What did Nostradamuss contemporaries think of him?
A. The local Catholic peasantry viewed him with suspicion and (in an age of almost apocalyptic religious warfare) thought he might be some kind of Protestant. The Church was interested, though sometimes a little suspicious. His books were avidly devoured by the reading public (around 90% of whom could reportedly read at the time). The Court, under Queen Catherine de Mdicis, quickly became besotted with him (especially – according to his son Csar some 55 years later ,at least – after his apparently successful prediction at I.35 of her husband the King’s death in 1559), to the point where foreign ambassadors were reporting home that it had become overcome by a kind of Nostradamania and implying that this precluded all sensible dialogue for the duration.
