Books

A hereditary mountebank

Eric Christiansen

Nostradamus: Countdown to Apocalypse

Jean-Charles de Fontbrune (Hutchinson £9.95)

The name of Michel de Nostredame,

prophet, physician and poet, will be held in high regard wherever and whenever charlatans, half-wits and publishers gather together in amity and brotherhood. For most practical purposes, such gatherings are what publishing consists of; therefore, Nostradamus will be venerated far beyond even the future which he claimed to foresee. For in 1555 this wily Provencal predicted the future history of the world in several hundreds of cryptic quatrains which soon

became best-sellers and have never lost their appeal. The Prophecies went through four

editions in the first four years, and have never been out of print in some form or other since then. The British Library has some 34 subsequent editions, and in all there seem to have been over 120 books of, or about, the prophecies down to the pre- sent decade. There were Nostradamus Publications almost every year after 1973, and at the present rate it looks as if the out- put of the 20th century may equal that of all

the others combined. This year, a selection of the oracles reappears as Nostradamus: Countdown to Apocalypse published by the once reputable firm of Hutchinson. Each of these books tends to be dafter than the last °Ile, but this production is quite special. will don't suppose readers of the Spectator will be tempted to buy it. I don't suppose

even their aunts will be moved to give it to them for Christmas. Why bother, in that case, to draw attention to it? For the same reason that food inspectors report cock- roaches in even the humblest dives. Intellec- tual botulism is a bad thing, wherever it breaks out. Hutchinsons were once Pioneers in the publication of cheap but distinguished works of scholarship. If they wish to peddle trash, of course it is their Privilege to do so, and mine to draw atten- tion to this change of policy.

Ah yes; you say, but it is important to keep an open mind on such subjects. I agree, Nostradamus may indeed have Predicted the whole future of the world in his own way; it is unlikely, but not impossi- ble. Unfortunately, he chose to do so in a style that was so cryptic and mysterious that

almost any of his rhymes can be made to fit almost any historical occurrence. This was where he struck oil. He could never be pro-

ved wrong, because he left the business of interpreting his work and fitting it to actual events, past or future, to others. They could

be wrong; he could be misinterpreted.

He remains an interesting and only mildly disreputable figure, who chose an odd way to make a living and worked at it with com- mendable industry. He died rich and respected, and never had his whiskers sing- ed by the Inquisition. You cannot blame him for carrying on the Delphic tradition, or for discovering a magnificent formula for selling books. He belonged to a world where prophecy had an honoured place, to the arcane profession that has been so ably described by Frances Yates, and Dr Rowse.

The publishers, cranks and propagan- dists who have lived off him since he died have been a mixed bag, and with the excep- tion of Dr Goebbels none could be describ- ed as evil. Sir Alfred Ayer holds that it is wrong for people to believe in things that are not true. I could never see why, and I cannot blame anyone for putting their trust in Nostradamus or his interpreters. How- ever, the Fontbrune book is objectionable in a way that has nothing to do with reason or morals. It is more a matter of taste: of abysmal mental seediness masquerading as fair-minded scholarship.

The author is a hereditary mountebank, 'born and bred into Nostradamus studies' by his father, the late Dr Max de Font- brune. This is an advantage, but lesser mountebanks jostle him on his pitch, and he tries to rise above them by appealing to the educated public in language it cannot resist: that of the enlightened pedant. He writes of 'a total of forty-four years of research by father and son', of the 'glaring errors' he has detected in other scholars, of 'decoding', of his own 'exhaustive

references for everything', of his studies in

Latin grammar and 'a variety of different disciplines'. He begins by identifying only those prophecies which have been 'confirm- ed by history', and then interprets other quatrains which illuminate the future in rather unspecific and undated terms. Foot-

notes, abbreviated references to book titles, lexicographical glosses and a bibliography

add to the solemnity of the enterprise, and a preface by a North London 'astrologer and psychotherapist' called Liz Greene invites us all to take it very seriously. Accordingly to Liz, 'such modern giants as Jung' have proved that the unconscious can indeed be prophetic', but we should not

therefore succumb to fatalism. 'The panorama of struggle and battle and catastrophe and redemption which Nostradamus unrolls before us may in the end be the inner responsibility of each one of us.' Not only are we all doomed, but, yes WE ARE ALL GUILTY! Underneath all this smoke, M. de Font- brune carries on with the old game of mak- ing his text mean anything he pleases. In effect, he invites us to enter the Bibliothe- que Nationale in order to read Beano. He takes a quatrain like:

Une nouvelle secte de Philosophes Meprisant mort, or, honneurs et richesses Des monts Germains ne seront limi- trophes

A les ensuyvre auront appuy et presses and decides that it must refer to the rise of the Nazis under Hitler and the promotion of Goering and Himmler. Why? Well, Hitler came from Austria, Austria is near the mountains of Germany, and ne is sometimes used as an affirmative rather than as a negative. Therefore 'history' con- firms the accuracy of the prediction. And so on, and so on, right down to 1979, with the help of gross mistranslations, grotesque analogies, and remorseless citations from history text-books.

It is dismal stuff, and rather cowardly too. I much prefer the line taken by a Mr Houghton Brown in 1980, who published his Nostradamus predictions in a series dated from 1981 to 1999, and left his readers to see how they turned out. In the last three years we should have seen the Ayatollah conquering Turkey and becom- ing Shah of Persia; the Vatican ought to have been burned to the ground and the Pope murdered; the Russians ought to have invaded Yugoslavia and a tidal wave caused by an earthquake in the Aegean ought to have submerged both Rhodes and the foothills of Mount Olympus. It seems that Mr Houghton-Brown got it wrong, but I am sure that nobody will think any the worse of him for that. Perhaps he has had some difficulty about renewing his Barclaycard. There are always those who get a rise out of the misfortunes of others. But wherever sportsmen meet, his name will be held in esteem. Here was an occultist who came out into the open, put his shirt on a hundred-to-one outsider, and lost it. Here was a student of the arcane who could definitely be identified as one of the lads.

Not so Monsieur de Fontbrune. He is a mage of lesser metal. Even in the squalid variety of pseudo-scholarship he professes, he was anticipated and outdone ten, years ago by Mrs Cheetham, who published the whole bag of tricks with translation and commentary and a good deal less self- advertisement. Odd name for an expounder of hermetic texts, you might thin, but it Argues either a degree of honesty or a sense of humour, and you will search the whole Countdown to Apocalypse in vain for either. And the lady is English, like Mr Houghton-Brown!

They say that patriotism is not enough, but if the affluent mugs whom Hutchinson hope to fleece with Fontbrune's work re- main undeterred by arguments of reason or taste, then let them think of England before they throw their money away. When it comes to pretentious drivel, the frogs may have the edge, but there is no need to let them have it all their own way.