NOSTRADAMUS (Michel)

, an able physician and celebrated astrologer, was born at St. Remy in Provence in the diocese of Avignon, December 14, 1503. His father was a notary public, and his grandfather a physician, from whom he received some tincture of the mathematies. He afterwards completed his courses of languages and philosophy at Avignon. From hence, going to Montpelier, he there applied himself to physic; but being forced away by the plague, he travelled through different places till he came to Bourdeaux, undertaking all such patients as were willing to put themselves under his care. This course occupied him five years; after which he returned to Montpelier, and was created doctor of his faculty in 1529; after which he revisited the same places where he had practised physic before. At Agen he formed an acquaintance with Julius Cæsar Scaliger, and married his first wife; but having buried her, and two children which she brought him, he quitted Agen after a residence of about four years. He fixed next at Marseilles; but, his friends having provided an advantageous match for him at Salon, he repaired thither about the year 1544, and married accordingly his second wife, by whom he had several children.

In 1546, Aix being afflicted with the plague, he went thither at the solicitation of the inhabitants, to whom he rendered great service, particularly by a powder of his own invention: so that the town, in gratitude, gave him a considerable pension for several years after the contagion ceased. In 1547 the city of Lyons, being visited with the same distemper, had recourse to our physician, who attended them also. Afterwards returning to Salon, he began a more retired course of life, and in this time of leisure applied himself closely to his studies. He had for a long time followed the trade of a conjurer occasionally; and now he began to fancy himself inspired, and miraculously illuminated with a prospect into futurity. As fast as these illuminations had discovered to him any suture event, he entered it in writing, in simple prose, though in enigmatical sentences; but revising them afterwards, he thought the sentences would appear more respectable, and savour more of a prophetic spirit, if they were expressed in verse. This opinion determined him to throw them all into quatrains, and he afterward ranged them into centuries. For some time he could not venture to publish a work of this nature; but afterwards perceiving that the time of many events foretold in his quatrains was very near at hand, he resolved to print them, as he did, with a dedication addressed to his son Cæsar, an infant only some months old, and dated March 1, 1555. To this first edition, which comprises but seven centuries, he presixed his name in Latin, but gave to his son Cæsar the name as it is pronounced in French, Notradame.

The public were divided in their sentiments of this work: many looked upon the author as a simple visionary; by others he was accused of magic or the black art, and treated as an impious person who held a commerce with the devil; while great numbers believed him to be really endued with the supernatural gif<*> of prophecy. However, Henry the 2d, and queen Catharine of Medicis, his mother, were resolved to see our prophet, who receiving orders to that effect, he presently repaired to Paris. He was very graciously received at court, and received a present of 200 crowns. He was sent afterwards to Blois, to visit the king's children there, and report what he should be able to discover concerning their destinies. It is not known what his sentence was; however he returned to Salon loaded with honour, and good presents.

Animated with this success, he augmented his work to the number of 1000 quatrains, and published it with a dedication to the king in 1558. That prince dying the next year of a wound which he received at a tournament, our prophet's book was immediately consulted; and this unfortunate event was found in the 35th quatrain of the first century, which runs thus in the London edition of 1672: Le Lion jeune le vieux surmontera, En champ bellique, par singulier duelle, Dans cage d'or l'œil il lui crevera, Deux playes une, puis mourir mort cruelle.|

In English thus, from the same edition: The young Lion shall overcome the old one, In martial field by a single duel, In a golden cage he shall put out his eye, Two wounds from one, then he shall die a cruel death.

So remarkable a prediction added new wings to his fame; and he was honoured soon after with a visit from Emanuel duke of Savoy, and the princess Margaret of France, his consort. From this time Nostradamus found himself even overburdened with visitors, and his fame made every day new acquisitions. Charles the 9th, coming to Salon, was eager above all things to have a sight of him: Nostradamus, who then was in waiting as one of the retinue of the magistrates, being instantly presented to the king, complained of the little esteem his countrymen had for him; upon which the monarch publicly declared that he <*>ould hold the enemies of Nostradamus to be his enemies, and desired to see his children. Nor did that prince's favour stop here; in passing, not long after, through the city of Arles, he sent for Nostradamus, and presented him with a purse of 200 crowns, together with a brevet, constituting him his physician in ordinary, with the same appointment as the rest. But our prophet enjoyed these honours only a short time, as he died 16 months aftèr, viz, July 2, 1566, at Salon, being then in his grand climacteric, or 63d year.—He had published several other pieces, chiefly relating to medicine.

He left three sons and three daughters. Cæsar the eldest son was born at Salon in 1555, and died in 1629: he left a manuscript, giving an account of the most remarkable events in the history of Provence, from 1080 to 1494, in which he inserted the lives of the poets of that country. These memoirs falling into the hands of his nephew Cæsar Nostradamus, gentleman to the duke of Guise, he undertook to complete the work; and being encouraged by the estates of the country, he carried the account up to the Celtic Gauls: the impression was finished at Lyons in 1614, and published under the title of Chronique de l'Histoire de Provence. —The second son, John, exercised with reputation the business of a proctor in the parliament of Provence.— He wrote the Lives of the Ancient Provençal Poets, called Troubadours, and the work was printed at Lyons in 1575, 8vo.—The youngest son it is said undertook the trade of peeping into futurity after his father.