NOSTRADAMUS, MICHEL DE, or NOTRE-DAME, a celebrated physician and astrologer, was descended of a noble Provencal family, and born on the 14th of December 1503, at St Remy, in the diocese of Avignon. He studied humanity and philosophy at the college of Avignon, and physic at Montpellier. On the outbreak of the plague in 1525 he set out towards Toulouse, and passed on till he reached Bordeaux. After spending five years on the journey, treating all the patients that came in his way, he returned to Montpellier, and was created doctor of his faculty in 1529. At Agen he contracted an acquaintance with Julius Cæsar Scaliger, which induced him to make some stay in that town. On his return to Provence, he established himself first at Marseilles, and afterwards at Salon, where he became a recluse, and employed his leisure in study. In 1546 he rendered essential service by his medical skill to the inhabitants of Aix, then suffering from a severe visitation of the plague. He had for a long time occasionally followed the trade of a conjurer, and now he began to think himself inspired, nay, miraculously illuminated with a prospect into futurity. As often as he fancied these illuminations discovered to him any future event, he entered it in writing, in enigmatical prose sentences; but revising them
afterwards, he thought the sentences would appear more respectable, and would savour more of a prophetic spirit, if they were expressed in verse. This opinion determined him to throw them all into quatrains, and he afterwards ranged them into Centuries. When this was done, he hesitated about making them public, till reflecting that the time of many events which he had foretold was very near at hand, he determined to print them. This he did with a dedication addressed to his son Cæsar, an infant only some months old, in the form of a letter or preface, dated the 1st of March 1555. This edition, which includes seven Centuries, was printed by Rigault at Lyons.
Henri II., and his mother Catherine of Medicis, having resolved to see the prophet, he received orders to repair to Paris. He was very graciously received at court; and he returned to Salon loaded with honours and presents. Animated with his success, he augmented his work from three hundred quatrains to a complete milliad, and published it in 1558, with a dedication to the king. That prince having died the next year of a wound which he received at a tournament, the book of the prophet was immediately consulted; and in the 35th quatrain of the first century this unfortunate event was, strange to say, found predicted.
So remarkable a prophecy added greatly to his fame, and he was shortly afterwards honoured with a visit from Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, and the Princess Margaret of France, his consort. From this time Nostradamus found himself overburdened with visitors, and his fame daily increased. Charles IX. presented him with a purse of two hundred crowns, together with a brevet, constituting him his physician in ordinary. But the prophet enjoyed these honours only for the space of sixteen months, having died at Salon on the 2d of July 1566. Besides his Centuries, we have the following compositions of Nostradamus:—A treatise de Fardemens et de Senteurs, 1552; a Book of singular Receipts, pour Entretenir la Santé du Corps, 1556; a piece des Confitures, 1557; and a French translation of the Latin of Galen's Paraphrase, 1552. In addition to various Prophesies, some of which were translated into English during his own time, he published the Almanac of Nostradamus in 1559. The eleventh and twelfth Centuries of his quatrains were published after his death. It is to these productions that the following pungent distich was applied by Jodelle:—
Nostra damus cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est,
Et cum falsa damus, nil nisi Nostra damus.