Nostradamus

“ Ah! what a great service the King doth this day to the King of Spain, to rid him of such an Enemy as I was, might I not have been kept within four Walls, till some occasion had offered where I might have been useful? Ah my Lord, have you forgot my fathers love to you so much, as not to give notice to the King of what I say, and what dammage he suffereth in loosing me: I am yet as willing as ever to do Service to the Kingdom, you could let him know so much, he hath so good an opinion of you, I am sure he would believe you: A Messenger could quickly go thither and back again ”

“ Great offences require great clemency. I do implore that of the King, and nevertheless I am the onely one in France, that is made an example of his severity, and that can have no hope in his clemency, which he never denyed to those that had done worse: However I trust more in you my Lords, than I do in the King, who having heretofore looked upon me with his Eyes of love, looketh upon me now with those of his anger, and thinketh it a Vertue to be cruel unto me, and a Vice to excercise upon me the act of clemency. ”

“ Who in France besides is more obliged to the King? the greater then is the Obligation, the greater the ingratitude. God forbid that the respect of the quality should stop the course of Justice: a Limb must be cut off to save all the body.
But his offence hath been forgiven: The pardon cannot extend but to the things that are confessed ”

“ The people seeing no way to escape, resolved to die patiently. No body could without great grief see the Oxen and Sheep drowning; for there was such a numerous quantity of them, that afar off one would have thought them to be Rocks in the Sea, but seeing them swiming, and hearing them bleating and bellowing, one would have thought them to be a storm and hissing of winds. A rich Farmer, and father of seven Children, being involved in the Flood, and much astonished at this accident, nevertheless thinking the danger less then it was, went about to save some of his best Goods ”

“ The fire of that great courage finding no work without, began to work within, that burning desire of being always the first, did fill his head with flames and smoak of a great design, he complained of the King, and of the unequal reward of his deserts and services, did publish his discontents, adding threatnings to his complaints, and spoke of the King with little respect, that his most intimate friends did judge his words insolent and dangerous. ”

“ Justice is blind to all distinctions, and rather considereth the offence according to the quality of the offender; Crimes of high Treason are not considered by things past, but by things present and that are to come; we must not put in an account what he hath done, but what he had a mind to do. The quality of a Duke and Peer of France, of Knight of the Kings Order, of Marshal, doth not exempt him from the Law, and from being judged as an Enemy to the State, and to the Majesty of the Prince, seeing he would have troubled the State, and attempted upon the Kings person. ”

“ God the Creator shall say, hearing the affliction of his people, Satan shall be put, and tied in the bottom of the deep, and there shall begin an universal peace between God and men, and the Ecclesiastical power shall be in its greater force, and Satan shall be left bound for the space of a thousand years, and then shall be loosed again. All these Figures are justly fitted by the sacred Scripture, to the visible Cœlestial things, viz. Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and others joyned with them, as more at large may be seen in some of my Stanza’s. ”

“ I would not have thee intangle thy self in the pretentions of knowing future things. If you have light concerning them, keep thine own secret, and make use of it for thy self: Preserve peace, and let the Almighty govern the World: for he can turn all things to his Glory, and may when he pleaseth, raise up some Wits that will make known unto us, what we desire, without any further trouble to our selves. ”

“ It is the Nature of the great ones that serve Princes to believe they deserve all, and to become more dangerous than Enemies if they are refused what they ask for. The King did declare, that he would bestow the place upon de Boisses. This denial did so trouble the mind of the Duke of Biron, and put him upon such a strange and diabolical resolutions, that he resolved one Morning, being yet in his Bed at Chamont, to kill the King, as it is expressed in the depositions of La Fin and Renazé, but this took no effect, himself afterwards did abhor the thought of it. ”

“ Those that shall conspire shall not be put to death,
Except one, who above all shall undo the World. ANNOT. The name of red Sects, may very well be applied to the Protestants of France, against whom in those days it seemed that fire, Water, Iron and Rope had conspired, for they were put to death by each one of those fatal instruments for their Religion sake. ”

“ By night in Nantes the Rain-bow shall appear,
Sea Rain-bows shall cause Rain;
The Arabian Gulf shall drownd a great Fleet,
A Monster shall be in Saxony from a Bear and a Sow. ANNOT. Nantes is a City in France, Iris is the Rainbow, Saxony is a Province in Germany; the rest is plain.
XLV.
French. ”

“ But here we must talk of Bristol, which is one of the chiefest Cities in England, by reason of the Haven, which bringeth thither abundance of Merchants, from several Nations. The same day of that Inundation, the Sea breaking into a great Channel, did presently overflow the Countrey with such quickness and violence, that it covered the Valleys, and the smaller Hills, in so much that nothing but an utter ruine was expected; many whole houses were turned upside down, and carried away with the Flood. ”

“ History makes no mention of the Prisoner, unless it were that Captain Montluc, having taken by assault the Town of Pianea or Corsmian, by a sink which he broke; the Captain Gougues a Gascon being a Prisoner of War in the Town, with many others, and hearing the cries of France, France, perswaded his Comrades to fall upon their Keepers, and to kill them with their own weapons and this Prisoner that was taken at Montisel, was brought back again into France, as well for his known Valour, as for his Warlike deliverance, and since that made himself famous in Florida. ”

“ And that City of Achem, shall be encompassed and assaulted on all sides, by a great power of Armed men; their Sea Forces shall be weakened by the Western men, and to that Kingdom shall happen great desolation, and the great Cities shall be depopulated, and those that shall come in, shall be comprehended within the vengeance of the wrath of God, and the Sepulchre held in so great veneration, shall remain a great while open to the universal Aspect of the Heavens, Sun and Moon, and the sacred place shall be converted into a Stable for small and great Cattle, and put to prophane uses. ”

“ The French Army shall be vexed in Italy,
On all sides fighting, and great loss,
The Romans run away, and thou France repulsed,
Near the Thesin, by Rubicon the fight shall be doubtful. ANNOT. A French Army shall be distressed, if not destroyed in Italy. The Romans, that is, those under the Pope, that shall take their part, shall be put to flight, and this battle shall be fought by the River Thesin. Another shall be fought by the River Rubicon, whose event shall be doubtful, that is to say, it shall hardly be known who got the victory.
LXXIII.
French. ”

“ A strange thing that as stout and valiant a man as ever was born, who had so many times cast himself amongst the greatest dangers, without any fear or apprehension, as if there was no death for him, should shew himself now so fearful at the coming of it ”

“ Non loin du Tybre de sang la Terre teinte,
Et sur humains seront diverses plagues. English.
Honour bringeth a complaint against a vain undertaking,
Galleys shall wander through the Latin Seas, cold, hunger, Waves,
Not far from Tyber the Earth shall be died with blood,
And upon Mankind shall be several plagues. ANNOT. Tyber is the River of Rome, the rest are several prodigies that shall come to pass.
LXIV.
French. ”

“ His deserts had made him capable of the first dignities of the Kingdom, but the merit of them is vanished away, by the greatness of his Crime.
And what is the State beholding to him, if after he hath contributed so much for its restauration, he goeth about to turn up side down the Foundation of it, and to betray it to the Enemies. It is nothing to begin well unless you end well, the actions are judged by the end: Those that have deserved best of the States, are the most severely punished when they fall into Sedition and Rebellion. ”

“ Besides, the Court hath not seen that Pardon, he oughted to have produced it in writing under the Kings Hand and Seal, and to forgive him once more, would put him into such a condition, as to contrive always Treasons against the State; the remedy of a present evil is not to be neglected upon the hope of an uncertain good; he is in a case to be no more useful; nothing can be expected from his courage but revenge; he that can bring no profit by his virtue and faithfulness, must do it by being made an exemple. ”

“ From Monaco as far as Sicily,
All the Sea coast shall be left desolate,
There shall not be Suburbs, Cities, nor Towns,
Which shall not be pillaged and plundred by Barbarians. ANNOT. Monaco is a Town seated by the Sea-side in Italy, between Provence and Genoa. This Prophecy hath been once already fulfilled, when the famous Pyrate Barbarossa, being sent by the grand Seignor, to help the French King against the Emperour Charles the V. in his return home, plundered all that Coast, and carried away an innumerable multitude of people into slavery.
V.
French. ”

“ The fondamental reason of this was the obscurity of his Stanza’s, where there was neither rime nor reason; the obscurity did proceed of abundance of gross faults, which the Copisters and Printers have inserted in them, from the omission of several words, from the changing and altering of others, and from the addition of some others, which did destroy the sense.
From this great obscurity, calumny draweth this argument, to ruine utterly the Author, charging him to be all at once a false Prophet, a dotish Dreamer, a Magician, and an infamous Seductor of people. ”