  The following is a biography of Michel de Nostredame, it is a
rather large excerpt (???) from Erika Cheetham, "The Prophecies
of Nostradamus". This book however is the only source I have,
and I haven't checked it against other sources. If you encounter
any errors or mistakes, please notify me.

                      Marc Nijweide ( M.Nijweide@ET.TUDelft.NL )

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  Michel de Nostradame, more commonly known as Nostradamus, was
born on 14th December 1503, in St. Remy de Provence. His parents
were of simple lineage from around Avignon. Nostradamus was the
oldest son, and had four brothers; of the first three we know
little; the youngest, Jean, became Procureur of the Parliament
of the Provence.

  Nostradamus' great intellect became apparent while he was
still very young, and his education was put into the hands of
his grandfather, Jean, who taught him the rudiments of Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics and Astrology.

  When his grandfather died, Nostradamus was sent to Avignon to
study.  He already showed a great interest in astrology and it
became common talk among his fellow students. He upheld the
Copernican theory that the world was round and circled around
the sun more than 100 years before Galileo was prosecuted for
the same belief.

  Since it was the age of the Inquisition and the family were
converted from Judaism to the Catholic faith by the time
Nostradamus was nine years old, his parents were quite worried,
because as ex-Jews they were more vulnerable than most.  So they
sent him of to study medicine at Montpellier in 1522.

  Nostradamus obtained his bachelor's degree after three years,
with apparent ease, and once he had his license to practise
medicine he decided to go out into the countryside and help the
many victims of the plague.

  After nearly four years he returned to Montpellier to complete
his doctorate and re-enrolled on 23rd October 1529. Nostradamus
had some trouble in explaining his unorthodox remedies and
treatments he used in the countryside.  Nevertheless his
learning and ability could not be denied and he obtained his
doctorate. He remained teaching at Montpellier for a year but by
this time his new theories, for instance his refusal to bleed
patients, were causing trouble and he set off upon another spate
of wandering.

  While practising in Toulouse he received a letter from
Julius-Cesar Scaliger, the philosopher considered second only to
Erasmus throughout Europe. Apparently Nostradamus' reply so
pleased Scaliger that he invited him to stay at his home in
Agen. This life suited Nostradamus admirably, and circa 1534 he
married a young girl 'of high estate, very beautiful and
admirable', whose name was lost to us. He had a son and a
daughter by her and his life seemed complete.

  Then a series of tragedies struck. The plague came to Agen
and, despite all his efforts, killed Nostradamus' wife and two
children. The fact that he was unable to save his own family had
a disastrous effect on his practice. The he quarrelled with
Scaliger and lost his friendship. His late wife's family tried
to sue him for the return of her dowry and as the final straw,
in 1538, he was accused of heresy because of a chance remark
made some years before. To a workman casting a bronze statue of
the Virgin, Nostradamus had commented that he was making devils.
His plea that he was only describing the lack of aesthetic
appeal inherent int the statue was ignored and the Inquisitors
sent for him to go to Toulouse.

  Nostradamus, having no wish to stand trial, set out on his
wandering again and kept well clear of the Church authorities
for the next six years.  We know little of this period. From
references in later books we know he travelled in the Lorraine
and went to Venice and Sicily. Legends about Nostradamus'
prophetic powers also start to appear at this time.

  By 1554 Nostradamus had settled in Marseilles. In November
that year, the Provence experienced one of the worst floods of
its history. The plague redoubled in virulence, spread by the
waters and the polluted corpses. Nostradamus worked ceaselessly.

  Once the city had recovered, Nostradamus moved on to Salon,
which he found so pleasant a town that he determined to settle
there for the rest of his life. In November he married Anne
Ponsart Gemelle, a rich widow.  The house in which he spent the
remainder of his days can still be seen off the Place de la
Poissonnerie.

  After 1550 he produced a yearly Almanac - and after 1554 The
Prognostications - which seem to have been successful, and
encouraged him to undertake the much more onerous task of the
Prophecies. He converted the top toom of his house at Salon into
a study and as he tells us in the Prophecies, worked there at
night with his occult books. The main source of his magical
inspirations was a book called De Mysteriis Egyptorum.

  By 1555 Nostradamus had completed the first part of his book
of prophecies that were to contain predictions from his time to
the end of the world. The word Century has nothing to do with
one hundred years; it was so called beacuse there were a hundred
verses or quatrains in each book. The verses are written in a
crabbed, obscure style, with a polyglot of vocabulary of French,
Provencal, Italian, Greek and Latin. In order to avoid being
prosecuted as a magician, Nostradamus writes that he deliberatly
confused the time sequence of the Prophecies so that their
secrets would not be revealed to the non-initiate.

  It is extraordinary how quickly the fame of Nostradamus spread
across France and Europe on the strength of the Prophecies,
published in their incomplete form of 1555. The book contained
only the first three Centuries and part of the fourth. The
prophecies became all the rage at Court, the Queen, Catherine de
Medici, sent for Nostradamus to come to Court, and he set out
for Paris on 14th July 1556. On 15th August, Nostradamus booked
a room at the Inn of St. Michel, and the next day the queen sent
for him.

  One could only wish that there had been a witness to record
their meeting. Nostradamus and the Queen spoke together for two
hours. She is reputed to have asked him about the quatrain
concerning the king's death and to have been satisfied with
Nostradamus' answer. Certainly she continued to believe in
Nostradamus' predictions until her death. The king, Henri II,
granted Nostradamus only a brief audience and was obviously not
greatly interested.

  Two weeks later the queen sent for him a second time and now
Nostradamus was faced with the delicate and difficult task of
drawing up the horoscopes of the seven Valois children, whose
tragic fates he had already revealed in the centuries. All he
would tell Catherine was that all of her sons would be kings,
which is slightly inaccurate since one of them, Francois, died
before he could inherit.

  Soon afterwards Nostradamus was warned that the Justices of
Paris were inquiring about his magic practices, and he swiftly
returned to Salon. From this time on, suffering from gout and
arthritis, he seems to have done little except draw up
horoscopes for his many distinguished visitors and complete the
writing of the Prophecies. Apparently he allowed a few
manuscript copies to criculate before publication, because many
of the predictions were understood and quoted before the
completed book came off the printing press in 1568, two years
after his death.

  The reason for this reticence was probably the king's death in
1559.  Nostradamus had predicted it in I.35 and may have felt
that it was too explicit for comfort and that it would be
advisible to wait some years until things had quietened down.
But the following year, 1560, King Francis II died, and this
time he was openly quoted.

  In 1564 Catherine, now Queen Regent, decided to make a Royal
Progress through France. While travelling she came to Salon and
visited Nostradamus.  They dined and Catherine gave Nostradamus
the title of Physician in Ordinary, which carried with it a
salary and other benefits.

  But by now the gout from which Nostradamus suffered was
turning to dropsy and he, the doctor, realized that his end was
near. He made his will on 17th June 1566 and left the large sum,
for those days, of 3444 crowns over and above his other
possessions.  On 1st July he sent for the local priest to give
him the last rites, and when Chavigny took leave of him that
night, he told him that he would not see him alive again. As he
himself had predicted, his body was found the next morning.

  He was burried upright in one of the walls of the Church of
the Cordeliers at Salon, and his wife Anne erected a splendid
marble plaque to his memory.  Nostradamus' grave was opened by
superstitious soldiers during the Revolution but his remains
were reburied in the other church at Salon, the Church of St.
Laurent, where his grave and portrait can still be seen.


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