{"collection":"nos","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/nos/oon/oon17.htm","path":"nos/oon/oon17.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/nos/oon/oon17.htm","text":"Oracles of Nostradamus, by Charles A. Ward, [1891]\nWE now reach a fresh division, and shall treat of the National Convention,--a period of about three years.\nCentury VIII.--Quatrain 17. [I. 189.]\nLes bien ais\u00e9s subit\u00a01 seront desmis;\n Par les trois freres le monde mis en trouble.\n Cit\u00e9 marine saisiront ennemies;\n Faim, feu, sang, peste, et de tous maux le double.\nTranslation.\nThe well-to-do [members] shall be suddenly dismissed,\n On account of three brothers the world shall suffer trouble.\n Enemies shall take possession of the marine city;\n Hunger, fire, slaughter, plague, of evils all the double.\nPrivilege is to be abolished suddenly. The three brothers who trouble the world are the Royal trio, Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles X. Toulon is the maritime city. We shall come upon it again, further on, in Century VII. 13, where it is treated of more fully. M. le Pelletier interprets feu as being war, and peste as standing for irreligion. As goods were all doubled to Job, so here all evils are to be doubled. On the night of August 4, 1789, feudal privilege was abolished suddenly (subit). The clergy and nobility were dispossessed of property and title. Toulon, taken by the English, is the Cit\u00e9 marine. It was retaken, in the name of Louis XVII., on August 23, 1793, by the French; on the\n[paragraph continues] 19th of December, Marie-Antoinette and \u00c9galit\u00e9, Duc d'Orleans, being both executed during the British tenure.\nCentury IX.--Quatrain 17. [I. 191.]\nLe tiers\u00a01 premier pis que ne fit Neron,\n Vuidez\u00a02 vaillant que\u00a03 sang humain respandre!\n R\u00e9difier fera le forneron,\u00a04\n Siecle d'or mort, nouveau Roy, grand esclandre!\nThe third become first does worse than Nero,\n See how much valiant human blood it squanders!\n It will rebuild the old tile kilns,\n The age of gold is dead, a new dynasty, and great scandal.\nThis interprets itself. M. le Pelletier explains the rebuilding of the kilns as setting up the scaffolds to consume the clergy and nobility. I do not myself see the force or necessity of this. The age of gold yields to that of iron or the sword; the new dynasty (the Napoleonic) is a vast scandal, and reintroduces pomp and ceremonial at the Tuileries.\nCentury VIII.--Quatrain 19. [I. 192.]\nA\u00a05 soustenir la grand' cappe\u00a06 troubl\u00e9e,\n Pour l'esclaircir les rouges marcheront:\n De mort famille sera presque accabl\u00e9e,\n Les rouges\u00a0rouges la rouge assommeront.\nThey will not sustain the great but troubled Capets,\n The reds will take steps to purge their number,\n They will almost exterminate the family with death,\n The red of reds will overwhelm the red.\nThis very forcibly announces the Reign of Terror to have set in. The reds will do what in them lies to crush the Capets, till they have almost annihilated the family in death; and, then the reddest reds will guillotine the reds,--the Montagnards the Girondists. Bouys does not allude to this, though one would have thought it must strike every reader as far as what is said relating to the conduct of the double-dyed reds against the moderate reds. Garenci\u00e8res' mistakes serve to show how impossible it was to guess at the meaning of a quatrain in the seventeenth century. He fancies this to refer to some conspiracy of red Cardinals against a Pope, to be designated the Red one.\nCentury VI.--Quatrain 69. [I. 193.]\nLa piti\u00e9 grand' sera sans loing tarder,\n Ceux qui d\u00f4noyent seront contraints de prendre:\n Nuds, affam\u00e9s, de froid, soif, soy bander,\n Les monts passer commettant grand esclandre.\nA sight of pity will not long delay,\n The almoners will soon be forced to beg:\n Hungered, athirst, naked, proscribed, and cold.\n In bands they cross the Alps, a scandal to be seen.\nThis conveys a forcible picture of the calamitous emigration the clergy of France would undergo between 1792 and 1801. Once the clue is supplied, it leads So naturally, that one almost finds insight from it into the manner in which these representations presented themselves to Nostradamus. One feels, that he must have seen the events passing before the field of sight as visions, sometimes accompanied with uttered words; otherwise how could he get intimation of names? But, if it was thus that intuition came to him, the quatrains, that he now scattered up and down throughout the Centuries in utter disorder and disconnection, must hare\ncome to him in a sequence, rendering them comprehensible; more or less, indeed, in the very order probably into which the chronology of historical record enables the careful student to replace them now, as soon as they are understood by him. If this be so, a rather curious fact presents itself, in a form approaching to something like a certainty, which is this: disorder must have been the method of the book. We know that generally his practice was to write down the matter in prose, and at leisure convert this into separate quatrains rhymed; these he must afterwards have taken up in a bag or hat, and when inextricably mixed have counted them out into hundreds. I think it quite possible that he found his forecasts became too intelligible when put together in their natural order, and in the sequence of events. No doubt, with regard to those events of his own time and to be soon fulfilled, he first began to perceive the necessity for inverting or displacing the order. Consecutive and interlinking stanzas would form a kind of commentary, and throw mutual light one upon the other; so that the adoption of disorder would follow as a measure of personal security. He thought that his sayings should be dark, as becometh the words of the wise; and that it would be quite time enough, should they grow clear when fulfilled to a reader, who would take sufficient trouble to elucidate them and bring out their meaning.\nCentury I.--Quatrain 44. [I. 194.]\nEn bref\u00a01 seront de retour sacrifices,\n Contrevenans seront mis \u00e0 martyre;\n Plus ne seront moines, abb\u00e9s, ne\u00a02 novices,\n Le miel sera beaucoup plus cher que cire.\nThis quatrain exhibits the suppression of the Catholic\nworship in France, which took place November 10, 1793. What they called the worship of the goddess of Reason was set up; and a return to Paganism is what the first line means.\nFor a short time there will be a return to [Ethnic] sacrifices,\n And those who oppose will suffer martyrdom:\n There will be no more monks, clergy, nor novices;\n Honey will fetch more than wax.\nThe last line means that wax will be cheapened, as none will be consumed in the churches. The rest explains itself. Garenci\u00e8res can see the meaning of the last two lines; but the first two he considers to have been fulfilled in the time of Henry V. of France and Henry VIII. of England.\nCentury II.--Quatrain 8. [I. 195.]\nTemples sacr\u00e9s\u00a01 prime\u00a02 fa\u00e7on Romaine,\n Rejetterons les gofres\u00a03 fondements,\n Prennant leurs loix premieres et humaines,\n Chassant non tons des saincts les cultements.\u00a04\nThe temples consecrated in the fashion of early Rome,\n They will reject the deep foundations [of Christianity].\n Returning to their first and human laws,\n They will not entirely abolish all saint-worship.\nThis A le Pelletier explains to be a forecast of the F\u00eate de l'\u00c9tre Supr\u00e8me, which was appointed by decree of the Convention May 7, 1794, and celebrated on the 8th of June of the same year with great pomp.\nCentury V.--Quatrain 33. [I. 196.]\nDes principaux de cit\u00e9 rebell\u00e9e.\n Qui tiendront\u00a01 fort pour libert\u00e9 r'avoir,\n Detranch\u00e9s\u00a02 masles, infelice\u00a03, mesl\u00e9e,\n Cris, hurlements, \u00e0 Nantes piteux voir!\nThe chief citizens of the revolted city,\n Who will struggle hard to recover liberty.\n The men beheaded, an unhappy mixture,\n Cries, howlings, at Nantes piteous to see.\nThis was realized at Nantes, in Britany, under the Proconsulate of De Carrier. The town had, in 1793, become the focus of the Vendean reaction against the National Convention. The men were beheaded generally, but many men and women were stripped naked. They were then tied together, a man to a woman, in couples, or pairs, which their fiendish tormentors styled \"republican marriages.\" In this diabolic connection (infelice mesl\u00e9e) they were precipitated helplessly into the Loire, amidst heartrending cries and howlings. No viler crime was ever committed on this earth, nor can ever be; the infamy of man and the revengeful filth of lust can no further go. From that extraordinary coinage and coupling of words, infelice mesl\u00e9e, you know, or seem to know, that Nostradamus beheld the horrid spectacle in vision--\nEstant assis de nuict secret estude (Century I. 1).\nThose who believe this to be a recital at haphazard are of a brain-formation singularly constituted.\nCentury VIII.--Quatrain 88.\nDans la Sardeigne un noble Roy viendra,\n Qui ne tiendra que trois ans le royaume.\n Plusieurs couleurs avec soy conjoindra,\u00a01\n Luy mesme apr\u00e8s soin sommeil marrit\u00a02 scome.\u00a03\nIn Sardinia a noble King shall come,\n Who will only hold the kingdom during three years.\n The tricolour will annex him [the King] to itself;\n He after much pains will sleep afflicted and ridiculed.\nThis is Charles Emmanuel IV. The Republic of the tricolour, \"le drapeau tricolor,\" will despoil him of his continental estate; and he will withdraw to his island, ruling for three years, 1798-1802. He then abdicates to his brother, Victor Emmanuel I., and, apr\u00e8s soin much care, will sleep [as regards governing], and, residing at Rome. sad and humiliated, will assume the Jesuit robe, and die in 1819.\n238:1 Subit stands for subito, suddenly.\n239:1 Tiers = third.\n239:2 Vuidez = Latin, videte, see.\n239:3 Que = how much.\n239:4 Forneron = Latin, fornax, furnace.\n239:5 A is the Latin a, privative.\n239:6 Cappe, is put for Capet.\n241:1 En bref, temps, understood.\n241:2 Ne, again used for ni.\n242:1 Sacr\u00e9s, for consacr\u00e9s.\n242:2 Prime, Latin, prima, first.\n242:3 Gofres is deep, profound.\n242:4 Cultements, Latin, cultus, worship.\n243:1 Tiendront fort, will struggle hard.\n243:2 Detranch\u00e9s, Romance for tranch\u00e9s, t\u00eate understood.\n243:3 Infelice, Latin, unhappy.\n244:1 Le to be understood before conjoindra.\n244:2 Marrit, afflicted.\n244:3 Scome, Latin, scomme, gibe, taunt.","title":"Oracles of Nostradamus: The National Convention","type":"page"}