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Almanac Year 1555

D’un presage sur ladicte année 1555

Presage 1

D’esprit divin l’ame presage atteinte,
Trouble, famine, peste, guerre courir :
Eaux, sicortez, terre & mer de sang teinte,
Paix, tresve, à naistre Prelats, Princes mourir.

The friendly presage attended by the divine mind,
Confusion, famine, plague, war to run:
Water, droughts, earth and sea tainted with blood,
Peace, truce, Prelates born, Princes to die.

Events of 1555

This prophecy was published in the Almanac of 1555, which came out in 1554. It is rare in that it was actually fulfilled in the published year. Two princes of Catholicism, Popes Julius III and Marcellus II died this year. Also, the peace of Augsburg was signed on the 25th of September, bringing peace (4th line) to a war torn (2nd – 3rd line) area.

There are those who would claim that this is too general a quatrain, that it could be fulfilled in any year. While they are mistaken, they do have a point in that there are likely multiple years that this quatrain could be fulfilled. So, the fact that this was fulfilled in the very year of publication makes it interesting in and of itself. It is likely that Nostradamus put this quatrain into the almanac knowing it would be fulfilled that year as a means to excite curiosity.

De l’espitre luminaire sar ladite année 1555

Presage 2

Las mer Tyrrhene, l’Occean par la garde,
Du grand Neptun & ses tridens soldats :
Provence sevré par la main du grand Tende,
Plus Mars Narbon l’heroiq de Vilars.

The Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ocean is guarded
By the great Neptune and the trident soldiers:
Provence safe by the hand of the great Tende,
More Mars Narbonne the heroic de Villars.

Claude Louis Hector, Duc de Villars

This quatrain is proof that the almanac quatrains were not necessarily related to the times and events of the year of their official publication. There is only one Villars this quatrain can possibly apply to: Claude Louis Hector de Villars, the great general who stopped Marlborough at Malplaquet. Though Marlborough won that fight, it was so bloody and pyrrhic a victory, with so many English and allied deaths compared to the French, that he dared not face Villars again in direct combat. The British were Neptune and the trident soldiers. Provence is the region of France Nostradamus was born and lived in; here it referred to all of France.

The part about Tende is somewhat explained by Chavigny in his Commentaries: Nostradamus reputedly believed that Villars, then still in the future, would be somehow related to the old governor of Provence, the Compte de Tende, who knew Nostradamus. Lee McCann, in his book, thinks that Villars is a direct descendant of Tende. Whether this is true or not, I cannot tell.