[Besant was a prolific English novelist, historian, and critic who sought in his fiction to expose and denounce the social evils of late-Victorian England. In the following excerpt, he sarcastically denigrates Nostradamus as a prophet and his admirers for their gullibility.]

It is sad to read that in his own town [Nostradamus] was always regarded, save by one favourite disciple, as an impostor of the first, and therefore most successful, order. This disciple, Jean de Chavigny, one of those simple and lovable creatures, born for the nourishment of the quack and the humbug, who will believe anything, hovered round the master like Cadijah round Mohammed. He left his native town of Beaune, where the wine is so good, and took up his residence altogether in Salon itself, so as to be always near Nostradamus, abandoning family, estate, occupation, and all. Like another Boswell, he noted the things that fell from the doctor's lips; and after his death, spent twenty-eight years in editing and commentating the Centuries. It is delightful to learn that in his society the prophet would unbend from his mystic forereachings into futurity and condescend to predict some of the minor events of life. "We were once," he tells us, in an anecdote of touching simplicity, "walking abroad. I saw two sucking pigs, one black, the other white. 'What will be their fate?' I asked Nostredame. 'We shall eat the black one,' replied he, 'the white will be eaten by a wolf.' In order to elude the prediction, I told the cook to prepare the white pig for dinner. He did so; but as it lay upon the table, a tame wolf belonging to the house, finding no one there, devoured it. Upon which the cook prepared the black pig, and the prophecy of the infallible Nostredame was accomplished." Wonderful indeed!…

Honoured as he was, save by his own townsmen, in his life, his real glory begins only after his death. For the Centuries are printed and reprinted, commented, furnished with notes, explanations, and illustrations, and even called into the service of history. Nobody, it is true—which is the real drawback to all predictions, ancient and modern—ventured to write from Nostradamus the history of the future; but everybody was prepared to observe, when the things had happened, how wonderfully they fitted in with the words of the prophet. The unbeliever might ask what was the good of a prediction unless you know what it means. He might go further, and decline to investigate past history in order to mark the sagacity of Nostradamus. And if he had the courage of his opinions, he might point out that the disjointed words, the vague phrases, the openmouthed threats might do for one event quite as well as the other, and therefore the prophet was not, after all, of such amazing wisdom. But unbelievers were scarce, and Nostradamus held his own.

After being the favourite prophet of Catherine de Medicis and her sons, he was studied in turn by Henry the Fourth, by Louis the Thirteenth, and Louis the Fourteenth. He was translated into English and Italian; he was published in twenty editions and more, and even has his believers, one or two, here and there, rari nantes, to this very day. And in the name of human credulity, why? There is not from beginning to end, so far at least as I have read—for no mortal man could read all his Centuries and survive—one word of sense, precision, or clearness. All is utter, unredeemed, incredible balderdash and rubbish, written in the most uncouth French, with words of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic interspersed; with anagrams such as 'Rapis' for Paris, 'Nersaf' for France, 'Eiouas' for Savoy; the whole designedly meaningless and obscure. And yet I cannot make up my mind that the man was a conscious impostor. It seems to me that, trained in the secrets of astrology, which followed a uniform method, quite easy to be learned, he did quite honestly occupy himself with the future; that in these Centuries he set down in the form which he found easiest the results of his investigations as they worked themselves out. Did you ever see a couple of country girls telling fortunes with a pack of cards? Write down their ejaculations as they deal out the pack, and you will have something like a quatrain of Nostradamus's. Thus:

There, the girls have made me write down unconsciously a quatrain exactly like one of Nostradamus's most sprightly specimens; only, like most prophets, because people never believe in the advent of good fortune, but are easily impressed with a sense of coming woes and miseries, he deals entirely in the latter:

Wretchedly poor stuff! but this is all you will get from Nostradamus. And if no more than this were required to carry on a prophetic trade, one might be quite prepared to set up as a prophet in exactly the same way; only it would be well to know the rules of judicial astrology first, so as to get the formulae right and save the trouble of invention.

The Centuries being published and the author dead, there remained for future ages the task of fitting them into their proper places. This has been done over and over again, the verses being made to do duty for one king after another, as the ages run on. Of course, you cannot expect the commentator to write the history of the next generation. Most singular of all, it is only five or six years since a certain M. Anatole de Pelletier published a volume called Les Oracles de M. de Nostredame, in which he too follows the course of history by means of the Centuries, showing how, in his opinion, every important event since his death has been

plainly foretold by the astrologer. This sagacious person—a sort of French Doctor Cumming—has, of course, a blind idolatry for his prophet. He worships an infallibility even more certain and perfect than Chavigny discovered. Where we find barbarism he finds an antique grace, effective handling, the rudeness of strength; where we find intentional obscurity he finds the natural obscurity of one whose thoughts are too profound for speech; where we hesitate whether to pronounce the man an impostor or a brain-struck enthusiast, working according to the foolish rules of a mistaken science, he calls upon us to admire the mysterious and divine gift of prophecy. Above all, he quotes what he is pleased to consider direct predictions of the French Revolution. "It is the point," he says, "in history to which his eyes are always turned, his thoughts always recurring; he chisels carefully every detail of this mighty movement" (we shall see how presently); "hither all the forces of his thoughts converge, all the radiation of his intelligence; here is displayed all the lucidity of the mysterious genius which animated him." He afterwards asks us to consider the strange contrasts which the man presented. He is bold in his writing; you see that posterity can neither imprison, fine, nor burn at the stake; they can only admire or laugh. He is timorous towards his contemporaries, and with good reason. He is a good Christian and yet a Pagan; that is, he was wise in his generation. Being a scholar, he was, like all the scholars of his age, a pagan; being a man who valued his personal comfort and safety, he is a Christian in outward observances. Above all—which astonishes M. de Pelletier much more than it does other people—he gave no word of counsel, advice, or guidance to the kings who visited him. We may also add that on his own family accidents he was equally reticent, never having prophesied the death of his earlier children or the violent end of his second son and successor. But these prophets are all alike; while they contemplate the future the baby tumbles into the fire. They can predict a revolution—a thousand years or so is a trifle—but they are all astray in the events of to-morrow, and can no more teach us how to avoid a toothache than they can ward off the blood and slaughter of their own prophecies. "In alienis," said one of these useless gentry, "mirè oculati, ad nostra caecutire solemus."

Now for a few quatrains. Observe how history bears out the prediction and how there is no deception. The first predicts the reign of Louis the Fourteenth:

Du vieux Charon l'on verra le Phoenix,Estre premier et dernier des fils,Reluire en France, &c.

On this the scholiast, writing in the age of the Grand Monarque, observes that Charon is, of course, a clerical error; it should be Chiren. This, read properly, is "Henric—Henricus: Henri the Fourth." Now, Louis the Fourteenth being the son of Louis the Thirteenth and the grandson of Henry the Fourth, is, of course, the phoenix who will "reluire en France"; this is without doubt, and ridiculously simple.

I was going to quote another most important quatrain, but I am estopped by the unfortunate fact that it has been by different commentators said to refer to Queen Elizabeth of England, King Charles the First, Charles the Second, and the French Revolution. After studying it very carefully, I conclude that it was so craftily drawn up by the Prophet as to include all four interpretations. This increases our admiration for the astrologer, but tends to lessen our confidence in the commentator.

The same remark cannot be made of the following quatrain, which contains a distinct prophecy about England. It reads thus, and one trembles when one writes it:

The interpretation is clear to the meanest capacity. Seven times in two hundred and ninety years there shall be a revolution in England. Six of them, the commentator tells us, have already come to pass, viz., in 1649, in 1660, in 1688, in 1689, in 1711 (when there was a change of ministry), and in 1714. The last has yet to come; there is comfort in the thought that it is not due till 1929. We have thus fiftysix years before us to prepare for the event, in which it is only too probable that none of our present leaders will take an active part.

But about the French Revolution, concerning which the prophet has so carefully "chiselled the details." Let us take three or four of the most remarkable. The first points, as any one will remark, to the 22nd of September, 1792:

The second clearly predicts the advent of Napolean:

And here is Louis the Sixteenth, drawn to his very eyes:

And here are the noyades of Nantes:

Out of such stuff as the preceding the reputation of a prophet was made! We can hardly read it with patience. But the wonderful thing is, that even in this present century the name of Nostradamus has weight—that there have been three several serious attempts made in the last seventy years to rehabilitate him—that only six years ago a man was found to publish selections and to revive the stale old story, that during the troubles of the last three years there were whispered abroad rumours that Nostradamus had predicted them all. I could multiply to any extent the selections which I have given. It would be easy to show, in the same way, how Oliver Cromwell, for instance, was so delineated that it was impossible to mistake him. When all is finished there remains nothing but the broad facts that here is a man who pretends to the gift of prophecy, who never once delivers a clear utterance, whose predictions are amazing in their doggerel nonsense, and who yet has believers for three hundred years.

Astrology is dead—true; but the spirit which led to a belief in astrology is not dead. It seems to me that the spirit is alive still and vigorous. What else mean the Spiritualist journals, the séances, the mediums? They too form part of that long chapter of human folly which treats of men's distrust of themselves, their terror of the things which surround them, their eager catching at whatever may clear away the darkness.