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The Tenth Century
The Fradulent Quatrain

Likely False Quatrain

Sève served as a compiler, a gatherer of prophecies Michael had written. He tried to gather them all and include them all into a single work. To this he deserves a great measure of credit.

However, being a compiler and not the actual author, it is likely that some of the quatrains Sève included in his efforts were of a dubious quality. Some of them could be original attempts Nostradamus jotted down as he tried to make a quatrain that fit particular visions, failed attempts that he cast aside. Others may have been of a less savory nature.

The following is a clear example. It was found after the “FIN” of the tenth century in the original Sève edition. To say that it is of a dubious quality is to put it kindly. Most likely this quatrain is a complete forgery. It was included by Sève because he dared not reject a possible quatrain, however dubious. For this reason alone, I include it as well.

Adjousté de puis l’impression de 1568.

Quand le fourchu sera soûtenu de deux paux,
Avec six demy corps, & six sizeaux ouvers
Letres puisant Seigneur, heritier des crapaux,
Alors subjuguera, sous foy tout l’univers.

Fine tuning of the impression of 1568.

When the two will be able to support the fork,
With six half bodies and six scissors open
Letters of the powerful Lord, heir of the toad,
Will then subjugate the whole world under a creed.

Phony!?

The dubiousness of the quatrain comes from multiple points made by the quatrain. I will examine each point, demonstrating the implausibility of this being written by Nostradamus.

First, the title says impression of 1568: even the first two Presages, the quatrains that come from Nostradamus’ almanacs, do not give this type of title.

Take the first two lines as our next issue; the lines that on the surface are nonsensical to the extreme. It is possible that these are terms understandable by future people, this would be in the Nostradamus style, but it is extremely unlikely and even then people could at least make some sense of it even if the result was so fantastic as to be beyond belief. Several past commentators have interpreted the first two lines by claiming that the first line gives the Roman numeral M, while the next line gives 6 C’s and 6 X’s, giving the total number MCCCCCXXXXXX, or 1660. It is true that once or twice he did use the Roman Numeral notation, but he actually wrote it out, he never hid it like this. Even when he is obscure, the numbering is more obvious and he never takes up more than half a line to deliver the whole number. Nostradamus has always been more open, more blunt than this. This is obscurity and verbosity beyond what Nostradamus does.

The third line comes up with a term used nowhere else; toad. The way the line is written, the only plausible interpretation would be that the individual being talked about is an heir of French Royalty, a scion of the Capetian line that succeeded the Carolingian line. The problem with this, and it is a major one, is that the symbol for the Carolingian line was the frog, not the toad. In all of the quatrains we know are from him, he never mentions the word crapaux, toad, always it is the symbol of the Carolingan kings, grenouille, frog.

The last line asserts that the whole world will be subjugated under a single faith or creed, something that Nostradamus never asserts anywhere else. It is true that in the 77th quatrain of the 4th Century he writes about a Christian King of the world, but even there he did not state that the whole world would be under one creed.

Finally the title: Fine tuning of the impression of 1568. Anyone who knows the works of Nostradamus knows that his last quatrain was November 1567, when he died. He published nothing for December of 1567 and he certainly did not seem to intend to publish anything for a 1568 Almanac.

When all of these points are considered together, the falsity of this quatrain is practically demanded. I therefore am convinced this is a false quatrain. Still, I include it for the same reason Sève included it. However unlikely, even though all of the evidence is against it being one that Nostradamus wrote, it is still possible he still could have written it. That said, I do not give it much chance.