The concentration of Junot’s troops around Lisbon made the reception of the French _régime_ a matter of little difficulty. But it is not a little curious that the voice of old prophecy was made to contribute to the same result. The Nostradamus of Portugal, Bandarra, had predicted these changes as conformable to the will of God, and the triumph of the imperial eagle of Napoléon might be read in his prophetic quatrains. Curiously illustrative are these details of the character of a people of whom it has (with some exaggeration) been said that one half are waiting for the coming of Dom Sebastian, and the other half for that of the Messiah. The prophecy of Bandarra struck the nation with astonishment, and for a time they regarded it as literally fulfilled. The closeness of realization was certainly astounding. Gonzalo Annes Bandarra was a poor cobbler of Trancoso in the district of Guarda, who composed about the year 1540 some prophecies which have ever since obtained great reputation in the country, amongst all classes. His _trovas_ or _redondilhas_ (rhymed quatrains) have been printed several times, and in 1809 an edition was published at Barcelona. When the French entered Lisbon in 1807, the event was found by the believers in prophecy to be not only clearly predicted in Bandarra, but the Imperial power to be precisely indicated, and the first letter of the name of Napoléon, in the 17th and 18th quatrains of the third prophetic dream, which are as follows:-- “Ergue-se a Aguia imperial Com os seus filhos ao rabo, E com as unhas no cabo Faz o ninho em Portugal. Poe um A pernas acima, Tira--lhe a risca do meio, E por detraz lha arrima, Saberas quern te nomeio.” “The Imperial Eagle rises, with his children at his tail, and with his claws before him makes his nest in Portugal. Put an A with its legs upside down; take away its middle bar, and put this bar behind it. You will know him I name.” The coarseness of the wording belongs to the era and to the popular literature of Portugal generally. The N and the imperial eagle are made out perfectly. The coincidence does not quite convince, but in the words of the hero of the Gridiron story, “it is mighty remarkable!”