Nostradamus and the Lost Treasure of the Bourbons

It is the spring of 1791 and among the brave citizens of Paris there are rumours circulating about thousands of nobles who are ready to abduct the royal family from the French capital. People are talking of a widespread conspiracy that can put an end to this wicked Revolution.

King Louis XVI is a prisoner in his own country now. His wife, Marie Antoinette, secretly writes letters to her brother, the Austrian Emperor. She begs him to help them. Couriers smuggle the letters abroad, but the cold dark walls of the Tuileries Palace have eyes and ears and the brave men are killed; their messages are intercepted by republican agents and the codes are broken. Louis XVI understands that if he wants to start a counter-revolution with a chance to succeed, he has to secure his communications. In other words, he has to use a code that can not be broken...

The royalist general de Bouillé has a considerable army at his disposition in the district Metz, in the northeast of France. His headquarters, in the fortress town of Montmédy, can be a ‘safe place' for the royal family. The border with the Austrian Netherlands is close, and in the case of an emergency, the royal family can retreat to the nearby Abbey of Orval, just across the border.

General de Bouillé thoroughly prepares the flight of the royal family from the revolutionary Paris. Beyond Châlons-en-Champagne, he can secure the route with carefully selected soldiers. A few centuries earlier, the famous prophet Nostradamus seems to have foreseen these events in one of his dark verses - quatrain 20 of the ninth centurie:

The night falls, trough the forest of Reims they come

In two parts to Orval, Herne, the white stone.

Now that the monk is in Varennes, in black and grey,

will the choice of Capet be the cause of storm, fire, blood, axe...

When general de Bouillé reads these lines, he realizes how helpful it might be if he only had to talk about ‘Q20, C9' and would be fully understood by his fellow conspirators. They only need to know that the key to the code can be found in the quatrains of Nostradamus; if someone says ‘20,9', it will be immediately obvious to everyone what the real message is. Such a code can not be broken by someone who does not know the keyword is: ‘Nostradamus'.

The king and the queen have to take the route through the Forêt de la Montagne de Reims, to Montmédy and Orval. ‘Vaultorte' is an anagram of ‘Orvaulte', the old French word for 'Orval'... and what do we find in the realm of the Abbey of Orval? A white menhir - a white stone! - called ‘Le Blanc'! If the royal family is not even safe in Orval, they will find a refuge deeper into the Austrian Netherlands, in the village of Herne (county of Hainaut). Agathe de Rambaud, the nurse of the Crown Prince, has a cottage there.

‘The monk, black and gray' is the king - a man of chaste habits who is disguised in grey. And ‘Varennes' is on the route between Paris and Montmédy, where Louis XVI, a distant descendant of Hugh Capet, together with general de Bouillé would unleash a storm of fire and blood upon the revolutionary forces. What general de Bouillé can't possibly imagine at that moment, is that the royal family will be arrested in Varennes, and that their flight to Orval eventually will lead the king and his wife to the bloody axe of the guillotine...

The fortune of the Bourbons and the jewels of the queen are entrusted to the royal hairdresser, Leonard. He has to bring them in safety in the Abbey of Orval, where they will be part of the general's war chest that has to finance the counter-revolutionary forces...

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their children never reached Orval. But Leonard did. And together with the royal hairdresser disappeared the Bourbon Treasure somewhere in or around the abbey...

Read all about the 'flight to Varennes' (that was, in fact, a flight to Montmédy or Orval) here!

Read here the 'Narrative of the Journey to Varennes of Louis XVI and his Family in June, 1791', by 'Madame Royale, Duchess of Angoulême' (the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette).

From the Orval website :

While the 17th Century was to be one of disaster for the Low Countries, for Orval it was to be the highest point of its development. Two Abbots acquired a reputation throughout the whole Order. The first, Bernard de Montgaillard, from southern France, managed, despite the opposition of the community, to have himself appointed Abbot of Orval by Archduke Albert and Isabelle (1605). From that moment he devoted himself to his monks who finally became very attached to him. He put the monastery back on its feet economically and restored the buildings. But more especially he was a precursor in giving his community reform constitutions which led to an increase in fervour. Novices came in great numbers; in 1619 the community was composed of 43 members: 27 professed monks, 8 lay brothers and 8 novices.

Shortly after Bernard de Montgaillard, a new catastrophe hit Orval ; in August 1637 at the height of the Thirty Years War, the troops of the Maréchal de ChâtiIlon pillaged and completely gutted the monastery and its dependencies. The reconstruction took place in a climate of insecurity through to the end of the century.

(...)

In 1789 the French Revolution broke out and all the possessions of Orval across the border were immediately confiscated. The abbey lived through various alerts, more or less serious, until the decisive day, 23rd June 1793, when the revolutionary troops led by General Loison sacked and burned the monastery Everything was wiped out. The community withdrew to its refuge in Luxembourg and then to the Priory of Conques. The community was officially suppressed on the 7th November 1795 and its members disbanded. For more than a century the charred walls of Orval were at the mercy of the weather and of stone- and treasure-seekers.

Nostradamus stayed for some time in the abbey of Orval. Some scholars have said that he was the - anonymous - author of the "Prophecy of Orval", that emerged after the French Revolution. Possibly, he wrote the Prophecy of Orval when staying in the abbey. And maybe, he has conceived there some of his famous quatrains.

Or... were the real authors some royalists who wanted to communicate with eich other in a code that could not be broken?

Is it possible that the royalists have used the quatrains of Nostradamus to communicate in a code about the War Chest that never was found? Maybe they were waiting for the right moment to use the Treasure of the Bourbons. But Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were decapitated and the right moment never came... And then, suddenly, the treasure was lost... There are "hidden treasures" in some quatrains of Nostradamus - or some quatrains attributed to Nostradamus - and it is possible to place those stanzas in Orval...

Q 7, C 9:

Qui ouurira le monument trouué

Et ne viendra le serrer promptement

Mal luy viendra, & ne pourra prouué

Si mieux doit estre Roy Breton ou Normand

Q 81, C X

Mis tresors temple citadins Hesperiques,

Dans iceluy retir en secret lieu:

Le templeouurir les liens fameliques,

Reprens, rauis, proye horrible au milieu.

Q 27, C I:

Dessous le chesne Guyen du ciel frappé

Non loin de la est cacher le thresor

Qui par long siècles avoit este grappé

Trouvé mourra, l'oeil creve de ressort.

Q 66, C VIII:

Quand l'escriture D M sera trouvée,

Et cave antique à lampe descouverte,

Loy, Roy, et Prince Ulpian esprouvée,

Pavillon Royne et Duc sous la couverte.

Q 27, C II:

Le diuin verbe sera du ciel frapp,

Qui ne pourra proceder plus auant:

Du reseruant le secret estoup,

Qu'on marchera par dessus & deuant.

Where do we have to start treasure hunting? Do some Nostradamus, Orval, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette research... Take a look with Google Earth in Orval and Montmédy...

And finally, ask the right questions in the Comments Section! Maybe you get some answers!