ausonian (Italy) league will be active in war
And the two powers will be aligned against each other.

III-57

Seven times you will see the British nation change its dynasty,
Bloodstained, in a period of two hundred and ninety years.
France, by no means because of German backing,
Will mistrust being harnessed to this Arietic ox-pole.

p. 379

VI-81

Tears, shrieks, wailings, groans and terrors because of
The inhuman heart of a cruel and icy Ruler.
Lake Leman, the British Isles and Italy will be major targets,
There will be bloodshed, famine, and no mercy shown.

The League of Nations and Britain, differently approached, have been Hitler's main objectives.
VI-90

Ignominy stinking and abominable
Will after the event be hailed as felicity.
There will be great excuse for (France) being unfavorable
When Neptune (England) would not be pushed to make peace.

These curious lines, which seem only applicable to 1940, admit that France has played a not quite heroic part--a great admission for the prophet. Yet he manages to blame England for not following in the footsteps of France.

X-32

Everyone will desire to head the great empire, One shall obtain the power over the others. But there is little time for his power or life, Two years his navy will sustain him.
p. 380

II-100

Within the Isles there will be such a horrible tumult
That nothing will be heard but bellicose factions.
The insults of the brigands (Axis) will become so great
That they will go so far as to range themselves in a strong league.

III-71

Where there is expectation of creating famine
There will be surfeit.
The patrol of the seas, like a dog in the manger,
Will ration oil and wheat to the various nations.

It was all right with Nostradamus when England blockaded the seas in 1914 to the advantage of France. The same situation is all wrong in 1941, and England is then "dog in the manger."

VI-21

When those of the Arctic Pole are united together,
In the Orient there will be a great terror and fear.
The newly elected pope shall sustain the great Church,
Rhodes and Byzantium will be stained with foreign blood.

As this book goes to press, Russia is invaded, and Winston Churchill announces that England will assist
p. 381
her, the two northernmost empires, "those of the Arctic Pole." The fighting and terror in the Orient are at peak.

IV-63

At a time very close to an elongation of Venus
The two great leaders of Asia and Africa will be active.
The arrival of the forces from the Rhine and Danube will be reported.
There will be cries and tears at Malta and the Italian coast.

II-93

The law of More will be seen to decay.
It will be followed by another and much more seductive doctrine.
The premier of Moscow will eventually fall
Defeated by offerings and propaganda of a leader with greater drawing power.

Sir Thomas More, contemporary of the prophet and author of Utopia, was the ancestor of Communism. The prophet seems to blame his ideas beyond those of Rousseau, though he mentions the latter for the tragedies produced by the Communistic ideology. How closely this verse follows the headlines and reports on the Russian-German conflict, as this book goes to press (June, 1941)!
p. 382

VIII-64

Within the Isles the children will be transported,
Two out of every seven will be in despair.
Those of the soil will be supported by it,
But the name and the skin will be captured by the league, and hope flees.

S-50

A little later after England
Has laid the wolf (Germany) as low as earth,
War will be seen resisting revolution,
Rekindling in such violence
Of human bloodshed that little but the bodily envelope of skin will be left.
Bread will be scarce, but swords abundant.

IX-51

The earthquake occurring at Mortara
Will half engulf the navy of Saint George berthed in near-by waters.
Peace will be asleep, war will awake.
In the Church at Easter the chasms will open.

V-59

The English leader will tarry too long at Nîmes
On the way to Spain to help Ænobarbus.
Many will die through open war that day
When the comet shall fail to strike Artois.

p. 383

VIII-7

The fortress beside the Thames
Will fall, the government blockaded within.
Thereafter along the coast it will be stripped bare,
Their adversary will behold the corpse, then he will stand inside the barrier.

III-32

The great sepulchre of the people of Aquitaine (England)
Will be off the shores of Tuscany.
Then war will be near the German frontier
And bringing terror to the people of Mantua.

II-78

Great Neptune will lie at the bottom of the sea
In the mingled blood of Arabs and French.
The Isles will go down in blood because they took up their oars too late,
And more, because they concealed their plans so badly.

VIII-97

In the confines of the War the destiny of Britain will change,
Near to the shore where three fine young nations will be born. p. 384
Ruin to the people competent through their seniority,
The government of the country will change and never grow again.

IX-6

Across Guienne an enormous number of English
Will come to settle under the name Anglaquitaine (English Aquitanis).
In Toulouse of Languedoc and le Bordelais
They will live and call their settlement Barboxitaine.

*

FRANCE AND THE PAPACY

VI-74

The government which was driven out shall return to power,
Its enemies will be named as conspirators.
More than ever its times will triumph
For three and seventy years until death well assured.

This is a peculiarly interesting verse. In his letter to King Henry the prophet speaks of "the great trembling of the earth together with the increase of the new Babylon, wretched daughter (of the Revolution), augmented by the abomination of the first holocaust
p. 385
[paragraph continues](1792). It will hold its power for just seventy-three years and seven months. Then there shall issue from the long barren tree (of the monarchy), born at the 50th Parallel (latitude of the Franco-Belgian border), one who will revitalize the entire Christian Church. And there shall be created a peace, union and concord between the children of opposed and separate races."
If 1944, as previously analyzed from the number of verses and Centuries (this author may possibly be alone in seeing such a connection; certainly the first to say so), it constitutes Nostradamus’ date for the beginning of "France Second," over which the new and great Henry V is to rule.
If to the date of the Battle of Sedan, September 1st, 1870, the seventy-three years and seven months of the prophet are added, it brings us to March, 1944. If the seventy-three years are subtracted from the date of the downfall of Napoleon III at Sedan one gets 1797, dating the rise of Napoleon I. Napoleon III died in 1873, which is a kind of echo of the number. Nostradamus mentions, not in a prophetic connection, the Hebrew prophet Joel. This is in the letter to the King. It seemed odd to single out for no reason this one short Biblical book and not to refer to other prophets. But on looking into Joel, one discovers that the book has just three chapters and seventy-three verses. The French Republic has had three chapters too, the First, Second and Third Republics. This number 73 is a peculiar one.
p. 386
Nostradamus gives the precise date of the French Revolution, also in the letter to the King. "Then will be seen the beginning of events of long duration, and in the first year there will be a great persecution of the Christian Church. This will break out in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. The people will think that it is a renewing of the age."
If 1792 is taken as a starting point, and two additions of the number of Joel, 73, are made, one has the date of 1938.
Returning to the quatrain, the verse of course refers to the government of Napoleon I, which returned to power under Louis Napoleon. Yet as has been shown, the verse has a much more subtle application, and the seventy-three years does not refer to the tenure of power of either man, but to cycles which included their years. The rise of one and the downfall of the other give points of reference for use of the number.

X-28

The Second and Third Republics will make prime music
And be lifted by a king to the summit of prestige.
But the grass will grow thin to emaciation
And the exposé of false self-indulgence will deprive them of power.

Nostradamus severely blamed Louis Philippe, whose reign was the beginning of the Second Republic, in other verses, for his catering to democratic ideas, and
p. 387
abandoning the flag of the lilies for the tri-color. He is the King referred to here.

IV-30

More than eleven times the populace has refused the monarchy,
All influences have been alternately augmented and lowered,
And so low will they sink that little gold can be sewed up for keeping,
Later there will be famine, corruption and exposés of hidden matters.

There have been twelve elected presidents of France, in addition to the first two who were royalist in sympathy.
VIII-96

The synagogue, sterile and bearing no fruit
Will be received, accepted among the infidels
Of Babylon where its sad, miserable leader will
Have his wings clipped by the daughter of persecution (Paris).

Léon Blum's tenure of office.

IV-32

The times and localities will compel meat to be replaced by fish. p. 388
The law of the Commune will work in an opposite fashion.
An old man will hold the power, then he will be removed from office.
The friend of all things pertaining to the mob will be relegated to the background.

The boomerang in both defense and economics which marked the Blum régime is predicted.

VI-50

Within the pits the old bones will be found,
The remains of incest committed by the step-mother.
The state will change, the skeleton will rattle,
And Mars will be ascendant on its star.

Nostradamus never fails to ascribe the faults of democracy in France to its hideous beginnings in the French Revolution, the step-mother of the Third Republic. He hears the rattle of its bones in the revival of Communist ideas in the Blum régime.

I-3

When the blown litter of the whirlwind drives against them,
They will hide their faces with their cloaks,
A new class of people will trouble the Republic
And the Revolutionaries and the Royalists will judge all matters from opposing points of view.

p. 389
The Cagoulards, or hooded ones, who hid their faces, arose to fight the leftist tendencies of the French Republic, and by so doing played into Hitler's hands.

IX-51

The people will band themselves together against the red factions.
There will be flame, battle and revolution while the heart is avid for peace.
Those who weave their plots will do so at the point of death,
Save one (Hitler), who will bring ruin upon the entire world.

VIII-91

In the country watered by the Rhone,
Where the crossed ones will be almost united
When the two which constrain (Mars and Saturn) are met in Pisces,
A great number will be punished by the deluge.

This probably referred to the conjunction of 1938, when the harmony between the Axis members was at its height. Mention was made in the press of their conspiracies, notably those of burning French ships. They had their headquarters in the valley and mouth of the Rhone. The deluge here is the figurative one of the onset of tragedy.
p. 390

VIII-1

A number (in the government) will be confused in their expectation.
This will not be forgiven by the population,
Who will be of the opinion that they should persevere in their hope,
But the great leisure to do this will not be given to them.

Sixain 36

Those without power, wishing to acquire power
'Will spread a great rumor all through France.
The honeyed tongue, the veritable chameleons,
The incendiaries, the firebrands, the agitators,
The Toms, Dicks and Harrys, the purveyors of news,
Their bite will be like that of the Scorpion.

VII-33

Through fraudulent government the country will be despoiled of its forces,
The fleet attacked, channels open to espionage.
Two pretended friends will form an alliance
Awakening hatred long lulled to sleep.

The ancient enmity of France and England.

VI-34

The mechanics of flying fire
Will cause the people who are besieged to revolt against their leader. p. 391
Within the nation there will be such sedition
That they will be defeated in their despair.

II-77

With projectiles, fire and chemicals they will attack, and be repulsed with fire.
Cries and groans will be heard on the midnight air,
People will be placed within hidden ramparts,
The traitors will escape by an underground route.

VI-43

For a long time the country will be abandoned
Where the Seine and the Marne flow together.
The soldiers from the Thames will be despised,
They will be driven back from those whom they were supposed to guard.

I-41

The City (Paris) will be assailed by night.
Few will escape in the conflict near to the sea (Dunquerque)
The prostitute (Republic), when her son returns to her defeated,
Will perish of poison hidden in the folds of propaganda.

II-8 7

Afterwards there shall come from the neighboring lands p. 392
A German prince who shall sit upon the golden throne (France).
In captivity and through experiences with the tides of revolution
The Republic will be reduced to servitude and shall no longer endure.

The golden throne in Nostradamus’ writings is always the throne of France, whose ancient emblem was the lilies of gold on the white flag. Nostradamus often uses prince or king when speaking of a foreigner of great power. Here Hitler.

II-5

Near the frontiers, within two cities
There will be two scourges worse than was ever known.
Famine linked with corruption, the people driven at the point of the sword,
They will cry for help to the Great God immortal.

Paris and Vichy. Nostradamus uses such terms as scourge in the Biblical sense of general affliction.

X-85

The tribune so old that he is almost at the point of trembling,
Will be under pressure to deliver up his captive. p. 393
The old man, who is not really old, speaking a cautious evil,
Will attempt by legal means to betray his friends.

Pétain, Laval, and the prisoners at Rion.

IV-21

The change will be very difficult,
But the City and province will gain by it.
A prudent man of high courage put in office will be driven out by the clever man,
Land, sea, and population, the status of all will be greatly changed.

This sounds as if it were a reference to Marshal Pétain and Laval or Darlan.

I-61

The Republic, wretched ingrate,
Will be depopulated under its new Magistrate.
There will be a great mass of exiles and witch-doctors,
Who will rob the Germans of their great agreement.

VI-9 7

At the five and fortieth parallel the heavens will flame.
The battle will approach the great new city (Geneva). p. 394
On the instant a great scattering blaze will leap up,
Then it will be desirable that the Normans should prove their capacity.

The degree is that of the city of Lyons, which is indicated elsewhere as the route of conquest, up from the south and the path which the coming Henry V will follow. The Normans are the old monarchy of which he is the descendant.

IV-40

The forts of the besieged will be attacked
With fiery explosives that will reduce them to craters.
The bandits will be ground up alive,
At which time there will be never so piteous a schism in the Holy Church.

VIII-6

A lightning splendor appearing at Lyons
Will give illumination; after Malta has been taken will be suddenly smothered.
Don Raz will deceitfully deliver up the Moors
While from Geneva to London the treason of the Cock is proclaimed.

Don Raz is Franco, so called because of his Moorish connections.
p. 395

III-82

Fréjus, Antibes and the cities around Nice
Will be devastated by land and sea power.
The locusts (airplanes) will be over land and sea when the wind is favorable,
People will be captured, killed, bound and pillaged without regard to the rules of warfare.

S-4

In a round cycle of the lily there shall be born a very great Prince
Come late indeed yet early into his Province.
Saturn will be in Libra, sign of its exaltation.
The standards of self-indulgence will be in decreasing strength.
The Republic after her effort to be masculine will be under her own corpse,
That the happy blood of Bourbon shall be upheld.

Saturn will be in Libra in 1951, when the new King may be expected to reach the fullness of his power.

II-88

When the cycle of the great ruinous activity is accomplished,
There shall arise he who will be the fifth (Henry V) and seventh (of the name of Guise). p. 396
At that time Aix will not be able to guarantee Lutetia
Against the foreign Aries warrior and his nation, a third larger than France.

This verse clearly prophesies that the coming King of France will arise at this time when France is under the heel of Germany. Germany, like England, has long been considered by many astrologers to be under the general rulership of the sign Aries. The astrologer Cheiro once told Edward VII that the salvation of both countries lay in peace and agreement because they were both ruled by Aries.

V-53

The law of the monarchy contending against that of self-indulgence
Will confirm the spirit of my prophecy.
Neither the one nor the other of the rival parties (Communism and Fascism) will be successful,
Through the Monarchy the law of the Great Messiah will be upheld.

III-5

Near the long default of two great luminaries
Which will come to pass in April and March,
Oh, what a dearth! But two great and kindly gentlemen
By land and sea will succor all parts.

p. 397
Nostradamus indicates in verses, not given here, that the coming King of Spain will be a friend and companion-at-arms of Henry V.

I-51

In the watery triplicity there will be born
One who will have Thursday for his gala day.
His reputation, praise, and power will spread
By land and sea, he will be a tempeste to the people of the Orient.

The present Pretender was born July 5, 1908, with the Sun in the watery sign Cancer.

X-71

By the forces of earth and air the very great revolution will be frozen
When in time Thursday shall be venerated.
Never was there one so fair as he shall be,
The four quarters of the earth shall honor him.

Thursday, the day of Jupiter, planet of ecclesiastical hierarchy, is here used in contradistinction to Friday, sacred to the Mohammedans. The meaning is that of the Christian King, Henry V, whose reign will be closely harmonized with the Church.
p. 398

VI-12

He (Henry V) will assemble forces to carry him to Empire
And in the Vatican the Pope will be of the blood royal (of France).
The Flemish, the English, Spain and Paris
Will fight against Italy and the rest of France.

By Paris, here, one assumes that he must refer to the Free French movement representative of the former government seated in Paris. But the verse is puzzling in advance of the event.

S-15

The newly elected father of the great ship (papacy)
Will for a long time give illumination like a clear flame
Serving as a lamp to this great land,
And at that time the coat-of-arms belonging to his name
Will be linked with that of the happy one of Bourbon.
From the Levant to the Western Ocean and the land
of the Setting Sun his memory will be honored.

X-42

The human rule of Angelic birth
Will base its power on peace and union,
War will be captive and half cloistered,
For a long time peace will be maintained among men.

p. 399
The Pastor Angelicus, of the prophecy of Malachi, is the pope yet to come, and is the one indicated by the prophet in this verse. Apparently he is to be of royal French blood and hold his office while Henry V is King of France. This prediction does not check with the papal succession given by Malachi.

S-53

Many will die before the Phoenix dies to renew itself.
Until six hundred seventy shall he dwell,
Having passed fifteen years, twenty-one and thirty-nine.
The first is subject to illness,
The second to battle and danger to life,
And to fire and revolution is subject thirty-nine.

If these numbers are added and the sum added to 1870 the resultant date for the rebirth of the Phoenix is 1945.

X-44

When there shall be a ruler who will go contrary to the will of his own people
A scion of Blois (the blood royal of France) will subjugate the Italians,
Memel, Cordova, and the peoples of Dalmatia.
Thereafter the spirit of the seven will be with the King and he will make offerings to the souls of his ancestors.

p. 400

When Mars and the Scepter shall be conjoined
Under Cancer there will be calamitous war.
Not long thereafter a new king will be anointed
Who for a long period will bring peace to the land.

June, 1951. Both Sun and Mars were in Cancer in 1940 but not close enough for conjunction. This checks the previous verse giving the same year, and indicates that fighting will go on until the turn of the decade.

VIII-52

The king of Blois shall reign in Avignon,
From Amboise he will dispose his forces the length of the Indre.
In the angle of Poictiers he will break the wings of the Holy Empire
In the neighborhood of the Boni.

The angle of Poictiers is what military men still call the strategic position in this terrain which dominates the approach to Paris. The Holy Empire is that of Germany. Boni is thought by Fontbrune to mean the Bohemians--Czechs. This author doubts it, but does not know what the interpretation is. The original line consists of only two words, and there is probably a
p. 401
trick reading. Such verses were an art in the prophet's day.

VIII-1

PAU, NAY, LORON will be a man who is more of fire than of blood.
He will swim in praise. The great man will put down the insurrectionists.
He will refuse entrance to the despoilers.
He will enclose the Name of the Pope in the country where the Durance flows.

In this verse which begins the three Centuries dedicated to Henry, King of France Second, Nostradamus indicates the Bourbon ancestry by addressing the coming King by the name of the birthplace of the Bourbon line, Pau, and two other towns in Béarn. Avignon, the papal city, is near the confluence of the Rhone and Durance.

V-6

The Pope will lay his hand on the King's head
And implore him to establish peace in Italy.
The King will change his scepter to his left hand (token of peace)
And from being a king he will become the pacific Emperor.

p. 402

VIII-18

The offspring of the Fleur de Lis will cause its death.
A little after its rebirth the old confusion will arise,
The three lilies will come to an end because of it.
The rescued fruit will change and become as crude flesh.

S-34

Princes and Lords, all who are accustomed to make war,
Cousin German, brother with brother,
Ended is The Tree of the happy line of Bourbon.
The very lovable Princes of Jerusalem,
Ended by the commission of an enormous and execrable deed.
The people will feel the effect when the bottom drops out of their economy.

X-75

He who had been so long awaited will never come again
Within Europe. In Asia there will arise
A man of the league, sprung from the Greek tradition (democratic or Communistic)
Who will spread his power over all of the Kings of the Orient.

In the last three verses the tragic end of the house of Bourbon is indicated, and reaction against the monarchy.
p. 403

VIII-99

By the power of three temporal kings it shall happen.
The Holy See will be changed to another place.
There the bodily substance of the spirit
Will be restored and the new locality will be accepted as the true seat.

V-46

By reason of quarrels and new schisms among the cardinals
When the Pope shall be elected
Great amounts of false doctrine will be produced against him
And Rome will be injured by the Mohammedans.

VIII-98

The blood of the clergy will be shed
Like water in great abundance
And for a long time it will not be stanched.
Woe, woe to the clergy, ruin and sorrow.

There are no dates for these verses.

*

DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF A SAINT

The fascinating prophecy given below concerns the finding of a tomb of some early Christian saint, which is to happen in April of whatever year. The prophet does not indicate a closer date except that the "new party" will be founded upon the bones of the saint,
p. 404
whom he calls the Great Roman. This presumably means the Christian royalist party of the coming King. The saint may possibly be one of the early Christians of the time of Trajan, who journeyed into Gaul and died there. Under Trajan the Roman Empire reached its greatest expansion of territory. It also achieved a very high and wide-spread culture. The persecution of Christians was, however, very severe. The verses seem to point to an analogy between Trajan and the imperialist ambitions of Mussolini, who is perhaps typified in the mention of Prince Ulpian. Trajan's name was Marcus Ulpius Trajan. Nostradamus’ reference to the golden lamp of Trajan would seem to mean the spiritual lamp of Christianity which, though buried under persecution, still glows in its secret place in the old Roman province, now Provence. The parallel is made by the prophet between the persecuted Christians of Trajan's day, of whom the old saint may have been one, and the modern Christians, whose lamp must also burn in secret, persecuted by dictators.

VI-66

At the foundation of the new party
Will be found the bones of the Great Roman,
A fissure will reveal the marble of the sepulchre,
Ill covered, after an earthquake in April.

IX-31

Exposure of the government will put an end to the hecatomb. p. 405
When the source of the stream is traced
A freshet will lay bare the marble and lead of the tomb
Which will be that of the Great Roman whose motto was Deus In Me.

VIII-59

The weak faction will occupy this locality,
Those in high places will make horrible outcry,
From their vantage point the strong group will stir up trouble,
The tomb will be found near Embrun, where the inscriptions will be uncovered.

VI-15

Beneath the tomb will be found a prince
Worthier than he of Nuremberg.
The Spanish government, its power lessened, will, when the Sun is in Capricorn (January)
Be denounced and betrayed by the Great Leader of Wittemberg.

Nuremberg and Wittemberg refer to Hitler.

V-66

Under the ancient buildings sacred to hearth and home,
Not far from the ruined aqueduct (Pont du Garde at Nîmes) p. 406
Are the luminous metals of the Sun and Moon,
There the chased, golden lamp of Trajan is still burning.

VII-66

When the inscription D. M. (Deus In Me) is found
And the ancient tomb with its lamp is discovered,
The law, the King and Prince Ulpian will be put to proof,
The royal standard and the Duke will go into hiding.

III-65

Discovery of the tomb of the Great Roman
Will be followed next day by the election of a new pontiff.
The College of Cardinals, engrossed in quarrels, will not ratify the election.
The sacred chalice (the Church itself) will inhibit the authority of the heir of Saint Peter.

I-25

Lost, refound after concealment for so long a cycle, an age
The shepherd will be venerated as a demigod,
Until the Moon has completed her grand cycle,
When the ancient saint will be dishonored by those of another faith.

p. 407

*

THE RISE OF THE ORIENT

The author, sometime ago, cited some of the predictions in the following verses to a well-known military commentator. He said that they were not news. That men in his particular work who were always scanning future horizons for long-range prophecies of their own had long accepted the rise of the Orient as a fait accompli of the future, and that for this reason the political forecasters gave triple attention to every item that came out of Asia and Africa. Nostradamus in his own day saw the might of the Orient and its menace to Christian Europe, and he knew that cycles return.

VIII-5 9

Twice lifted to power, twice overthrown,
The Orient like the Occident will weaken.
His adversary after numerous struggles,
Routed by the sea, in a pinch will fall.

IX-60

In the conflict with the Barbarian with the black Head-dress
Bloodshed will make Dalmatia tremble,
The might of Araby will rear its headland,
The frogs will shake with fear, Portugal will give help.

p. 408
The frogs are the French; that is the ancient name from Merovingian times.
VI-85

The great city of Constaninople will be destroyed by the French;
The forces of the Turban will be taken captive.
Help will come by sea from a great leader of Portugal.
This will happen on the twenty-fifth of May, the day of Saint Urban.

Probably the prophet looks back from this advanced time to what is Portugal today, as this is a small country and may be incorporated in a large one. A modern French commentator, realizing its size, says, naïvely enough, that Portugal will send for the U. S. fleet!

VIII-77

Anti-Christ will be three times annihilated,
Seven and twenty years blood will be shed in war.
Dead heretics, captives and exiles there shall be,
Blood, human corpses, crimson waters and hail upon the earth.

I-18

Through the negligence and discord of France
An opening will be given to the followers of Mohammed. p. 409
The earth and sea of the north of Italy will be blood-soaked,
The harbor of Marseilles will be filled with ships and sails.

III-44

The ancient monarch driven out of power
Will go to fetch his help among those of the Orient.
For fear of the cross he will fold his standard.
In Greece he will go by land and sea.

V-112

The sea will not be safe for the monarchy,
Those of self-indulgent life will hold all Africa,
No longer will the hypocrites be in occupation,
And a portion of Asia will change.

Life will be frankly hedonistic in Africa without the mask of moral hypocrisy.

V-5

In the country of Arabia Felix
There shall be born a puissant leader of the Mohammedans.
He will trouble Spain and conquer Granada,
And from beyond the sea he shall invade the people of the Italian west coast.

p. 410

VI-80

From Fez the rule shall attain to the countries of Europe.
Their cities will be fired and their people pierced with a blade,
The chief leader of Asia will bring a great troop by land and sea.
He will pursue the royalists, the priests and the cross to their death.

III-20

Through the lands watered by the great river Bethis
Far within Spain in the kingdom of Granada,
The cross will be driven back by a Mohammedan nation,
A man of Cordova will betray his country.

I-73

France, through her neglect, will be assailed on five fronts,
Tunis and Algiers will be stirred up by the peoples of Asia,
Leon, Seville and Barcelona will fall
And they will not have the fleet of Venice to protect them.

In the coming invasions of Europe, through the rising of the Orient, the prophet makes sarcastic reference to the long years in his own day when the Venetian fleet, unaided, protected Europe against the East
p. 411
while the nations of Europe quarreled amongst themselves. That situation, he says, will come again, and this time there won't be the Venetian fleet.

II-96

A burning torch shall appear in the heaven
Above the Rhone from source to mouth.
Famine, sword will afflict, succor will be tardily brought.
The Persian will turn to the invasion of Macedonia.

IX-73

The Monarch of the blue Turban when he has entered into Foix
Will rule less than an evolution of Saturn (29 years).
The King of the white Turban and the high courage of Byzantium
Will be manifest near the time of holding when Sun, Mars and Mercury are conjoined in Aquarius.

This conjunction takes place February 18, 1981.

Presage 35

France shall be greatly saddened by a death,
The mother and tutrice shall be bereft of the royal blood.
Government and Lords will be made orphans by the Crocodiles, p. 412
Strong cities, castles and towns will be taken by surprise,
May Almighty God guard them from these evils.

The Crocodiles are the people of Africa and tropical Asia who will overwhelm France, the mother and tutrice, after the final fall of the Bourbon dynasty.

V-75

The Church of God will be persecuted,
The sacred temples will be despoiled,
The child shall strip the mother of everything,
The Arabs will join the Jews.

V-25

The rule of the Church will succumb by sea
To the Prince of Arabia when Mars, Sun and Venus are conjoined in Leo,
Across Persia will come full near a million troops,
The true serpent will invade Byzantium and Egypt.

The date of this conjunction is August 21, 1987.

*

THE END OF THE AGE

Not only ever since the Christian era, but long before in the songs and lamentations of the Hebrew prophets, the end of the great precessional era of the
p. 413
[paragraph continues]Fishes, Pisces, has been foretold in a wealth of tragic and saddening detail. It is not the end of the world, as many people of old times thought, but the end of a grand period, and the birth of a new age with a different type of thought and civilization. Nostradamus prophesied that it would be marked by the downfall of old Europe, and be ushered in with earthquakes and eclipses such as the Bible describes in the scene of the Crucifixion.
Science recognizes that from time to time the earth changes the inclination of its axis. They know this from fossil remains (which, for example, show that Alaska had once a warm climate, and other localities show that similar changes have taken place). But science has no knowledge of what causes this change, nor in what cycle of years its return may be expected. Nor does Nostradamus specify the date for this occurrence, but by implication he links it with the phenomenon of the double eclipse which will take place in 1999.
The two eclipses will occur in the sign Leo, a partial one on July 28th, and a total one on August 11. The event is a very rare astronomical phenomenon. Camille Flammarion wrote of it in detail. All astronomers then living will prepare to observe it with every advanced resource of scientific equipment. Nostradamus, in both his letter to the King and in his verses, has given his picture of what he predicts will affect the entire world. Science is just beginning to have an understanding of terrestrial phenomena, such as floods and earthquakes, coming as the result of celestial phenomena, the doctrine
p. 414
held by astrologers for thousands of years. Science has arrived at some limited conclusions forced by the necessity for better long-range weather forecasting. But the study of earthquakes, floods and volcanoes, made in the light of the gravitational and magnetic strains and stresses of the Sun, Moon and planets, is still in its infancy and as yet almost nothing is known about it. The wise men of old knew these things, and Nostradamus knew them. He needed no telescope for the double eclipse, and he not only saw it, but he saw the train of events that came with it, something no giant telescope can show.
In his letter to the King the prophet has this to say of the last years of the twentieth century:
"Then shall begin the great empire of Antichrist in the invasions of Xerxes and Attila ('one who will revive the King of the Angoumois,' and the Oriental invasion) who will come with a countless throng, so that the advent of the Holy Spirit, from the 48th parallel, will make a great change and chase away the abomination of Antichrist that made war on the sovereign Vicar of Christ (the Pope) and against his Church for a time and to the end of time. This will be preceded by an eclipse of the Sun, of denser darkness than has ever been seen since the Creation and up to the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and from that time until the coming one. There will take place in the month of October a great translation made so that the earth will seem to lose the weight of its natural motion in an abyss of endless darkness. There will be premonitory
p. 415
signs in the spring, and there will be extreme changes, overthrows of kingdoms, and earthquakes."
"In the last period all the Christian kingdoms, and those of the infidels, will be shaken for twenty-five years. The wars and battles will be more injurious. Towns, cities, castles, and other buildings will be burned, laid waste, and destroyed, with great bloodshed of vestals, violation of wives and widows, and children at the breast dashed and broken against the walls of the towns. Satan, the prince infernal, will commit so many evils that nearly the whole world will be afflicted and desolated.
"After this has endured for a certain length of time, Saturn will almost renew his cycle (twenty-nine years), but God the Creator will bring an age of gold. He will heed the affliction of His people, and He will bind Satan and throw him into the abyss. Then shall begin between God and man a universal peace, and Satan will be bound for a thousand years. Then the cycle will return in grand power, Satan will be once more unbound against the Church."

IV-67

The year that Saturn and Mars are conjunct and combust
The air will be very dry and there will be a long trajection (comet), p. 416
Through incendiarism a great locality will be consumed by fire,
There will be little rain, with wind, heat, wars and incursions.

This configuration occurs in April, 1998. It is in that year that Nostradamus predicts the great invasion of France. The path of the solar eclipse, which will be total, passes through northern France and Belgium.

V-54

From the Euxine Sea and great Tartary
There will arise a King who will eventually behold Gaul.
He will traverse Turkey and Germany
And in Byzantium will leave his bloody track.

II-29

The Oriental will go out from his home
To cross the Apennines and look on France.
He will traverse the clouds and the snows of heaven,
And everyone will be struck down with his club.

X-72

In the year 1999 and seven months
From the sky will come a great and terrible King
Who will revive the great King of the Angoumois,
Before and after his coming war will rule at full blast.

p. 417
The Angoumois were an early Gallic people conquered by the invading Goths. The situation will be similar.

III-84

The Great City will be desolate,
Of her inhabitants not one shall remain to dwell there,
Wall, sex, building and virgin will be violated.
By battle, fire, corruption and cannon the people will die.

II-28

The last but one to be called Pope
Will take Diana for his day and his repose,
He will wander afar on account of his distracted head,
Seeking to deliver a great people from economic oppression.

Diana is the Moon, so that Monday will be the Pope's day of rest. The Moon rules changes, travels and voyagings, and it is involved in mental frenzies and distracted mentalities. In the famous prophecy of Malachi, in his descriptions of the popes yet to come he names third before Petrus Romanus (the last one named) De Medietate Lunae. De Medietate Lunae means "relating to the half-Moon, which is the crescent of Diana." Malachi's further description of this pope is: "From the half-moon proceeds this pope sent to Rome by the Divine Doctor, Hail, our well-beloved Pius XII, most holy Mediator, future victim." The
p. 418
present incumbent of the holy See is Pius XII, and more than any previous pope he has "wandered afar." But otherwise the description does not fit, nor does he come in the order given by Malachi. According to the Monk of Padua there will be two popes after the Lunar, and three more before him. Nostradamus names him as the "penultimate" pope. In the times of the Avignon popes and the Great Schism Cardinal Pietro di Luna was one of the false popes. Eustache Deschamps, a famous satiric poet of that time, whose writings were not only familiar to Nostradamus but imitated and quoted by him, wrote a satire called, "Of the Schism in the Church Which is Much Troubled by the Moon" (Luna). Some of Nostradamus’ lines are very close to lines in this satire.

III-17

Mount Aventine will be seen flaming in the night.
The sky will be suddenly obscured in Flanders.
When the Monarch drives out his nephew,
The people of the Church will commit scandals.

VIII-15

Toward the north great efforts will be made by mankind,
Almost all of Europe and the whole world will be tormented.
The two eclipses will put men to such pursuit p. 419
And will augment life and death among the Hungarians.

These two eclipses, one of the Sun and the other of the Moon, both occur in August of 1999, in the sign Leo, traditionally associated.

VIII-16

In the place where the Almighty has built His ship (Rome)
The deluge will be so great and so sudden
That there will be no spot of earth for a firm foothold.
The wave will cover the Olympus of Fiesole (Apennines).

I-69

The great round mountain of the seven hills (Rome),
After it has gone through peace, war, famine and inundation,
Will tumble far, sending the great country into the abyss,
Even its antiquities will be lost and its great foundation.

I-56

You will see, early and late, great changes take place,
Extremes of horror and prosecutions p. 420
As if the Moon were guided by its spirit,
The heavens approach the time of their tilting.

I-84

The Moon obscured in profound darkness,
Her brother (the Sun) will become the color of rust,
The great one hidden for a long time in darkness
Will turn the sword in the bloody wound.

I-47

For forty years the rainbow shall not appear.
For forty years all the days shall behold
A barren earth and increasing scarcity,
And great deluges will be perceived.

X-74

At the revolution of the grand number seven
There will appear the hazards of the hecatomb,
Not far from the great Millennial age
The dead shall go out from their tomb.

X-73

Past and present times together
Will be judged by the great Jehovah, p. 421
The world in its late stage will be abandoned by Him
And sentence will be passed on the disloyal clergy.

VII-41

Those whose bones of hands and feet were shut up
In a dwelling long uninhabited by noise
Will be disinherited while they are in the depths of their dream
And translated to a house that is salutary and calm.