SOURCE: "Nostradamus and Napoleon I," in Nostradamus; or, The Future Foretold, revised edition, George Mann, 1973, pp. 165-89.

[In the following chapter from a reprint of the 1973 edition of his Nostradamus; or, The Future Foretold, Laver interprets sections of the Centuries which have been cited by other commentators as concerning the rise, progress, and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte.]

The French Revolution looms very large in the Centuries. It is not perhaps surprising that the career of Napoleon occupies an even larger place. Napoleon was just the kind of fatidic figure to appeal to the Prophet, and indeed a prophet would hardly be worth the name who, concerning himself with French history, should fail to foresee the rise of Bonaparte. But there is foreseeing and foreseeing, and the reader who has followed the argument thus far will feel that he has a right to expect not only a general outline but a wealth of detail concerning the achievements of the Man of Destiny. He will not be disappointed.

Nostradamus begins at the beginning:

Un Empereur naistra pres d'Italie,Qui à l'Empire sera vendu bien cher:Diront avec quels gens il se ralie,Qu 'on trouvera moins prince que boucher.

An Emperor will be born near Italy who will cost the Empire dear; when it is seen with what people he allies himself he will be found less like a prince than a butcher. The last line recalls the estimate of Cromwell—Plus Macelin que Roy, more like a butcher than a king. There is indeed a curious parallelism in the mind of the Prophet between the two men, as we shall see more clearly when considering another quatrain. The lines quoted above, of course, might refer to one of the Holy Roman Emperors. They might, although it is difficult to think of one. They certainly fit Napoleon. And more is to follow:

Du plus profond de l'Occident d'Europe,De pauvres gens un jeune enfant naistra,Qui par sa langue seduira grande troupe,Son bruit au regne d'Orient plus croistra.

In the extreme west of Europe a child will be born of poor parents who will seduce by his speech a great army; his renown will grown greater in the Kingdom of the East. Napoleon was born on August 15th, 1769, in Corsica which is not in the extreme west of Europe, although it might seem so by contrast with 'the Kingdom of the East'. The effectiveness of his proclamations to his troops is well known. The reference in the last line is to the campaign in Egypt which so much increased his growing fame.

If this is still not quite satisfactory, we are given a hint of his name:

D'un nom farouche tel proferé sera,Que les trois seurs auront fato le nom:Puis grand peuple par langue & faict duira,
Plus que nul autre aura bruit & renom.

The vocable of his name will be as terrible as that which the Three Fates (les trois saeurs) received from Destiny (fato, from fatum, Latin, Destiny). He will lead (duira from duco, ducere) a great people by his words and his deeds; more than any other he will have fame and renown.

The second part is plain sailing, but why a nom farouche? Was the astounding Nostradamus really thinking of that Angel of the Abyss in the Apocalypse, the Destroyer, whom the Jews called Abaddon and the Greeks Apollyon?

Le Pelletier even goes further and suggests Nη—α?ϝϝνëωυ, Verily-the-Exterminator, and to support his claim points out that the ç is not arbitrary and is in fact found sculptured on the base of the column in the Place Vendôme:

NEAPOLIO. IMP. AUG. MONUMENTUM. BELLI. GERMANICI. ANNO MDCCCV.

Certainly it is just the kind of play upon words in which Nostradamus would have delighted if he could have foreseen—but we are catching ourselves out in an absurdity. Who knows what he could not foresee? He was certainly much preoccupied with the question of the Great Man's name.

Du nom qui oncques ne fust au roy gauloisJamais ne fut un foudre si craintif.Tremblant l'Italie, l'Espagne et les Anglois,De femme estrange grandement attentif.

Of a name which no King of France had before him never was a thunderbolt so fearful, causing to tremble, Italy, Spain and the English. He will be greatly attentive to a foreign woman.

No ruler of France had borne a new name since Francis I, before Nostradamus was born. Napoleon was the first to do so. The second and third lines explain themselves and the 'foreign woman' can be either the creole Josephine, the Austrian Marie Louise, or the Polish Marie Walewska.

We have seen the tricks which Nostradamus liked to play with names and also his delight in nicknames. He has a nickname for Napoleon; he calls him Teste Raze—Shavenhead, the man whose hair was so short by comparison with that of the Kings of the Ancien Régime.

De la cité marine & tributaireLa teste raze prendra la satrapie:Chasser sordide qui puis sera contraire;Par quatorze ans tiendra la tyrannie.

The man with short hair will assume power (la satrapie) in the marine city, tributary of the enemy. He will chase away the mercenary who afterwards (puis for depuis) will be against him and he will hold absolute power for fourteen years.

Bonaparte recaptured Toulon from the English in December, 1973; it was his earliest success as a commander and after it his reputation and his power grew steadily. The sordides in question may be either these same English (a pre-echo if the phrase be not an absurdity of Napoleon's 'Nation of Shopkeepers') or else the members of the Directory, who were certainly mercenary enough. He held absolute power from the 'Coup d'Etat of 18 Brumaire', 1799, to his abdication in 1814—fourteen years.

In 1795 the star of Napoleon had risen, but it still glimmered at the horizon. In the year following the recapture of Toulon he set out on that Italian campaign which gave his contemporaries their first taste of his qualities as a general.

Terre Italique près des monts tremblera….

The Italian territory near the mountains (i. e. Lombardy) will tremble. At Milan Bonaparte addressed to his troops one of his first proclamations. The Austrians retired without defending the city and the French entered in triumph.

Avant l'assaut l'oraison prononcée,Milan prins d'Aigle par embusches deceus,Muraille antique par canons enfoncée,Par feu et sang à mercy peu receus.

Before the assault the oration will be pronounced; Milan deceived by ambushes, taken by the Eagle; the ancient wall broken down by cannon in the midst of fire and blood, few will receive mercy.

The second part of the quatrain is thought to refer to Pavia, the inhabitants of which rose against the French. The wall was pierced by a bombardment and the city given over to fire and slaughter.

At Villa-Nova Bonaparte became anxious. The Directoire at home left him without orders and without support. In order to save his army he was compelled to fight at Arcola, joining himself in the hand-to-hand struggle on the bridge. He took Mantua, but treated its defender with generosity. Nostradamus comments:

A Cité neufve pensif pour condamner,L'oisel de proye au ciel se vient offrir,Après victoire à captif pardonner,Cremone et Mantoue grands maux aura à sauffrir.

At Villa-Nova (the new city) Bonaparte's thought condemns those who have placed him in extremity. The bird of prey offers itself to heaven (by risking its own life). After the victory the captive is pardoned. Cremona and Mantua (i. e. the north of Italy) suffer much in these campaigns.

L'oisel de proye is interesting. In another quatrain Nostradamus calls Bonaparte 'the son of the falcon' (fils de Vaisnier). 'Young eagle' seems to have been the idea in his mind, in these days before Bonaparte had reached his full stature.

His boundless ambition, unsatisfied by his Italian conquests, turned its eyes eastward, to Egypt, and the Directoire, partly perhaps to get rid of a general whose growing stature had begun to alarm them, agreed to the fitting out of an expedition against that country. That Nostradamus was aware of the order of these events seems to be shown by the following:

Grand Po grand mal pour Gaulois recevra,Vaine terreur au maritin Lyon,Peuple infiny par la mer passeraSans eschapper le quart d'un million.

The great river Po (i. e. the north of Italy) will receive great harm for (the ambition of) a warrior of Gaul. Vain terror to the maritime Lion. A large number of men will pass by sea, and a quarter of a million of these will never return (will be without escape).

Bonaparte set sail for Egypt with a large army. The second line may mean that his preparations caused vain terror to the English (the maritime Lion) or else that the presence of the British fleet in the Gulf of Lions caused terror to Bonaparte—vain terror because it did not succeed in stopping him.

The first act of the French expedition was to seize Malta, then held by the Knights of Rhodes.

Proche de Malthe, Herodde prinse vive,Et Romain sceptre sera par Coq frappé.

Near the time (proche) when the Roman sceptre shall be smitten by the Cock, Malta will be taken.

By the Treaty of Tolentino (in February of the previous year) the Pope had ceded part of the States of the Church to France. 'Herodde' needs some explanation. Is it a portmanteau word composed of heroes and Rhodes? 'Vive' would seem to imply that Malta was captured suddenly, or without much bloodshed.

The British, however, were hot on Bonaparte's trail, and their ships coming from the Adriatic entirely destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of Aboukir.

Naufrage à classe près l'onde Hadriatique,La terre esmeuë sur l'air en terre mis,Egypt tremble augment Mahometique,L'Heraut rendre à crier est commis.

The meaning is not as clear as it might be but the sense seems to be as follows: Shipwreck to the fleet near the Adriatic wave; the earth is convulsed in the air and thrown to earth again; tremble Egypt; the power of Mahomet grows; the herald is sent to demand surrender.

The second line is explained by Elisée du Vignois, who says that 'the disembarked French army was terrified to learn that the admiral's vessel had been blown up and that its fragments strewed the shore.' The herald mentioned in the last line is the one sent to demand the surrender of Acre. This was refused and Bonaparte was compelled to raise the siege.

The ill-success of the expedition was plain to Nostradamus:

Si France passes outre mer Lygustique,Tu te verras en isles et mers enclos,Mahomet contraire, plus mer Hadriatique,Chevaux et d'asnes tu rongeras les os.

France, if you pass the Gulf of Genoa (Lygusticum mare) you will find yourself besieged in the islands and on the seas. Mahomet will be against you and even more the Adriatic sea (i. e. the British fleet mentioned in the previous quatrain) and you will be driven to gnaw the bones of horses and asses.

The French, having set out on the Egyptian expedition, found the Turks against them and the British fleet. They were besieged in Malta and at Alexandria and suffered cruelly from hunger.

Still addressing France, Nostradamus warns her never to undertake such an expedition again:

De l'entreprinse grande confusion,Perte de gens thresor innumerable,Tu n'y dois faire encore extension,France à mon dire fais que sois recordable.

From this enterprise will come great confusion with loss of men and countless treasure; you should not attempt such expansion there again. France! see that you remember my words.

It may be objected that there is no proof that this quatrain refers to the expedition to Egypt, but it follows the one above quoted, and seems to be linked with it. It is perhaps worth including as a curiosity. The quatrain concerning the return of Bonaparte is a little more definite:

Le chef qu'aura conduit peuple infinyLoing de son ciel, de moeurs et langue estrange,Cinq mil en Crete et Thessalie finy,Le chef fuyant sauvé en marine grange.

The chief who shall have conducted a large army (peuple infiny links the quatrain with II, 94, quoted above: Peuple infiny par mer passera) far from the skies of home in a land of strange manners and language, shall have in the end five thousand in Crete and Thessaly. He himself shall be saved by flight in a 'marine grange'.

The final phrase is very clumsy and seems dictated by the rhyme. A marine grange or barn is of course a wooden ship. Bonaparte succeeded in eluding the British fleet and landing in France. His army, reduced to five thousand men, was left in the hands of the Turks, masters of Crete and Thessaly (where there had just been a massacre of the French). The British consented to transport these men back to France.

Such was the famous Expedition to Egypt, and the strange thing is that instead of shattering Bonaparte's reputation for ever it actually seemed to enhance it. During his absence the Directoire had fallen into considerable discredit and he saw that the time had come to seize power for himself. He did so by the 'Coup d'Etat of 18 Brumaire' (November 9th, 1799).

We now come to a very odd quatrain. It is written not in French but in Provençal, a language which was probably spoken by Nostradamus in his daily intercourse with the people of Salon.

Lou grand eyssame se lèvera d'abelhos,Que non sauran don te siegen venguddos.De nuech l'embousq lou gach dessous las treilhos,Ciutad trahido per cinq lengos non nudos.

There will arise a great swarm of bees and no one will know from whence they come. The ambush will be set during the night; the Jay will instal himself in the trellises, and the City will be betrayed by five tongues not naked.

An impenetrable allegory? But let us examine it a little more closely. There will arise a great swarm of bees. If you go to Fontainebleau, or walk through the rooms of Malmaison decorated by Napoleon, you will see it still, that swarm of bees, settled thickly on carpet and wall-hanging and covering even the silk backs of the chairs. Bees were the Napoleonic emblem; they stand also here for the swarm of his relatives which arrived no one knew whence, and settled all over Europe. The ambush is the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, prepared during the previous night. It succeeded, Napoleon took up his quarters in the Tuileries, and, like the jay in the fable who decked himself in the peacock's feathers, was thus invested with some of the splendour of the old Kings of France. Treilhos is the anagram of Tholries, a pun on Tuileries. How Nostradamus must have chuckled as he thought that out, and how the modern commentator must wish that he hadn't! The five 'tongues' are the five talkers or politicians who delivered Paris to Napoleon, and they are not naked because they wore their robes as members of the Directory.

Having seized power, as above related, he forced the Great St Bernard pass into Italy and made himself all-powerful there also. Nostradamus comments:

L'Oriental sortira de son siege,Passer les monts Appenons, voir la Gaule,Transpercera le ciel, les eaux et neige,Et un chacun frappera de sa gaule.

The Man of the East will leave his place (the one assigned to him by the Directory in the hope of getting rid of him, and where he had had to submit to a siege by the English) to pass by Italy (the Apennines) and see France again. He will pierce heaven, the water, and the snows (by crossing the Alps) and will smite everyone with the point of the spear (gaule). By itself the quatrain would be unconvincing, but it serves to fill out the picture which Nostradamus is painting of Bonaparte's progress towards Empire.

De soldat simple parviendra en empire,De robbe courte parviendra à la longue:Vaillant aux armes, en Eglise, où plus pyre,Vexer les prestres comme l'eau fait l'esponge.

From being just a soldier he attained to the Empire, from the short robe (the Consular robe was short) he attained to the long (the Imperial mantle was long). Valiant in arms, in ecclesiastical matters he was not so successful and he vexed the clergy by alternately elevating them and depressing them (as water swells up a sponge and then leaves it limp and flabby).

Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor on May 18th, 1804. France was soon to discover his insatiable appetite for conquest:

Par teste raze viendra bien mal eslirePlus que sa charge ne porte passera.Si grand fureur et rage fera direQu 'a feu et sang tout sexe tranchera.

In Shaven-head France will come to see that she has made a very bad choice; she will be saddled with a burden (charge) beyond her power to carry. He will be animated with such a warlike fury as to make men say that one sex (the whole male population of Europe) would be, by blood and fire, cut off. Comment is needless.

Napoleon himself took a considerable interest in prophecy. He consulted soothsayers in Egypt and some commentators profess to believe that he was acquainted with the 'Prophecy of Olivarius' and the so-called Prophétie d'Orval, both of which have been rashly attributed to Nostradamus. They are, in all probability, post-Napoleonic forgeries and we need not here be concerned with them further. But of the prophecies of Nostradamus himself he was certainly aware and if he had not been they would have been brought to his notice by a flattering piece of propaganda issued in Paris in 1806.

This was Nouvelles Considérations puisées dans la Clairvoyance Instinctive de l'Homme, sur les Oracles, les Sibylles et les Prophéties, et particulièrement sur Nostradamus Par Théodore Bouys, Ancien professeur à l'école centrale du départment de la Nièvre, et avant la révolution, président de l'élection de Nevers.

The author professed to reveal to his readers the marvels of Magnetism and the instinctive clairvoyance procured by somnambulisme magnétique, that instinctive clairvoyance which he declares made known to Nostradamus 'the brilliant destinies of Napoleon the Great, which are to enjoy a long and happy reign, to bring lasting peace to the Continent, to be one day as redoubtable on the sea as he is on land, and to conquer England in order to give to all nations the Freedom of the Seas.'

About an eighth of the work only is devoted to Nostradamus, the rest being concerned with other prophecies, and with considerations on the 'voices' of Joan of Arc and of 'magnetism' in general, but his remarks on the Prophet of Salon gain a certain piquancy by his own strong Bonapartist opinions and the period at which he wrote. His handling is scholarly and not too credulous, and he makes the suggestion (interesting in a schoolmaster of the period) that it is the vice of modern education to prevent the development of certain instinctive faculties which are common enough among less civilized people. He cites the famous quatrain concerning the Flight to Varennes, and adds:

I owe the explanation of this quatrain, and many others, to an inhabitant of Nevers who has composed a long and interesting commentary on Nostradamus. M. de Vaudeuil, son of the former president of the parlement of Toulouse, communicated several to me and I have taken a dozen or more from the old commentators. Without the reading of the work of M. Mxxx which he was good enough to give to his friends, I would never have understood more than five or six quatrains. I would never have thought of opening Nostradamus. All that is found of interest (in my own work) I owe to the private conversations I have had with my compatriot, my old study-companion, who before the revolution had become promoteur of the archbishopric of Paris and is now manager and owner of a porcelain factory.

The long and interesting commentary by the mysterious Mxxx, inhabitant of Nevers, seems never to have been published, and research has so far failed to establish his identity, but the passage is of value as showing the interest in Nostradamus at the time, and the fact that contemporaries saw in the events of the French Revolution the fulfilment of some of his prophecies.

After dealing with various quatrains concerning Louis XVI Bouys turns to the 'Predictions of Nostradamus on Napoleon, Emperor of the French, of which some, already accomplished, are a presumption and indeed ought to be an assurance that the remainder will be accomplished also.'

He cites several verses, including:

Heureux au règne de France, heureux de vie…

which is now usually referred to Louis XVIII, as it gives him a chance to praise Napoleon for his love of peace (!), and then turns to what is for him the burning question of the moment, the projected invasion of England. Nostradamus had written:

Dedans Boulogne voudra laver ses fautes;Il ne pourra au temple du soleil.Il volera faisant choses si hautes,Qu 'en hierarchie n'en fut one un pareil.

Bouys remarks: 'This quatrain is without doubt one of the most powerful of those written by Nostradamus concerning the Emperor Napoleon. What other prince, in fact, could come to Boulogne to expiate the fault of having been too confident, of having presumed too much on the loyalty of his enemies and their fidelity in the execution of treaties? (The reference is of course to the Peace of Amiens.) What other prince could not succeed in the Temple of the Sun, in Egypt, and yet flies so high that none in all the hierarchy of princes can be considered his equal? Now, he makes formidable preparations at Boulogne and we shall see in the following quatrains that this enterprise will have the greatest success and that the Emperor Napoleon will end by making the conquest of England.' The two quatrains in question are these, and in view of what actually happened, are not without interest:

De l'aquilon les efforts seront grands,
Sur l'océan sera la porte ouverte:
Tremblera Londres par voile découverte
Le régne en l'isle sera réintegrant.

La forteresse auprès de la Tamise,
Cherra pour lors le roi dedans serré:
Auprès du pont sera vu en chemise,
Un devant mort, puis dans le fort barré.

We have seen that the first of these, which Bouys quotes incorrectly, reversing the third and fourth lines, can with more likelihood be referred to the expedition of James II to Ireland, aided by the French fleet. The second has never been explained, and may be left to the ingenuity of the reader.

The optimism of the worthy schoolmaster was unjustified, as another quatrain might have told him if he noticed it and had been able to interpret it before the event. It was concerned with nothing less than the Battle of Trafalgar.

Entre deux mers dressera promontoire,Qui puis mourra par le mors du cheval,Le sien Neptune pliera voile noire,Par Calpre et classe auprès de Rocheval.

There is a promontory between two seas; there is one who will die afterwards by the bridle of a horse, and Neptune, for his own, will unfurl the black sail; in the strait of Calpe, when his fleet is near Cape Roche.

Now it would be absurd to pretend that Bouys or any one else could interpret this beforehand. It is none the less extremely curious, for the French admiral Villeneuve was later strangled by the Emperor's Mamelukes whose custom it was to use for such a purpose the bridle of a horse. The other admiral, Neptune's own, the great Nelson himself, fell, as the world knows, in the glorious action and his body was brought back to England, the ship bearing a black sail in sign of mourning. Calpre is the classical Calpe, one of the Pillars of Hercules which we call Gibraltar, and the battle was fought between this and Cape Roche. Trafalgar is itself a promontory between two seas.

Again Nostradamus writes:

Après combat et bataille navale,Le grand Neptune à son plus haut beffroy,Rouge adversaire de peur viendra pasle,Mettant le grand Ocean en effroy.

After the combat and the naval battle, great Neptune (England) will be raised as on a pinnacle. The Red adversary (Napoleon, in the eyes of the Prophet, never ceased to be the revolutionary, the Rouge) will grow pale with fear, putting the ocean in a panic. The last line presumably refers to his attempt to institute a blockade against England which, like his naval operations, was a failure.

The fact that we know these things, and know that both Bouys and Napoleon were doomed to disappointment, gives added point to the second half of the Boulogne quatrain. For the Emperor, seeing that the invasion of England was hopeless, wheeled his army about, swept through Europe like a whirlwind and coming up with the two other Emperors, of Austria and Russia, beyond Vienna, won over their combined forces the glorious victory of Austerlitz. 'He will fly so high and do such deeds that in the hierarchy of rulers none will be found his equal.' The abrupt change from failure to triumph staggered Europe and is reflected in the very construction of the prophetic quatrain.

Nostradamus was not a Bonapartist—if the superficial absurdity of the remark may be pardoned—but he regarded Napoleon with a kind of reluctant admiration, rather like that felt by the nineteenth-century French Royalists, and like many of these the Prophet seems to have believed that the Emperor's final misfortunes were a judgement upon him for his treatment of the clergy and, in particular, for his persecution of the Pope.

Nostradamus took considerable interest in the welfare of the Papacy and it is not therefore surprising to find that he devotes several quatrains to its fortunes during the French Revolution and the Empire. In an obscure but extremely interesting quatrain he had written:

Istra de mont Gaulfier & Aventin,Qui par le trou advertira l'arméeEntre deux rocs sera prins le butin,De SEXT. mansol faillir la renommée.

Let us take the last two lines first. Between two rocks shall the booty be taken and the renown of Sext. Mansol shall fail. Who is Sext. Mansol? Man. sol. stands for manens solus, the man who lives alone, who has made a vow of celibacy. In other places Nostradamus refers to priests as les seuls. Sext. stands for sextus, and the priest, par excellence, who is also sextus, is Pius VI, the Pastor peregrinus of the prophecy of Malachy and the only Pontiff to bear that number since the composition of the Centuries. By the Treaty of Tolentino of February 19th, 1797, the Pope was deprived of Avignon and of the Romagna and other lands in Italy, the two rocks, as it were, on which his power reposed.

The first two lines of the quatrain are even more curious. The exact construction is difficult to make out, but the words mont Gaulfier leap to the attention. For the brothers Montgolfier had invented the air balloon in 1783, and at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794 an attempt was made to use it for military reconnaissance, by suspending, beneath the hole, a man in a basket to act as observer (advertira l'armée). The result of the battle left Rome (Mount Aventine) open to the Frènch. Whether this interpretation be accepted or not, it seems plain that Nostradamus had 'received' the word Montgolfier (or Mont Gaulfier) two hundred years before the brothers had ever been heard of, and that he had some notion of the construction of their apparatus and some idea of its possibilities in war. Let us return to the relations between the Papacy and Revolutionary France.

Tout à l'entour de la grande citéSeront soldats logés par champs & villes:Donner l'assaut Paris Rome incitéSur le pont lors sera faicte grand pille.

All around the great city shall soldiers be lodged in fields and towns. Paris being incited to assault Rome, great pillage will be made on the Sovereign Pontiff.

The death of the French general Duphot in a riot gave General Berthier, whose troops surrounded the city, an excuse for an assault on Rome. The Pope was pillaged, being dispossessed of his estates and imprisoned in his palace. He was later taken as a captive to Valence, where he died.

Pol mensole mourra trois lieues du Rosne….

The Great Celibate (pol. from the Greek πολν§ much, mensole being the same as mansol in the quatrain quoted above) will die three leagues from the Rhone. Valence is in fact on that river which, not far away, at Lyons, is joined by the Saône. Hence Nostradamus writes, with reference to the same event:

Romain Pontife garde de l'approcherDe la cité que deux fleuves arrouse.Ton sang viendra auprès de là cracher,Toy et les tiens quand fleurira la rose.

Roman Pontiff, beware of approaching the city (i. e. Lyons) which is bathed by two rivers. You and yours (will be there) when the rose is in bloom.

Pius VI died after violent vomiting on August 29th, 1799. He was accompanied to Valence by thirty-two priests, prisoners like himself, and the reference to the rose may mean that these events took place in the summer. Some commentators see a symbolical meaning, the white lily of legitimacy having given place to the revolutionary red of the rose.

After the death of Pius VI, the cardinals, dispersed by the Revolution, managed, amid many difficulties, to hold a conclave in Venice and elected a new Pope who was known as Pius VII. Meanwhile, Bonaparte had become First Consul.

These events were, in the mind of Nostradamus, closely intertwined.

Par l'univers sera faict un monarqueQu'en paix et vie ne sera longuement,Lors se prendra la piscature barque,Sera regie au plus grand detriment.

A universal monarch will be set up who will not live long in peace; then one will take control of the Fisherman's Boat, and it will be governed to its greatest detriment. The Fisherman's Boat is, of course, the Barque of Peter, the Papacy, the prestige of which suffered by the weakness of the Pope's attitude towards Napoleon. Pius VII came to France for the first time to crown Napoleon Emperor and the second time as his prisoner. The Rapacious Eagle (the aquila rapax of the prophecy of Malachy) had him firmly in his claws, and he was only released by the abdication at Fontainebleau. Nostradamus comments:

En naviguant captif prins grand Pontife,Grand après faillir les clercs tumultuez:Second esleu absent son bien debijfe,Son favory bastard à mort tué.

While navigating his Boat the great Pontiff will be taken, and made prisoner. The clergy will be thrown into a tumult. He, the second elected one to be absent from Rome (the first being Pius VI) will dissipate his goods. The illegitimate monarch whom he had favoured by consenting to crown him will be deprived of [political] life.

The States of the Church were incorporated in the Empire in 1809, but the judgement of God was not long to be delayed:

Terroir Romain qu'interpretoit Augure,Par gent Gauloise par trop sera vexée,Mais nation Celtique craindra l'heure,Boreas classe trop loing l'avoir poussée.

The Roman territory governed by him who interprets as Augur (i. e. the successor of the Pontifex Maximus of pagan Rome) will be much troubled by the Gaulish people. But this nation when it has pushed too far (into Russia) shall fear the hour of Boreas, the cold north wind, and its fleet, i. e. the fleet of England (classe from the Latin classis).

The punishment (to continue this ecclesiastical and apocalyptic interpretation of his history) will be hastened by Napoleon's wickedness in divorcing his first wife, or in terms of the popular legend, Napoleon never had any luck after his abandonment of Josephine.

Le divin mal surprendra le grand Prince,Un peu devant aura femme espousée,Son appuy et credit à un coup viendra mince,Conseil mourra pour la teste rasée.

The punishment of God will fall upon the great Prince; a little before he will have married a wife. The support of his allies and his credit at home will suddenly become very small and Shaven-head will have no good counsel to turn to. If we admit (as we must) that Shaven-head means Napoleon, the quatrain is among the most explicit.

To punish his faithless ally the Emperor Alexander, Napoleon undertook the Campaign of Russia. With an immense army he reached Moscow, the Russians retreating before him. With the old city in flames he was compelled to retreat, and his great plan for a new Roman Empire embracing the whole of Europe (he had just created his infant son King of Rome) crumbled into ruin.

Amas s'approche venant d'Esclavonie,L'Olestant vieux cité ruynera,Fort désolée verra sa Romanie,Puis la grande flamme esteindre ne sçaura.

A great mass of men will be seen coming from the Land of the Slavs (the broken mass of the Grande Armée in retreat from Moscow). L'Olestant, the Destroyer, will ruin the old city, and he will not know how to put out the great flame. He will see his Roman dream vanish away.

Romanie should not, of course, be confused with Rumania which did not exist at the time. In another quatrain (VIII, 60) Napoleon is referred to as

Premier en Gaule, premier en Romanie,

that is, "first in France and in the lands of Rome". Olestant is a harking back to the previous word-play on the Greek root for "destroy". Once more we have a quatrain obscure, and even misleading, when taken by itself, but adding to the cumulative effect.

The ill-success of the Grande Armée in Russia showed Europe that Napoleon was not invincible. The nations began to rise against him once more, and the Eagle found itself, as it were, surrounded by other birds of prey ready to devour it.

L'aigle poussée entour de pavillons,Par autres oyseaux d'entour sera chassée….

The eagle pushed back into his own territory (surrounded by his banners) will be pursued by other birds around, that is by the eagles of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The sound of military music on her own frontiers will bring France to her senses.

Quand bruit des cymbres tube & sonnaillonsRendront le sens de la dame insensée.

From the south came Wellington, having fought his way through Spain to be welcomed at Bordeaux as a friend rather than a conqueror.

Par la Guyenne infinité d'AngloisOccuperont par nom Anglaquitaine….

Across Guyenne an infinite number of English soldiers will occupy the old English province of Aquitaine, thus baptizing it anew (a Nostradamian joke!) with the name of Anglaquitaine.

France is assailed from both sides:

Tous ceux de Iler seront dans la Moselle,Mettant à mort tous ceux de Loyre et Seine,Le cours marin viendra près d'haute velle,Quand l'Espagnol ouvrira toute veine.

Those of the Iller (a tributary of the Danube, that is the Austrians) will advance up the valley of the Moselle, slaying the French (those of the Loire and the Seine). The marine torrent (i.e. the English) will come near the high valley (i.e. will pierce the Pyrenees) when the Spaniard shall open every vein. The last line seems to mean that the reconquest of Spain by Wellington opened the road to France. Some commentators have thought that in the strange phrase "haute velle", the Prophet was groping towards the very name of Wellington, but this supposition is quite unnecessary for the explanation of the quatrain.

Les cinq estranges entrez dedans le temple,Leur sang viendra la terre prophaner,Aux Tholosains sera bien dur example….

The Five Strangers (i. e. England, Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain) will enter the temple (i. e. invade the sacred soil of France). Their blood will profane the earth. Nostradamus seems to have heard far in the future the faint strains of the Marseillaise:

Qu 'un sang impurAbreuve nos sillons!

The people of Toulouse will be made a hard example. When the bloody battle of Toulouse was fought by Wellington the war was already over but the combatants did not know it.

Napoleon's desperate situation gave him the opportunity of testing the loyalty of those to whom he had given thrones. One of the bitterest blows was the defection of Murat, King of Naples and the Emperor's brother-in-law. Nostradamus knew all about this too:

Gaulois qu 'empire par guerre occupera,Par son beau frere mineur sera trahy;Par cheval rude voltigeant traînera,Du fait le frere long temps sera hay.

The Gaul who by war will gain an Empire, will be betrayed by his youngest brother-in-law; on horseback this hard-riding cavalier will carry all before him; on account of this (treason) the brother will long be hated.

The phrase: "son beau frere mineur" should be noted; Murat was in fact the husband of Napoleon's youngest sister. He was also the most dashing cavalry leader in the whole army. His popularity never recovered from his act of betrayal, and Napoleon refused his proffered help at the Battle of Waterloo.

In the spring of 1814 the Allies advanced on Paris:

Comme un gryphon viendra le Roy d'Europe,Accompagné de ceux d'Aquilon,De rouges et blancs conduira grand troupe,Et iront contre le Roy de Babylon.

Like a gryphon will come the King of Europe, accompanied by those of the North; he will conduct a great army of the reds and the whites and they will go up against the King of Babylon.

The "King of Europe" means either the King who is recognized by the whole of Europe, or the legitimate King of the noblest throne in Europe. Paris is called Babylon in several quatrains and the King of Babylon is Napoleon. These symbolisms detract from the effect of the quatrain and it would not have been quoted here but for its third line. The great army of "reds" and "whites" are the English and the Austrians whose tunics were respectively red and white.

The rapacious monarch whose power had sprung from the Revolution was now tracked to his lair:

Avec le noir Rapax et sanguinaire,Yssu du peaultre de l'inhumain NeronEmmy deux fleuves….

In the Centuries, as we have seen, "noir" always means roi or monarch. The adjective Rapax is interesting. In the prophecy of Malachy, Napoleon, the persecutor of Pius VII, is called Aquila Rapax, the greedy eagle. Peaultre means rudder, hence government, and "the inhuman Nero" is of course the Revolution already referred to as acting "pis que ne fit Neron ". Emmy deux fleuves, between two streams, means Paris, between Seine and Marne, sometimes called by Nostradamus Babylon or Mesopotamia, which likewise, as its name indicates, lay between two streams, the Euphrates and the Tigris: "Neufve Babylone, cité libre, assise dans une autre exigue Mesopotamie", as he calls the French capital in his Epistle to Henri II. Nostradamus loved these learned circumlocutions.

For a time Napoleon hoped to be able to keep by intrigue the throne he had not been able to preserve by force of arms. The Emperor Alexander was willing to listen but Napoleon had an implacable enemy in Talleyrand:

De leur senat sacriste fait boiteux,Fera scavoir aux ennemis l'affaire.

The senator who is also a priest and lame will reveal the affair to his enemies.

Napoleon went into exile on the Island of Elba, but as every schoolboy knows, the deliberations of the Congress of Vienna, which was to settle the peace of Europe for ever, were interrupted by his unwelcome return. To this world-shattering event the Prophet devoted several quatrains. We shall quote no more than two of them, and unfortunately they are even more than usually marked by that pedantic punning in which Nostradamus took such delight. We must remind ourselves that this learned paronomasia was considered in the sixteenth century to be the very flower of scholarship; and was not thought out of place even on the most serious occasions. In the single phrase which Clément Marot sent to Francis I to console him for the death of his mother there are no less than six puns. The characters of Shakespeare pun when their hearts are breaking—

Old Gaunt indeed and gaunt in being old.

The indulgence of the reader is asked for the inclusion of quatrains which, in spite of their conceits, are of considerable interest. The impatient sceptic is advised to skip them altogether. The first reads as follows:

Grand Roy viendra prendre port près de Nisse,Le grand empire de la mort si en fera,Aux antipolles posera son genisse,Par mer la Pille tout esvanouyra.

The Great King will come to port near Nice (city of Niké, Goddess of Victory) but [in spite of that] he will make of his great empire an empire of Death. He will set up his household gods (or his root; some commentators read genii Lares, some genitus) towards the opposite pole (but probably with a punning reference also to Antibes, which the Ancients called Antipolis, the place "opposite the city" of Nice). The nation above all others given to piracy and pillage (Nostradamus hints elsewhere that this was his opinion of the English) will cause all Napoleon's power to vanish into the sea, by banishing him to St Helena, which being south of the Equator, may be said to lie towards the other pole (aux antipolles).

What a farrago! It is like a telegram sent by a miser enamoured of puns and who had had the disadvantage of a classical education. But tiresome as it is, it is not meaningless.

In fact it has far too much meaning, and it fits the facts of Napoleon's return.

Here is the second quatrain:

Au peuple ingrat faictes les remonstrances,Par lors l'armée se saisira d'Antibe,Dans l'arc Monech seront les doleances.Et a Frejus l'un l'autre prendra ribe.

Remonstrances will be made to the ungrateful People (Louis XVIII issued a proclamation urging fidelity to the new régime which had given them peace; but the only place where the army was faithful to him was Antibes where it seized the town and shut the gates against Napoleon). In the seat of sovereignty there will be lamentation (arché, sovereignty and moné, dwelling, but with a punning reference to Arké and Monoiké, the ancient names of Hyères and Monaco). And at Fréjus one and the other shall take ship. Louis himself had previously embarked at Fréjus when leaving France; Napoleon embarked there for Elba, and he landed again at Golfe Juan, which is between Fréjus and Antibes, and, of course, near Nice. All these places were well known to Nostradamus himself; during his wanderings in Provence he must have passed through all of them, meditating as he did so on the meaning of their corrupted but still classical names, and seeing in his mind's eye a stout little man in a uniform of a very un-sixteenth-century cut, making a final grasp at a shadowy empire.

And now, leaving aside a dozen quatrains the inclusion of which would have served only to weary and confuse the reader, we come to the Battle of Waterloo.

It is a curious fact that, on those rare occasions when the rebus-verse of Nostradamus rises into poetry, it is inspired by one of the major historical events, he writes:

Au mois troisiesme se levant le Soleil,Sanglier, Leopard, au champ de Mars, pour combattre,Leopard laissé au ciel estend son oeil,Un Aigle autour du Soleil voit s'esbattre.

It is such a good stanza that one is tempted to try to translate it into English verse:

The Hundred Days are past! the hour is nigh,
Leopard and Boar allied—the fight's begun.
The Leopard, lonely, lifts an anxious eye—
An Eagle's wings are blotting out the sun.

Or more literally: At the third month, the sun rising, the Wild Boar and the Leopard are ready to fight on the field of battle. The Leopard, left to himself, lifts his eye to heaven [for help] but sees only a battling eagle against the sun.

The Leopard is, of course, England; the Boar is the brave and headstrong Blücher. But Blücher had been beaten back at Ligny and the junction of the British and Prussians had not taken place when Wellington decided to stand at Waterloo. It was June 18th, 1815, three months, or rather a Hundred Days, after Napoleon's return. All day long his troops battered the English squares while Wellington cast anxious eyes to the horizon hoping for the arrival of his ally to turn the French flank. Up the slope came the flower of Napoleon's army, the Imperial eagles flying. It is astonishing to note that as Wellington faced south he saw them against the sun as Nostradamus had foretold. Then, when the day was nearly over and the British still unbroken, Napoleon saw on his right a cloud of dust. "It is Grouchy", he cried. But it was not Grouchy. It was Blücher.

Prest a combattre fera defection,Chef adversaire obtiendra la victoire,L'arrière garde fera defension,Les defaillons mort au blanc territoire.

He who was ready to fight (Grouchy) will not be present at the battle. The hostile chief (Wellington) will gain the victory. The Imperial Guard, usually kept in reserve in the rear, will make a great defence (La garde meurt mais ne se rende pas) and those who fail (that is, the Napoleonic troops) will be either physically or politically dead in a territory which has become once more white, by the restoration of the Bourbons. Paris, says a contemporary, looked as if there had been a fall of snow, there were so many white cockades.

So Napoleon disappeared once more, this time into an exile from which there was no return. And again Nostradamus rises to the occasion.

Le grand Empire sera tost translatéEn petit lieu qui bien tost viendra croistre,Lieu bien infime d'exigue comtéOù au milieu viendra poser son sceptre.

The commentators here have missed their opportunity. Elisée du Vignois merely remarks: "Napoleon was sent to the Island of Elba, a little country smaller than some counties, the name of which was soon to become celebrated by the treaty which recognized him as its monarch." But Nostradamus saw more clearly than that. He saw the great Empire shrink to a little space (the Island of Elba); he saw it grow again (the Hundred Days), and he saw it shrink once more to nothing but a tiny rock in the middle of the ocean, where at last Napoleon would lay down his sceptre.

So we take leave of Shaven-head, the man with the terrible name of the Destroyer, the Emperor who was born near Italy, the soldier who failed in the Temple of the Sun, the King of Babylon, the fearful Thunderbolt—for all these names does Nostradamus give him. So vanished also the great Swarm of Bees.