made a pilgrimage to Salon, and Charles the
Ninth sent him a purse of two hundred
golden crowns. But crowns and reputation
could not prolong the philosopher's days. He
died in fifteen hundred and sixty-six, and is
supposed, or was lately supposed by his
fellow-citizens of Salon, to have merely
pretended to die, but to be in reality comfortably
sitting up in his tomb, with pen, ink, and
candles, and surrounded with his books of
gramarie. The epitaph, however, above him,
declares solemnly the fact of his death; and
in this instance even an epitaph probably
speaks the truth. But living or dead, little
or nothing was heard of Nostradamus except
in the Lives of the Astrologers, and sometimes
even in the Histories of Imposture, till
he was suddenly reinstated in all his glory
in eighteen hundred and four. The prophets
began to be honoured, and in that year it is
certain that a copy of the Centuries, as they
were called, of Nostradamus, was presented
to Napoleon. There also fell into his hands
a volume purporting to have been written
by a certain Maistre Noël Olivarius, a
contemporary of Nostradamus, which, if it is
authentic, puts the powers of his more
famous countryman to shame. Its date was
fifteen hundred and forty-two. It was
discovered in seventeen hundred and ninety-
three, in the midst of a large pile of volumes
condemned to the flames by the enlightened
Montagnards, who were desirous of putting
an end to the very memory of priests and
nobles and kings. A valorous gentleman of
the name of François de Metz, having no
fear of Montagnard vengeance before his
eyes, and scarcely believing that the liberty
of his country depended on the destruction of
a little duodecimo, bound in vellum, and
written in the crankiest of hands and palest
of inks, rescued it from the revolutionary
flames, and found it to consist of a great
number of prophecies about all manner of
subjects, and particularly one which it needed
no very brilliant interpreter in the first years
of this century to refer to the great soldier
on the throne. What became of this
marvellous prediction all the time from its rescue
from the Montaguard fire till it appeared at
the Tuileries, we are not told. In what state
was it when it met the despot's eyes? Up
to what point of his history did the prophecy
at that time extend? It is not likely that a
prophet in livery, which the modern soothsayer
probably was, would go beyond the
establishment of the empire, or dwell on
Moscow and Waterloo. But there seems
little reason to doubt that the prediction, as
it exists at present, was printed in eighteen
hundred and fifteen. It was inserted in the
Memoirs of Josephine (editions of eighteen
hundred and twenty and eighteen hundred
and twenty-seven), and stretched its glance
far into the future; for it clearly foresaw the
revolution of eighteen hundred and thirty,
the expulsion of Louis Philippe, and the
accession, prosperity, and finally the death
of——some one whom the reader may fix on for himself.

Even if the whole story was a mystification
at first, how shall we account, we repeat, for
the latter part of the pretended ancient
manuscript, when we read it in a book
published in eighteen hundred and forty?—
years before the time of Louis Napoleon—
while the most sagacious of monarchs was
writing out in text hand, for all generations of
kings and governors, the difference between
cunning and wisdom; but seemed as firm in
his seat as if honour and courage had finally
disappeared from the heart of France. How
are we to account, we say, for the enigmatical,
but very unmistakeable foreshadowing of
events going on before our eyes? Whether
the foreshadowing was cast from the magic
lanthorn of Nostradamus or Olivarius, or the
magic mirror of some seer of visions in the
palmy days of Louis Philippe; take what
date we choose—whether eighteen hundred
and four as M. Bareste does, or eighteen
hundred and fifteen as recorded proofs invite
us—the fact of its being an actual prediction
cannot admit of a doubt. But to make clear
its connection with France and her fortunes,
it will be necessary to give the whole
prophecy; and as we submit the matter to the
critical decision of the reader, we will
give it in as close a translation as we can
of the ancient language in which Olivarius
delivered it.

    Gallic Italy will see, far from her bosom, the birth
of a supernatural being. That man will come out,
quite young, from the sea; will come to acquire
tongue and manners among the Celtic Gauls; will
open, still young, through a thousand obstacles, among
the soldiers, a path, and will become their first chief.
That winding path will leave him many griefs. He
will come to war near his native land for a lustre or
more. Beyond the sea will be seen warring with great
glory and valour, and will subdue afresh the Reman
world.

    Will give laws to the Germans, will pacify the
troubles and fears of the Gallic Celts, and will then be
named not king but imperator by grand enthusiasm of
the people.

    Will battle in all parts of the empire; will chase
princes, and lords, and kings for two lustres or more.
Then he will call to life new princes and lords, and,
speaking on his estrade (raised dais), shall cry, " O!
sidera—O! sacra!" Will be seen with an army
numbering forty-nine times twenty thousand foot soldiers,
armed, who will carry arms and horns of iron. He
will have seven times seven thousand horses, mounted
by men who will carry, in addition to the former,
great lance or sword and body-armour of brass. He
will have seven times seven thousand men who will
play terrible machines, and will vomit sulphur and fire
and death. The total amount of his army will be
forty-nine times twenty thousand men. Will bear in
his right hand an eagle, sign of the victory to win.
Will give many countries to nations, and to each  one
peace. Will come into the great city, ordaining many
great things, buildings, bridges, harbours, aqueducts,
canals: will do, himself alone, by great riches, as much
as a Roman, and all in the dominion of the Gauls.