Evening star., 1941-03-17
Nosfradamus Fad
kSweeping Capital
AS II Did Paris
Proenosticutions Of
French AstroIoger Are
Quoted in All Circles
By THOMAS r. HENRY.

canny predictions of a coming war
with airplanes and submarines
seemed to be coming true, was the
rage among the bearded sidewalk
cafe philosophers.
Suddenly this same cult has hit
Washington. Wherever one goes
somebody Is quoting the prognosti-
cations of the learned physician of
Henry the First, Francis the First
and Charles the Ninth, and one of
the best astronomers that ever were"
as he is described on the title
page of the only English edition of
his works in the rare-book collection
of the Library of Congress.
Once Houdini Property.
This book was formerly the prop
erty of the late Harry Houdini, and
is filled with checkmarks, presum-
ably made by the magician himself,
under predictions that might, by
some stretch of the imagination, be
supposed to have come true in the
past four centuries. Such, for eX-
ample, were predictions of the exc
cution of Charles of England and
the flight of James II. There is
sometimes a waiting line to consult
the old volume, printed in 1872 at
the Sign of the Bell in London,
translated and commented by The
ophilus de GarenciereS, doctor In
phyisick" The Library Of Congress
has been obliged to put a new, strong
binding on it.
The cult, apparently set off by a
recent moving picture, pervades
Government Offices, homes, cocktail
lounges and hotel lobbies. A re-
porter examining the book at the
Library of Congress had to hurry
to pass 1t over to an air corps Of
f1cer who had taken a few hours
leave to find out if Nostradamus
actually made the predictions re-
garding aircraft with which he is
credited.
Forecast Fortune of Patients.
Michael Nostradamus, born in
Provence in 1903, appears to have
been highly respectable court
physician, who in common with
most learned men of his time eked
out a slender livelihood by con-
sulting the stars. He forecast the
fortunes of his royal patients and
very lugubriously, of course-those
OF their enemies. Altogether he
made more than 1000 predictions in
antique French rhymed quatrains.
Even a century after the astrol-
oger's death de Garencieres,
French physician practicing ip Lon
don, admits that some of the words
are meaningless to him. He trans
lated the quatrains into clumsy Eng
lish, apologizing that he never had
mastered the language of his adopt
ed country very well.
Nostradarnus starts out mystically
enough with a picture of himself:
Sitting by night in my secret study,
Alone, resting upon the brazen stool
a slight flame,
That breaking forth out of that
solitude,
Makes one utter what Is not in vain
to believe"
To the average Washingtonian at
present this mess of words appar-
emily makes good sense.
A few of the great mans prophe-
cies, to, be interpreted as one will:
"The great maritime city of the
ocean,
~Encompassed with crystalline fens,
"In the winter solstice and in the
spring
"shall be tempted with a fearful
wind
This supposedly is a prognostica-
ton Of the blitzkriegirg of London.
"Go forth, go out of Geneva all;
Saturn of gold shall be changed
into iron.
'They against Raylos shall extermi-
nate them all;
Before it happeneth the heavens
will show signs"
Didn't the League break down and
the nations turn from the gold Of
ington matrons ask with bated
breaths.
Forecast of the Future.
This one, they say, is convincing
proof that Nostradamus knew exact
ly what was going to happen 400
years after he was dead:
~About midnight the leader of the
army
"Shall save himself, vanishing sud-
denly.
"Some years after his fame shall not
be blamed,
~And at his return he shall never
say yea"
This is supposed to refer to the
King of the Belgians.
De Garencieres himself was COM
pletely baff1ed by this one:
"The Macs by day in the land Of
Luxembourg
Shall discover Saturn and three
in the lurne;
Mountain and plain town, city town
and country town,
A Lorraine flood, treason by a great
turne."
The London doctor had never
heard the words 'lurne" and "turne"
in his native France, but in Wash
ington today, as in Paris two sum-
mers ago, this is plainly a picture
of the fall of France.
Things are coming out all right
in the end" says Nostradamus.
"In the year one thousand, nine
hundred and ninety-nine and
seven months
From heaven a great and noble king