Monteregio, printed at Nuremberg and
Venice, in fourteen hundred and seventy-five
and six. In fourteen hundred and eighty-
one, there appeared another almanac, in
Latin like the first, which was the production
of a monk, designated by the name of
Floristan. This worthy originated a branch
of literature which still has its admirers and
cultivators; he commenced the publication
of prophecies, beginning with those which
had relation to the Church. What he got by
it was an excommunication from Pope Sixtus
the Fourth, for having predicted that His
Holiness would die of poison. This affair
made a great noise in the world. The Bishop
of Soissons got Floristan into his clutches,
and sent him before the Ecclesiastical Court,
who condemned him to be burnt alive, as a
man possessed by the devil. The sentence
was executed in front of the cathedral
church. Francis Moore and Company little
think by what a terrible ceremony their
prophetic craft was inaugurated. Three years
afterwards, the actual decease of Sixtus the
Fourth completely contradicted Floristan's
prediction. He lost his life in consequence
of a fall from a mule, on Saint Bartholomew's
day.

In spite of this severe example, the men
calling themselves religious who dwelt in
monasteries continued all the same to fabricate
almanacs, which they printed themselves
under the title of the Divinus Astrologus.
In fourteen hundred and eighty-eight
Jehan Cotigny, a Beaujolais monk, gave to
the world an almanac, also containing
predictions, but he had the discretion to give
them quite a different turn to those of his
predecessor. Cotigny announced that almost
all the abbés and bishops of his day would
take their places amongst the elect, and would
ultimately be canonised. No more was
needed to draw down upon his head the
benedictions of all the religious orders; in
consequence, the Bishop of Dijon granted
him great privileges, amongst others that of
continuing the exclusive publication of the
Divinus Astrologus throughout the diocese.
But he soon found competitors in every
monastery in France, and even amongst the
laity. In all quarters almanacs were
published; but they were not all alike. Thus,
whilst Friar Benoist, a Dominican of the
Convent of Paris, published his in fourteen
hundred and ninety, and announced for the
following year that the Holy Virgin would
come in person to visit the king and the
churches, a Benedictine published another,
which prognosticated that in fourteen hundred
and ninety-one many grand seigneurs would
find themselves possessed by the demon,
would die in frightful torments, and would
be dragged to the place never mentioned to
ears polite, UNLESS they made haste to redeem
their sins by the payment of large sums of
money, which the Dominicans were
commissioned to receive. A great number of
lofty barons did as they were bid with such
good grace that, in a fortnight's time, the
Dominicans had found the means of purchasing
a vast inclosure, which enabled them to
enlarge their convent, and to build a magnificent
chapel. This was the first almanac
written in French. As the stratagem had
taken so well, Friar Benoist, with the consent
of his superior, printed a new almanac the
following year, and bethought himself of
predicting to the king, and under the same terms
of remission, the same fate which had been
foretold to the seigneurs; but this time,
fortune failed to favour the brave. Charles
the Eighth, frightened by the prophecy at
the first outset, was on the point of cashing
down; but, yielding to the counsel of his
minister, he thought better of it, laid his
complaint before the archbishop, and Benoist,
as well as the superior of the Dominicans,
were tried by the ecclesiastical tribunal, and
were condemned to be thrown quick, together
with the almanac of the year of grace fourteen
hundred and ninety-two, into a burning
brazier, as attainted and convicted of
diabolical possession. Benoist found that
almanacs were dangerous edge-tools to trifle
with; very pleasant sport, so long as he held
them by the handle. Having played with fire,
he had no right to express surprise at a burn.

Shortly afterwards, Charles the Eighth
made an ordonnance prohibiting the
publication of almanacs, either by laymen or by
ecclesiastics, which was generally obeyed
during his reign; but, on the extinction of
the elder branch of the Valois, it was
disregarded, and, little by little, almanacs
reappeared. At the outset, they went no
further than to give the calendars with a notice
of the sun's rising and setting; but they soon
added predictions of the weather, and afterwards
predictions respecting men and things
so that the almanac became what it had
been before. All these productions were
nothing but miserable rhapsodies; it was
reserved for the following century to give
birth to a more serious work in the same
style. Michel de Notre-Dame, called Nostradamus,
published at Lyons in fifteen hundred
and fifty, an almanac which made a great
sensation, and which brought him in
considerable presents. It excited a general
competition, and almanacs sprung up in all
directions. In spite of which, Nostradamus's
reputation continued to increase, and was
still further augmented, in fifteen hundred
and fifty-five, by his prophecies in verse, to
which he added, in fifteen hundred and
fifty-eight, some new centuries of rhymes which
he dedicated to Henri the Second, and which
obtained for him the brevet of first physician
to the king. Nostradamus's almanac was
extensively counterfeited.

This state of things continued until fifteen
hundred and sixty, when, by an ordonnance
of Charles the Ninth to the States of Orleans,
all printers and booksellers were prohibited