 |
|
|---|
|
|
|---|
Cela du reste de sang non espandu
Venise quiert secours estre donné,
Apres avoir bien long temps attendu,
Cité livrée au premier cornet sonné.
There were several times when Venice fell to opponents since Nostradamus wrote this. The first was May 12, 1797 when it fell to Napoléon. The second was August 27, 1849 when Austrian troops entered the city following the surrender of the 22nd. The last occurred on April 29, 1945 when it fell to New Zealand troops. This sounds like the first of those conquests.
The Doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, was a man of peace who had let the defenses of the city decay. He had become Doge just before the French Revolution erupted and failed to realize the significance of what was occurring.
During the time of the quatrain, Napoléon was approaching to fight the Venetians. Ludovico tried for a long time to adhere to strict neutrality. Parlays were sent back and forth. But unknown to Ludovico, Napoléon had signed a treaty with the Austrians that gave Venice to them. Of course, there was the minor problem that Venice was independent, not yet under control of the French.
Napoléon’s general, Junot, issued an ultimatum on the 15th of April, an ultimatum that was rejected. The treaty between the French and Austrians was signed on the 17th. A French fleet entered Venetian held waters on the 25th; the Venetians succeeded in sinking a French ship, but with only a small fleet could not resist the power of the French. Still, the Venetians resisted until the 12th of May when, with a French army approaching, Ludovico suddenly surrendered the city and abdicated. His subsequent actions indicates he was very bitter over the incident.
Par mort la France prendra voyage à faire,
Classe par mer, marchera monts Pyrenées,
Hespaigne en trouble, marcher gent militaire :
Des plus grand dames en France emmenées.
Nostradamus here describes the root reasons for the War of the Spanish Succession. The death is the death of the Spanish King, Charles II, who had no direct heir. For a number of years, he tried to deal with the issue of his successor, with no results. Spain had belonged to the Hapsburg’s for several centuries, the Hapsburg heir was the Archduke Charles of Austria. However, a series of marriages between the Spanish Hapsburg’s and the French Capetian’s had established a Capetian heir: Louis the Dauphin, firstborn son of Louis XIV of France. These marriages, the taking of ladies in France by the Spanish as well as the taking of Spanish ladies into France explain the last line: Henri II had given his daughter Elizabeth to Felipe II, and Marie de Medici (wife of Henry IV) later gave another Elizabeth, this time, daughter of Henri IV of France, to Felipe IV of Spain. Louis XIV was the son of Louis XIII and his wife Anne of Austria, who was the daughter of Felipe III of Spain. But the most important connection was the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria Theresa, daughter of Felipe IV; this made the Dauphin the most direct heir to the Spanish Throne. Because of these marriages, Charles gave his preference to a descendant of Louis XIV.
France and England would debate several treaties, trying to impose their agreement upon Austria and Spain. But all the discussions were ultimately futile: The Austrians wanted Spain’s Italian possessions and Charles refused to divide his kingdom for any reason, nullifying each and every treaty France and England made concerning the Spanish succession.
Before Charles died, he named the Dauphin’s second son, Philippe, Duc de Anjou, as his heir, with the cevat that Philippe, who assumed the Spanish name Felipe V, and his descendants could never claim the French throne. This was a clever gambit and it might have worked – England might have accepted it and after Charles died, Louis took the gamble of accepting Charles will in its entirety. Unfortunately, Louis marched his troops across the Pyrenees and foolishly tried to isolate Spain from England; this roused William III of England who made common cause with the Austrians and the Netherlanders, starting the war.
D’Arras & Bourges, de Brodes grans enseignes,
Un plus grand nombre de Gascons batre à pied,
Ceux long du Rosne saigneront les Espaignes :
Proche du mont ou Sagonte s’assied.
Arras and Bourges are communes in France. The Rhone is the great southern river of France. Gascony is a region from France. Sagunto is a city in eastern Spain. Taken, it refers to a time when the French are in Spain, bleeding it through constant warfare.
This can only refer to the Peninsular War, known also as the Spanish War of Independence. Napoléon Bonaparte had made the political blunder of deposing the Spanish king, Charles IV, placing his brother Joseph Bonaparte onto the Spanish throne. The Spanish peasantry, the church, and nationalists, rose up in fury. Madrid rose up as well but the revolt there was quickly crushed.
Despite having a terrible army, the war started well for Spain. France was forced into a lengthy siege at Saragossa, a major city in the inland area of Aragon. In Portugal, the British landed in support of the Portuguese nation. The uprising became so acute and British interference so menacing that Napoléon himself went into Spain with the intent of crushing the Spanish and British. In a great pouring of Spanish blood, he succeeded in crushing the Spanish, but the Spanish, refusing to acknowledge defeat, began the guerilla war that would sap French strength. And he failed to crush the British who, under General John Moore, successfully escaped to Corunna where, after a pitched battle, they evacuated.
L’impotent prince faché, plaincts & querelles,
De rapts & pillé, par coqz & par libyques :
Grand est par terre, par mer infinies voilles,
Seul Italie sera chassant Celtiques.
The cock represents France in its martial glory. The Libyans are those of either the Italian colony in Africa, or the larger region that covered all of Northern Africa, except for Egypt. There were only two times that Italy was opposed by the French and the North Africans, both times occurred was while France had control of the colony of Algeria. This fact limits the focus to either the Italian Unification of 1860-70 or the Second World War. The infinite sails eliminates the Italian Unification from consideration, leaving us with the Second World War. If there is any doubt, the mention that Italy is fighting the Celts, not the French, is confirmation: the Celtic peoples included not only the French, but the Britons of the Britannic Isle. As a result, it included France, Britain, and the nation that (in a way) came from both – the United States.
The impotent Prince is Benito Mussolini. After Italy sued for peace and deposed Mussolini, Adolph Hitler had rescued him and established the Italian Socialist Republic in Northern Italy with Mussolini as its head. Yet from the beginning it was not an Italian state but rather a puppet state of Germany. Mussolini seems to have realized it – his heart was no longer in the war. The complaints and quarrels refers to not only the Italians who opposed the puppet regime, it also refers to the Allies, the Celtic powers of Free France, Britain and the United States who fought up the Italian peninsula. Some of the Free French were Algerians, fulfilling the Libyan part of the Quatrain. Of course, the armies were immense, and the navies involved had so many ships that their number would have dwarfed the size of a fleet in Nostradamus’ days.
The part about Italy alone fighting the Celts refers to the fact that Italy was not in control of its destiny. The true power that governed most of Italy, at least until the Allies liberated the various areas, were the Germans. They were alone in fighting the Celtic nations in Northern and Central Italy.
Croix, paix, soubs un accomply divin verbe.
L’Espaigne & Gaule seront unis ensemble :
Grand clade proche, & combat tresacerbe,
Coeur si hardy ne sera qui ne tremble.
The ascension of Felipe V of Spain, grandson of Louis XIV of France, changed the balance of power in Europe. Spain, now under Bourbon rule, was now nominally tied to France instead of Hapsburg Austria. The divine word is the last will and testament of Charles II, who wanted his entire kingdom to go to one man, his chosen heir. The will of Charles was accomplished, but it would last only as long as the upcoming wr would allow it to last. The last two lines refer to the upcoming War of the Spanish Succession, which would ravage Europe for 13 years.
D’habits nouveaux apres faicte la treuve,
Malice tramme & machination :
Premier mourra qui en fera la preuve,
Couleur Venise insidiation.
The Italian Armistice was signed September 3, 1943. The new Badoglio government, which signed it, was the new clothes. But plotting and machinations still occurred in Italy. The Venetian conspiracy here refers to the rule by Mussolini in Northern Italy, the Italian Socialist Republic, under German power. The first to die was the liberty of the Italian nation – it became an occupied country and a battle zone, divided between the Allies of the United Nations in the south and the Germans in the north.
La mineur filz du grand & hay prince,
De lepre aura à vingt ans grande tache :
De dueil sa mere mourra bien triste & mince,
Et il mourra la ou toumbe cher lache.
The quatrain is most specific. A man of princely rank will rule a nation and will be hated. One of his younger sons will contact the disease of Leprosy, a progressive disease that eventually covers the skin, causes blindness and harms the limbs; this will occur when the son is about twenty years old. The mother wastes away and dies. The last line is curious. Leprosy was believed to cause flesh to fall off, yet Nostradamus, a doctor of his day, had to have known better. Was the last line a reference to Leprosy or was it a reference to a flesh eating disease?
There is only one possible historical solution, though I am uncertain as to how accurate it is. Benito Mussolini ruled Italy for twenty one years and his children from his wife, Rachele Guidi, were fairly well known. But what is not known or commonly accepted is that before he married Rachele, he had another wife, one that it seems he never divorced.
According to some sources, Ida Dalser was married to Mussolini in 1914, over a year before he married Rachele. Since there is no record of the two divorcing, it is almost certain that Benito became a bigamist when he married Rachele. Certainly the Italian government recognized his marriage to Ida and not Rachele during the First World War for a wartime pension was paid to Ida for her husband’s wartime service.
But the focus of this interpretation lays in the fact that Ida gave birth to Benito’s first son, Benito Albino Mussolini, and was treated shabbily by her husband. All records concerning the marriage and the birth were hunted down and destroyed. Ida herself died in an asylum on the isle of San Clemente in Venice. The official cause of death was brain hemorrhage, but anyone familiar with the way asylums were run in those days would be very aware that any and all patients there were treated horribly. Certainly Ida was a very sad person who very likely wasted away before she passed away in 1937.
Benito Albino Mussolini did not fare much better. He was told his mother was dead. Adopted as an orphan in 1931 he was given a decent education and, at a fairly young age enlisted in the Italian navy. But the fascists kept a tight eye on him throughout his life. Because he kept insisting he was the son of Benito Mussolini, he was eventually arrested and placed into an asylum in Mombello, located in the province of Milan. There, while little is known what happened, it is believed he was murdered when he was given coma inducing injections. He was twenty-six when he died.
Key to this interpretation are certain unknowns that Nostradamus may have been aware of but that the Fascists involved kept hidden. The point about the disease of loose flesh definitely does not refer to leprosy but could rather refer to what was done to him while he was in the asylum. He certainly was the son of a great and hated prince, as his father called himself Il Duce, the Duke, which is a declaration of princely rank and it is almost certain that his mother Ida wasted away in the asylum she was locked into.
As we do not know the condition of Benito Albino Mussolini’s body when he was finally killed, we cannot know if this quatrain does refer to this situation and is successful, refers to something else and is in the future or unknown, or is a failed quatrain.
La grand cité d’assault prompt & repentin,
Surprins de nuict, gardes interrompus :
Les excubies & veille sainct Quintin,
Trucidés gardes & les pourtails rompus.
The key is the third line. While there are many places with the name of Saint Quentin, the one in the modern Aisne department is the one that is referred to in this quatrain.
The city was defended by the Constable de Montmorency, one of the more important leaders of France. The Spanish forces were lead by Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. The French fought well, but the defeat was total, bloody and resounding.
This is definitely one of Nostradamus’ early successes.
La chef du camp au milieu de la presle
D’un de fleche sera blessé aux cuisses,
Lors que Geneve en larmes & detresse,
Sera trahie par Lozan & Souysses.
Note on Translation: I cannot translate Lozan accurately, but the pronunciation does indicate the city of Lausanne.
The quatrain is descriptive enough. A leader is wounded by an arrow. At that time, Geneva is betrayed by the Swiss and the people of “Lozan.” Trouble is, I cannot figure it out what Lozon means. So, unless we return to bows and arrows in the future, I will have to leave this one to the reader to figure out.
Le jeune prince accuse faulsement,
Mettra en trouble le camp & le quarelles :
Meurtry le chef pour le soustenement,
Sceptre apaiser; puis guerir escroveles.
Note on Translation: Theophilus de Garenciéres translated escroveles as “Kings-evil.” I cannot figure out anything else.
I leave this to the reader to interpret.