attempt was made to apply these obscure lines to the poor prophet
of Salon. In the first line he is said to figure as one of the twelve
minor prophets, Micah, which name is closely allied to Michel. In the
second line Diane was said to be the mother of the farrier, who was
certainly called by that name. But if the line means anything at all,
it is more likely to refer to the day of the moon, Monday. It was
carefully pointed out that in the third line _frenetique_ means not
_mad_ but _inspired_. The fourth and only intelligible line would
suggest that the spectre bade Michel ask the King to lessen the taxes
and dues which then weighed so heavily on the good folk of town and
country:

_En delivrant un grand peuple d'impos._ This was enough to make the
farrier popular and to cause those unhappy sufferers to centre in this
poor windbag their hopes for a better future. His portrait was
engraved in copper-plate, and below it was written the quatrain of
Nostradamus. M. d'Argenson,[2764] who was at the head of the police
department, had these portraits seized. They were suppressed, so says
the _Gazette d'Amsterdam_, on account of the last line of the quatrain
written beneath the portrait, the line which runs: _En delivrant un
grand peuple d'impos_. Such an expression was hardly likely to please
the court.

[Footnote 2764: Marc Rene Marquis d'Argenson (1652-1721), after being
Lieutenant General de la Police at Paris, became, from 1718-1720,
President du Conseil des Finances and Garde des Sceaux.--W.S.]

No one ever knew exactly what was the mission the farrier received
from his spectre. Subtle folk suspected one of Madame de Maintenon's
intrigues. She had a friend at Marseille, a Madame Arnoul, who was as
ugly as sin, it was said, and yet who managed to make men fall in love
with her. They thought that this Madame Arnoul had shown Marie-Therese
to the good man of Salon in order to induce the King to live
honourably with widow Scarron. But in 1697 widow Scarron had been
married to Louis for twelve years at least; and one cannot see why
ghostly aid should have been necessary to attach the old King to her.

On his return to his native town, Francois Michel shoed horses as
before.

He died at Lancon, near Salon, on December 10, 1726.[2765]

[Footnote 2765: _Gazette d'Amsterdam_, March-May, 1697; _Annales de la
cour et de Paris_ (vol. ii. pp. 204, 219); _Theatrum Europaeum_ (vol.
xv. pp. 359-360); _Memoires de Sourches_ (vol.