This is a book of short stories based on a few of Nostradamus' predictions and on some historical accounts. The characters and places are imaginary and are based on no real person or location. Nostradamus was born in 1503 A. D. in St. Remi in southern France. He died in 1566. Many people have revered him. To hundreds of French people, he was a marvelous, innovative physician, primarily educated in Montpelier, who saved them from the plague in the 16th century. To his wives and children he was a loving father. To others, he was a magician and astrologer. He was a member of the court of Catherine de M?dicis, queen of France. The Nazis and the British both used his name for propaganda purposes during World War II. To most of us he's best known as the author of a book of his own prophecies called Centuries, which he first published in 1555. It's written entirely in four-line rhyming versus called quatrains, which describe events from his time through the year 3757 A. D., thus the title of this book, Four Lines to Hades.
Excerpt from Battle of Waterloo:
In the third month, the Sun rising,
The Boar and Leopard on the field of war to fight…
IN 1814, NAPOLEON had been ganged up on, so to speak, by an alliance of major powers, namely Prussia, Russia, Britain and Austria, then had been exiled to the Isle of Elba. However, on the 26th of February 1815, through the charming manipulation of his captors by Napoleon's visiting mother, especially by his visit-ing sister, the pretty Princess Pauline, Napoleon escaped from Elba.
Under escort of loyal soldiers, he returned to Paris, gain-ing populace and military support as he went. He was soon again on the throne of France.
In the following two months, he organized and trained an army of about 360,000, then, hearing that Sir Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, had built a huge composite force at Brussels, primarily composed of the English and Prussian armies and was preparing to attack Paris to depose Napoleon, Napoleon decided to attack Wellington first and taking about half of his army, leaving the remainder to protect Paris, he marched toward Brussels to meet Wellington's forces.
Several skirmishes, between Napoleon's army and the English army and then between Napoleon's army and the Prussian army, ensued along the way. Napoleon's objective at that point was to drive a wedge between the English forces and the Prussian army, dividing them, so he could destroy each army separately.
On the way toward the village of Waterloo, Napoleon's attack regiments had routed the Prussian army and had separated the Prussians from the English, but had mistakenly allowed some seventy thousand of the Prussians to withdraw in good order.
Napoleon ordered General Emmanuel de Grouchy, to pursue the Prussians, which the general did, but not at a fast enough pace to overtake and destroy them.
Wellington moved his army to a ridge near Waterloo. He sent a messenger to the head of the Prussian army, seventy-two year old Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht Blücher, telling Blücher to try to reunite his Prussian army with Welling-ton's, on the Waterloo battlefield.
That was on 18 June 1815, the day of Napoleon's final battle—the third month after Napoleon had regained the throne of France, following his escape from Elba.
