ence, December 14, 1503. Both of his grandfathers were practitioners
of medicine, and his father, Jacques de Notredame, was a notary of
Saint-Remi. Michel studied medicine at Avignon and afterwards at the
University of Montpellier, where he took his degree.

During the prevalence of an epidemic in the south of France, he acquired
distinction by his zealous ministrations to the stricken peasants, and
more especially by some remarkable cures attributed to a remedy of his
own invention. After the pestilence had subsided, Notredame devoted many
years to travel, after which, in the year 1544, he settled at Salon, a
little town in the present Department of Bouches-du-Rhone. During a
second visitation of the plague, which raged in Provence, he accepted an
invitation from the authorities of Lyons and Aix to visit those places.
Although his success in treating patients at this time served to enhance
his fame as a practitioner, his chief reputation was due to his capacity
as an astrologer. He claimed moreover to have the faculty of reading the
future, and became the subject of a bitter controversy. For while he
gained many adherents abroad, in his own country he was regarded as
little better than a charlatan. He became involved in controversies with
his professional _confreres_, who were jealous of his success and
doubtless also suspicious of his methods.

It is worthy of note that the most notorious quacks, often men of
genius and education, though mentally ill-balanced, and morally of low
standards, have been great travellers and shrewd observers of the weak
points in human nature. When such an one becomes ambitious to acquire
wealth, he is likely to prove a dangerous person in the community.
Notredame was regarded as a visionary by some of his contemporaries,
while others believed him to have illicit correspondence with the Devil.
Among those who were impressed by his pretensions as a soothsayer, was
Catherine de' Medici (regent for her son, Charles IX), who invited him
to visit the French Court, where he was received as a distinguished
guest.

Michel de Notredame published in 1555 his famous work entitled
"Centuries," a collection of prophecies, written in quatrains. His death
occurred at Salon, July 2, 1566.

We quote as follows from a rare volume, "The True Prophecies of Michel
Nostradamus, Physician to Henry II and Charles IX, Kings of France,
translated by Theophilus de Garencieres, Doctor in Physick, London,
1672":