Page "Nostradamus" Paragraph 44

From the 1980s onwards, however, an academic reaction set in, especially in France.

The publication in 1983 of Nostradamus's private correspondence and, during succeeding years, of the original editions of 1555 and 1557 discovered by Chomarat and Benazra, together with the unearthing of much original archival material revealed that much that was claimed about Nostradamus did not fit the documented facts.

The academics revealed that not one of the claims just listed was backed up by any known contemporary documentary evidence.

Most of them had evidently been based on unsourced rumours relayed as fact by much later commentators, such as Jaubert ( 1656 ), Guynaud ( 1693 ) and Bareste ( 1840 ), on modern misunderstandings of the 16th century French texts, or on pure invention.

Even the often-advanced suggestion that quatrain I. 35 had successfully prophesied King Henri II's death did not actually appear in print for the first time until 1614, 55 years after the event.