Michel de Nostredame, more popularly known as Nostradamus, had some pretty bleak things
to say about the future of humanity. For example, take this lighthearted prose from
his book of poetic prophecies, aptly titled, The Prophecies: “Be aware that men of letters shall
make grand and usually boastful claims about the way I interpreted the world, before the
worldwide conflagration which is to bring so many catastrophes and such revolutions that scarcely
any lands will not be covered by water, and this will last until all has perished save history and
geography themselves. This is why, before and after these revolutions in various countries,
the rains will be so diminished and such abundance of fire and fiery missiles shall fall from the
heavens that nothing shall escape the holocaust.” Omens of apocalypse and collapse run rampant
through the prophecies of Nostradamus. But did any of them actually come true? Welcome back to
Nutty History. Today, we’re diving into the deep end of the life and prophecies of Nostradamus.
Nostradamus’ book of prophecies was written as a series of quatrains, or short poems with four
lines each. There were 942 prophecies in all, divided into nine sets of 100 called “centuries”
and another set of 42 – the anticlimactic answer to “life, the universe, and everything” given by
the supercomputer in “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Coincidence? Probably. Starting in 1550,
Nostradamus also started publishing an Almanac of prophecies each year until he died. Over 6,000
more predictions, omens, and weird, mystical musings were contained in these volumes.
One of Nostradamus’ most famous predictions was the death of Henry II of France,
who ruled from 1547 to 1559. It goes like this: “The young lion will overcome the older one,
On the field of combat in a single battle; He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage, Two wounds
made one, then he died an unwanted death.” Just a few years after Nostradamus wrote those words,
Henry II perished during a friendly joust with the Count of Montgomery, who was captain of
his elite Scottish guard. On the final go, the count’s lance hit him in the face and a splinter
went right through the visor of his helmet. Another splinter hit him in the side of the head,
piercing his helmet. The king managed to survive, but died 10 days later. So why
do Nostradamus’ words seem so prescient? Well, apparently Henry and the Count were both wearing
shields that sported lion emblems. Henry II did suffer two wounds that were “made one” by both
piercing his helmet. The Count of Montgomery was also younger than Henry II, making him the
“young lion” that overcame the “older one.” Henry II’s death certainly could be considered a bit
cruel as Nostradamus stated…he suffered for 10 days with two pieces of wood in his head.
Not a pleasant thing to think about. Many say this prophecy was the French astrologer’s first real
claim to fame. But did he really predict this? The fact that Nostradamus reportedly wrote to the king
saying he saw a long and fruitful reign ahead for the monarch makes it seem a bit off.
Nostradamus is also said to have prophesied the birth and rise of Adolf Hitler. There are
actually two quatrains that people attribute to Hitler and the Nazis. The first goes like this:
“From the depths of the West of Europe, A young child will be born of poor people, He who by
his tongue will seduce a great troop; His fame will increase towards the realm of the East.”
That child is apparently Hitler, who was born in the “West of Europe,” Austria to be specific,
to very poor parents. He certainly seduced a great troop, or took over Germany,
through his oratory skills and ability to rile up the masses “by his tongue.” Then, during WWII,
his fame “increased towards the realm of the East” when the Nazis allied with Japan.
The second quatrain goes like this: “Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers,
The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister. Into a cage of iron will the
great one be drawn, When the child of Germany observes nothing.” Obviously,
many believe “Hister” is simply a misspelling of “Hitler.” Beasts with ferocious hunger crossing
rivers could be interpreted as the Nazi invasion of France. The last two lines could also refer to
the allied defeat of the Nazis and Hitler’s death in his bunker in Austria. This didn’t stop Hitler
and the Nazis from taking the interpretation and running with it. The wife of Joseph Goebbels,
Hitler’s infamous minister of propaganda, brought the prophecies to his attention,
and the Nazis began using them as proof that Nazi victory was inevitable and preordained.
In 1666, a small fire in a bakery in London quickly got out of hand,
leading to the widespread destruction of much of the city. Known as the Great Fire of London,
Nostradamus apparently knew it was going to happen more than 100 years before it did.
The quatrain he wrote goes like this: “The blood of the just will be lacking in London,
Burnt up in the fire of ‘66; The ancient Lady will topple from her high place,
Many of the same sect will perish. Clearly the year ’66 is a pretty weird coincidence.
The blood of the just has been interpreted as the elimination of flea carrying rats that were
spreading the plague around this time. Also, the ancient Lady that toppled from her high place is
said to be a statue of the Virgin Mary that fell off of St. Paul’s Cathedral during the fire.
Nostradamus also apparently predicted the rise of Napoleon. Just like Hitler, there are two
quatrains attributed to the French conqueror. The first reads, “A ruler will be born near Italy,
Whose cost to the Empire shall be quite dear; They will say from those whom he shall rally,
That he is less a prince than a butcher.” This one is pretty vague. Sure, Napoleon was born
“near Italy”, but then again, so was Hitler. Napoleon did like his wars, making him more
of a butcher. The other quatrain is a bit more enticing. It goes like this: “PAU, NAY, LORON,
more of fire than blood, To swim in praise, the great one to flee to the confluence
He will refuse entry to the Piuses, The depraved ones and Durrance will confine them.” In this one,
PAU, NAY, and LORON are three French cities that form a loose triangle on a map.
But if you rearrange the letters as an anagram, something that Nostradamus liked to do a lot,
you can get the words “NAPAULON ROY”, which in French closely matches “Napoleon the King”. The
line “more of fire than blood” can be a reference to Napoleon’s non-noble family background,
while the line “refuse entry to the Piuses is thought to refer
to the fact that Napoleon was thrown in jail by Pope Pius VI and Pope Pius VII.
Nostradamus may have written numerous prophecies, but he had a bit of a tenuous professional
background. As a teenager, he enrolled in the University of Avignon, but his studies were
derailed when France was hit with an outbreak of plague. Nostradamus ended up wandering
around the French countryside for eight years learning about herbal medicines and working as
an apothecary. He eventually went back to school, this time enrolling at the prestigious University
of Montpellier to study medicine. He was expelled, though, once his professors learned that
he’d worked as an apothecary, a job considered inferior to a doctor – doctors who at the time,
were doing things like sticking leeches to people and prescribing medicines with heavy metals in
them and lots of other nasty stuff like that. This didn’t stop the great future prophet, however.
He continued to practice both medicine and occult healing, and even wound up publishing a few books
on medical science. He even came up with what he thought was a remedy to help protect against
the plague. It was called the rose pill. It was derived from rose hips, which had a good
amount of vitamin C. Nostradamus also encouraged people getting fresh air, practicing good hygiene,
and removing infected corpses as quickly as possible in order to prevent the plague.
Compared to his licensed colleagues who were bloodletting and treating people with mercury,
Nostradamus actually had a better track record in terms of cure rates while he was treating people
for plague. So can we really believe these prophecies? It’s doubtful. They’re pretty
general and open to interpretation. Nostradamus also drew a lot from biblical references,
and it’s said a lot of his “predictions” were just events from the past that he
then projected into the future. What’s more, he apparently wasn’t a very good astrologer.
He claimed to use the movements of planets and stars to inform his predictions,
yet he was criticized by his contemporaries for not doing these calculations very well.
In his work as an astrologer, he would give readings for people, but would make them
provide their own birth charts that were based on planetary alignments and constellations.
When he had to do this himself, he was often wrong. One of his chief critics was a guy
named Laurens Vidal. In 1558, he published a pamphlet titled “Declaration of the abuses,
ignorances and seditions of Michel Nostradamus,'' where he addressed Nostradamus directly,
saying that “of true astrology you understand less than nothing…you cannot calculate the least
movement of any heavenly body whatever.” Oof tough criticism. Despite this, the legend of Nostradamus
grew and grew, in part helped by the patronage of the Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici.
By the mid 1900s, fantastical accounts of the French prophet swirled.
Some of the bogus biographies included tales that he was a descendent of an Israelite tribe,
that he had predicted the rise of many popes, that he had been buried standing up, and that
when he was dug up during the French Revolution, he was wearing a medallion inscribed with the
exact date of his disinterment. Everyone loves a good prophecy. Everyone loves a good story.
Nostradamus blended the two together ingeniously, with just enough vagueness
to make his writings compelling enough that we’re still talking about them centuries later.
Do you think Nostradamus was a true prophet? Let us know in the comments below. As always,
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