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Le sang du juste à Londres sera faulte,
Bruslés par fouldres de vint trois les six :
La dame antique cherra de place haute,
De mesme secte plusieurs seront occis.
The second line is the key. Of twenty three the six is an interesting statement that times this quatrain. But how it is timed is uncertain. The twenty three the six could be read as three sets of twenty plus six, making it sixty six. Or it could be twenty three plus six, making it twenty nine.
This sounds like the English Civil War. Actually, there were three civil wars. The First one was the decisive one. The second one saw the supremacy of the New Model Army and the leadership of Cromwell who took on all comers and beat them all. The third saw the defeat of Charles II, which effectively ended the wars. Charles I would be the just one (according to Nostradamus that is), and the Ancient Lady would be the Parliament – the inefficient element of the government, in existence off and on since Simon de Montfort first called a real Parliament in 1265. The sect would be Parliamentarians, especially those who were harshly treated after the second civil war, by Cromwell, for going over to the Royalist side. The only problems come from the second line. The Civil War occurred in 1642, not 1629 or 1666. Also the “Burnt by Lighting is inexplicable.
The Great Fire of 1666 could be an interpretation. It burned for 3 days, was a fire, and was blamed on Catholics (the sect). The Ancient Lady would be the Parliament. The just would be the Dutch merchant fleet of 130 ships burnt a few months earlier by Admiral Robert Holmes. Again, many of the sect – Protestant – were killed by the fire. This would be three times twenty plus six. But the lightning is inexplicable, unless the unlikely event of lightning started the fire at Thomas Farynor’s bakery happened or it is a reference to the rapidity that the flames spread.
I admit the Great Fire is the more likely explanation, but I am unconvinced. I must leave this to the reader.
Dans plusieurs nuicts la terre tremblera:
Sur le prinstemps deux effors suscite :
Corynthe, Ephese aux deux mers nagera,
Guerre s’esmeut par deux vaillans de luire.
The key events occurred in the spring of 1941, the two great wrestlers were the British and the Germans. Theirs were the two efforts provoked.
Mussolini had already attacked Greece (represented by Corinth and Ephesus) from Albania in the autumn of 1940. It was a disastrous attack. Sixteen Greek divisions not only pinned down twenty Italian divisions, they thrust them back into Albania. For a while they fought alone. But by the end of February, the Greeks accepted British aid which started to rive March 27th.
April 6th, Hitler struck. His armies knifed through Yugoslavia and relieved Mussolini in Albania. From Bulgaria, German forces slashed into Greek Macedonia. The Greek divisions there fought for a few days, then ceased to be effective fighting forces. The German attack succeeded and the British were forced to withdraw.
As for the earthquakes, it is certain that Greece sits on major fault lines – earthquakes have occurred in the past and will occur in the future. But the earth movement could be metaphorical, referring to the movement of armies and the explosions of war. And the seas were the Aegean and the Adriatic, both now Axis lakes.
La grande peste de cite maritime
Ne cessera que mort ne soir vengée :
Du iuste sang, par pris damme sans crime,
De la grand dame par feincte n’outraigée.
Of key here is a plague in a maritime city. Before we go to where the clue of the last line points, let us examine a literal interpretation of line 1. There was the plague of 1665-1667 which started in England and spread through France. The maritime city would in this case be London. The lady could be the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. But then, who is the great dame, or great lady? And if Catherine is the great dame, who is the lady? In 1720, there was a plague. But it lasted about a year or so, finally fading out. The death toll was over 100,000. But what was the death that needed to be avenged? And who was the lady taken without crime? And the great dame? It makes no sense.
Proceed to the French Revolution, and we have a plague of a different character. The plague here is a man made plague, a great shedder of blood – war. The one whose death was wrong, whose death was not avenged was the execution of Marie Antoinette. She was, of course, the lady taken without a crime. As is known, she was executed on trumped up charges.
The fourth line holds the key clue: the great dame. In the Epistle to Henri, the great dame is identified with the inept government of Louis XVI. True to the fourth line and to the meaning of the great dame in the epistle, Louis was outraged by the event, yet he pretended to not be outraged, publicly forgave his executioners and went to his death quite serenely.
And what about the maritime city that is tied to the plague? It can only be Marseille, the major port of France. Here it represents all of France and can be interpreted as the plague that consumed all of France for a long time. But the city is mentioned for a second reason, a contribution Marseille gave to the Revolution. While 500 volunteers marched from Marseille to Paris, they sang the song that would quickly become the national anthem of France and the rallying song of the Revolution: La Marseillaise!
Par gent estrange, & Romains loingraine,
Leur grand cité apres eave fort troublee,
Fille sans main, trop different domaine,
Prins chief, ferreure n’avoir esté riblée.
All I can make of this is that the Italian people are not involved.
Dans le conflict le grand qui peu valloir,
A son dernier sera cas merveilleux :
Pendant qu’Hadrie verra ce qu’il falloir,
Dans le banquet pongnale l’orguilleux.
The great one who was not much counted was Henri III of France. Neither Henri Duc de Guise nor Henri de Navarre considered Henri III in their military equations, more being opposed to each other. But the Duc, a descendant of Louis XII and a pretender to the throne of France, was winning. Dire action was needed. The Duc has to be removed, and fast. Henri realized that assassination was the only answer. The Duc was summoned to Blois. There, either during a mass (a religious feast) or immediately after a regular feast, the tales differ, the proud Henri Duc de Guise, who very arrogantly discounted a warning about his life the night before, was stabbed to his death.
Que peste & glaive n’a peu seu definer,
Mort dans le puys, sommer du ceil frappé :
L’abbe mourra quand verra ruiner,
Ceur du naufrage l’escucil voulant grapper.
The shipwreck is the key to this quatrain. The ship is the Catholic Church. It is also the one that neither plague or sword could destroy. Ceil in line 2 could be heaven, referring to being hit from heaven, i.e. the will of the Lord. The shipwreck can only refer to the time when the Catholic Church is shattered and destroyed. The abbot mentioned here could be the pope or a bishop of some importance.
Avant conflict le grand mar tombera,
Le grand à mort, mort trop subite & plainte :
Nay imfarfaict: la plus part nagera,
Aupres du fleuve de sang la terre tainte.
Nay is normally given the meaning of né, born. In fact, in some Sève editions, it is actually spelt Né. If correct, it would mean that this refers to one who was born imperfect in the eyes of someone, either due to a physical or social imperfection. However, the fact that it is not spelt Né but Nay indicates something else, something unusual, is at work.
Advance time to 1769 and Michael Ney springs to mind. Michael was born a commoner, which was considered a grave imperfection by the nobility. The fact that he would become a Marshal of France displeased the Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII, which treated him cooly, even though they made him a peer of the realm.
The great one of line 1 who fell was Napoléon Bonaparte. He did not so much die or lose power as he fell from his perceived invincibility. Before he attacked Russia, Napoléon was invincible to all but the British. After his retreat from Moscow began, the legend of his invincibility was shattered, never to be regained.
The retreat of the Grand Armée through Russia cost the French tens of thousands of soldiers. More were falling by the wayside when they reached the Berezina River. Surprisingly, it was thawed, not frozen, and Napoléon’s army, shattered and reduced by so much death, was trapped.
General Elbé immediately built two pontoon bridges. Marshal’s Ney and Victor fought a rearguard action, and while under heavy attack, the French withdrew across the bridges as fast as they could. Nay was supposedly the last to physically cross. Finally, across, they pushed through Admiral Chichagov’s forces and continued the retreat to France.
But it was a bloody and disastrous crossing. It is estimated that twenty five thousand of Napoléon’s troops died or were wounded in the actual battle to cross the river. Another ten thousand stragglers were killed by rampaging Cossacks. Finally, approximately twenty thousand died in the cold waters of the river itself. Total casualty figures, approximately fifty five thousand of Napoléon’s forces, most of them killed.
Sans pied ne main par dend ayguë & forte,
Par globe au fort de port & laisne nay :
Pres du mortail desloyal se transporte,
Silene luit, petit grand emmené.
I do not think there was an ancient meaning for the word dend, which is what Nostradamus used. I found a modern meaning – moron and idiot, but am not certain this applies. The traditional translation is tooth, which is dent, a distinct possibility, though unlikely. A Silene is a type of flowering plant, why it is shining I have no idea. I also cannot say who the great little one is, though I can give an example: Louis XVI could be considered to be a great little one. Born a king, he was in reality a little man, not so much in stature as in ability.
I leave this to the reader to figure out.
Classe Gauloise par apuy de grande garde,
Du grand Neptune & ses tridens soldars :
Rongée Provence pour soustenir grand bande,
Plus Mars Narbon par javelots & dards.
I have Lee McCann for guiding me to the correct interpretation of the critical passage, Plus Mars Narbon, even though he was inaccurate about the meaning of the quatrain. While he was not an expert interpreter or a skilled translator, his efforts did facilitate my work to some degree.
More Mars Narbone refers to Claude Louis Hector, the Duc de Villars who was the French marshal during the War of the Spanish Succession. It is also a reference to the horrors that France was fighting during that war. The Gaulic fleet is the combined fleet of the French and the Spanish. The forces of Great Neptune are the forces who rule the seas, in this case, the British, with his trident soldiers, a rather colorful statement about the nation that ruled the waves for several centuries. The British fleet did manage to keep the French and Spanish fleet in check during that lengthy war. Though Nostadamus was from the Provence region, the part about Provence refers to all of France.
Literally interpreted, the quatrain reads that the British will do all they can to hamstring the French through the use of their fleet and soldiers. But through the efforts, the javelins and darts of Villars, the French nation will be healed and will survive. This is exactly what happened.
La foy Punique en Orient rompue,
Gang, Jud & Rhone, Loyre & Tag changeront :
Quand du mulet la faim sera repue,
Classe espargie, sang & corps nageront.
The mention of Punic leads one to North Africa and to Lebanon. The Rhone and Loire are in France and the Tagus is in Italy. Jud and Gang are ambiguous, but if one considers the scale large enough, Ganges becomes a possible interpretation for Gang, while at least Edger Leoni considered Jud to be Jordan, both rivers in Asia. The Punic faith being broken as well as the line about the hunger of the mules prevents this from being easily interpreted by the First or Second World Wars. As a result, future world war is demanded. I am forced to leave this to the future and an accurate interpretation of Gang and Jud.