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Contre les rouges sectes se banderont,
Feu, eau, fer, corde par paix se minera :
An point mourir ceux qui machineront,
Fors un que monde sur tout ruynera.
Red, the symbol of revolution and the revolutionary, here assumes a very dark aspect. The red is the red of the National Socialists, the Nazis, who were a very revolutionary party in their early days, if in a very dark way. After they launched the Second World War, sects throughout the world eventually united to defeat them. Inside and outside the occupied lands, they schemed to overthrow and destroy the one who wanted to ruin everything - Adolf Hitler.
La paix s’approche d’un costé & la guerre
Oncques ne feet la poursuitte si grande,
Plaindre hóme, féme, sang innocent par terre,
Et ce sera de France à toure bande.
The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis brought to an end the war between the French/Papacy and the Spanish/English. France was the ultimate victor, as France gained Calais from the British and regained all that had been lost to the Spanish. The Papacy benefited because the Spanish gave up all of their conquests and the consequences of their victories in Italy. But the peace was short lived. Even as Henri II laid on his death bed, the opening shots of the terrible religious wars occurred. Due to the religious passions that people had, these were wars that everyone willingly rushed headlong towards. As a result, the religious wars would consume France for years.
Le Neron jeune dans les trois cheminees,
Fera de paiges vifz pour ardoir gerrer,
Heureux qui loing sera de relz menees,
Trois de son sang le feront mort guetter.
Note on Translation: The second line has a second translation: Will cause living pages to be thrown and burnt.
I must admit, I was in awe of what Nostradamus did when I read this quatrain. There have been some quatrains where he was able to put in multiple meanings with just a few lines, but in this one, he went to heights I can only dream of. And he is quite correct.
Hitler is the young Nero, young because he was born almost nineteen hundred years after Nero. In his attitude, he was everything Nero was reputed to be. The three chimneys are the chimneys of his extermination camps and there were exactly three of them. The extermination camps were concentration camps with the added specialty of having a crematorium so large numbers of corpses could be burned. Auschwitz is the most famous, but the larger and nearby Birkenau, which operated under the same command as Auschwitz, killed about fifty times the number of people Auschwitz did. Auschwitz and Birkenau were separate camps but for logistical and administrative purposes the two camps were under the same command, technically they were simply two different camps of the same compound. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the first chimney and was designed from the beginning as an extermination camp. The second chimney was Ravensbrück; this was originally built as a woman’s concentration camp but the chimney, the crematorium, was built in 1943. The third chimney was Sachsenhausen; this camp was built before Auschwitz-Birkeneau as a concentration camp but like Ravensbrück its crematorium was built in 1943 converting it to the third extermination camp.
The second line has two meanings. The first refers to the people who were burned. The second refers to the books that were burned. May and June of 1933 saw the burning of thousands of so-called Anti-German books. 1941 onward saw the burning of millions of people in the extermination camps.
The third line is obvious. Those who fled Nazi Germany mostly went on to live happy lives, at least happier than those who remained.
The three of his blood refers to the three leaders of the Wehrmacht, Heer and the Abwehr who kept trying, and failing to find ways to dispose of Hitler. The three original leaders were General Hans Oster, General Ludwig Beck and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. Of the three, only Oster would live to 1945, killed a little bit before Hitler died and Germany surrendered. The other two would be executed for the July 20 1944 plot that almost eliminated Hitler and ended the Second World War early through Operation Walküre.
Arrivera au port de Corsibonne,
Pres de Ravenne qui pillera la dame,
En merprofonde legat de la Vlisbonne
Souz roc cachez raviront septante ames.
Ravenna is about the only recognizable place in this quatrain. Corsibonne and Vlisbonne are definitely not places that exist. Nostradamus was hard pressed on this quatrain, the poetic demands of the rhétoriqueurs demands that the lines rhyme. The first and the third lines must rhyme; the second and the fourth lines must rhyme. Therefore, he made the first and the third lines rhyme, and in doing so, hid the names quite effectively. Untangling the rhyme is necessary to untangle the real places. Unfortunately, this may not be possible. Therefore, we may never know what this quatrain means.
That said, I do have a guess. Corsibonne could be split into two words: Corsica and bonne, or good. The result would be Good Corsica. Vlisbonne could in the same way be split into Vlist and bonne, or good Vlist; Vlist is a city located in the Netherlands.
Line 2 will probably be how we understand this quatrain, if we ever do understand it. Ravenna is in Italy on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. The lady is obviously an inefficient government. Normally, monarchies are efficient and modern democracies are inefficient. In countries like England, France, the United States, Brazil and Japan, that inefficiency is deliberate. It sounds therefore like Italy under the government of a democratic republic, which most so-called democratic governments of today are.
L’horrible guerre qu’en l’occident s’apreste
L’an ensuivant viendra la pestilence,
Si fort horrible que jeune, vieulx, ne beste.
Sang, feu, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter en France.
The last line refers to a triple conjunction that occurred March 31, 1915. This triple conjunction occurred in the sign of Pisces, directly opposite the Sun and Mercury of the Third French Republic. It also refers to a political reality in France at the same time. Mercury represents communication, Mars war, and Jupiter opportunity. Talks about opportunities in the war were predominant.
The war started in 1914. Everyone in Europe seemed to want the war. Martial ardor was rampant. The monarchies of Europe and the Republic of France did not need to worry, they got all the war they wanted.
In December of 1915, a respiratory epidemic struck much of the world. This epidemic would pale in comparison to the great panemic of 1918-1919, but it would be severe enough. Yet Nostradamus seems to indicate that this was still around during the pandemic of 1918-1919 that killed millions. It may have been a missing secondary infection that would be the direct cause of death in numerous cases during the pandemic – the bronchial pheunomia that was rampant during the pandemic certainly backs this up.
Camp pres de Noudam passera Goussanville,
Et à Maiotes laissera son enseigne,
Convertira en instant plus de mille,
Cherchant les deux remettre en chaine & legne.
Goussainville is a large town, or small city, in France. Noudam and Maiotes I cannot find, though the traditional translation of Noudam is Houdan. The last line is extremely hard to translate. I must leave this to the reader to decipher.
Au lieu de DRUX un Roy reposera,
Et cherchera loy changeant d’Anatheme,
Pendant le ceil si tresort tonnera,
Portere neufue Roy tuera soy mesme.
The key is in the second line. Henri IV and his followers were anathema to the Catholic Church. Henri could not rule without the blessing of the papacy. His famous conversion to Catholicism is what saved the day.
Henri was assassinated on the 14th day of May, 1610, by François Ravaillac. His carriage was held up for some reason, some blockage in the road is the generally accepted claim. While there are reports that Henri descended from his carriage, in all likelihood he was killed while he was sitting in the carriage. Probably Ravaillac claimed he had some information for the king's ears. It is unlikely the guard would have allowed Ravaillac near the king under any other circumstances.
According to reports, there was a thunderstorm that day. While I have no way of verifying this, it certainly fits with the general feel of the quatrain.
The only curiosity is DRUX. It could be Dreux, a commune in France somewhat west of Paris, but this is unlikely. The fact that this word is completely capitalized indicates Nostradamus considered this to be a critical term.
Du costé gauche àl’endroit de Vitry,
Seront guettez les trois rogues de France:
Tous assoumez rogue, noir non murdry,
Par les Bretons remis en asseurance.
There are several Vitry’s in France. The one that this refers to is Vitry-le-François, a small town at the juncture of two rivers, not far from the commune of Valmy. In Vitry, General Kellermann, who had survived the most recent military purges by Robespierre, moved towards the commune of Valmy. He provided aid for the slow moving and less capable Dumouriez. The Prussian forces, ably lead by the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a recognized master of warfare, expected the French to turn and run but Kellermann and his forces commenced a stunningly effective cannonade, boosting moral and, preparing for a bayonet attack, he cried out the famous cry "Vive la Nation!" which the entire force took up. The Prussians, surprised, retreated. This was the the Battle of Valmy, a most important victory during the French Revolution, but what concerns us is not the battle but the events leading up to and resulting from this battle.
The three reds were Lafayette, Rochambeau and Luckner, red because they were revolutionaries. Two of these are remembered and admired still in the United States of America for their major contributions to the American Revolution, especially Lafayette. At this time each of them were experienced commanders, each in commanded of a French army so there were three French armies, each ably lead, who could have dealt with the threat. But Robespierre, ever suspicious, suspected the three leaders of opposing the Revolution and removed them. It must be admitted that there was some justification for this, Lafayette was disturbed by the direction the Revolution was going. Nicholas Luckner was of German birth so he was suspected by Robespierre. Jean-Baptiste Donatien, Compt de Rochambeau simply had the bad luck of knowing Lafayette - to Robespierre's paranoid mind that was sufficient to distrust him completely. One by one the three were deprived of their armies, as the second line states. This occurred before Kellermann left Vitry for the battle.
The reds of the third line are the Girondists. The battle of Valmy represented a turning point that strengthened the moral of France, leading to the execution of Louis, the triumph of Robespierre and the fall of the Girondists. The black is King Louis XVI, see Quatrain 20 of this century, who was not outright murdered. Robespierre was implacable in wanting the King executed, but he would not be party to a simple murder; the execution had to be done with all display of legality. A trial was performed and the King was allowed to defend himself, quite well according to some commentators. If the trial had been run by any other than the Jacobins and Robespierre, Louis would soon have been acquitted. But Robespierre managed to get the King executed.
The fourth line refers to the Jacobin Club. It originated as the Club Benthorn, a group of Breton deputies to the Estates General of 1789. Though Valmy was a strategic victory for France and the Revolution, the Jacobins continued their agitation until they gained control of all France, resulting in the Reign of Terror. They did not give their blessing to the victory which saved the Revolution, but continued to play the fear card which still had very strong backing.
A la Ferté prendra la Vidame
Nicol tenu rouge qu’avoit produit la vie,
La grand Loyse naistra que fera clame,
Donnant Bourgongne à Bretons par envie.
I am taking a guess, admittedly, but it looks as if Nicol, on line 2, is an abbreviation of a person’s name. If so, then Nicolas (Nicholas in English) is the name. Loyse looks like Luise, the German version of Louise – I have kept the German flavor of the name. The Bretons are, of course, from Brittany where the original British settled when the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England took place. Burgundy is the ancient province in France.
Conflict Barbar en la Cornere noire,
Sang espandu trembler la Dalmatie :
Grand Ismaël mettra son promontoire,
Ranes trembler secours Lusitanie.
Note on original. I used the Sève edition for the original here, because the second line on the Regaud edition, Sang espandu trembler la d’Almatie, does not make any sense.
Great Ishmael is an obvious reference to the future Islamic invasion of Europe, an invasion many Muslims greatly desire. Dalmatia is part of Croatia, along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Lusitania of old includes Portugal and part of western Spain. The Frogs, a reference to the old Carolingan symbol, is a direct reference to the French. Nostradamus is convinced the French should go to the aid of the Spanish/Portuguese. That Frenchmen fear to do this is, according to the Prophet, wrong.