The following is copied from the website Prophecies On Line, with all rights to Mario Gregorgio.  I use his translations, instead of mine (which are found in my book, The Letters of Nostradamus) because I want you to see how most people translate Nostradamus; and I want you to see that even without my translations you can understand how I see the meaning of the letters Nostradamus wrote.  The Letter to Henry II is said to be “unintelligible,” like the ramblings of a lunatic.  I will use someone elses translations to make some important points that should be known when addressing the meaning of what Nostradamus wrote.

The Letter to Henry II begins and seemingly rambles to the following point of discussion.  There has been absolutely nothing in the prior content of text that would seem to reasonably lead one to the following:

“Such is the extent of time past, subject to correction by the most learned judgment, that the first man, Adam, came 1,242 years before Noah ( not reckoning by such Gentile calculations as Varro used, but simply by the Holy Scriptures, as best my weak understanding and astronomical calculations can interpret them.)"

"About 1,080 years after Noah and the universal flood came Abraham, who, according to some, was a first-rate astrologer and invented the Chaldean alphabet. About 515 or 516 years later came Moses, and from his time to that of David about 570 years elapsed." 

"From the time of David to that of out Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, born of the unique Virgin, 1,350 year elapsed, according to some chronographs. Some may object that this calculation cannot be true, because it differs from that of Eusebius. From the time of the human redemption to the detestable heresy of the Saracens about 621 years elapsed. From this one can easily add up the amount of time gone by. Although my calculations may not hold good for all nations, they have, however, been determined by the celestial movements, combined with the emotion, handed down to me by my forebears, which comes over me at certain hours. But the danger of the times, O Most Serene King, requires that such secrets should not be bared except in enigmatic sentences having, however, only one sense and meaning, and nothing ambiguous or amphibological inserted. Rather they are under a cloudy obscurity, with a natural infusion not unlike the creation of the world, according to the calculation and Punic Chronicle of Joel: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters will prophesy.”

Then, well after writing this, he wrote:

"Anyhow, I count the years from the creation of the world to the birth of Noah as 1,506, and from the birth of Noah to the completion of the Ark, at the time of the universal deluge, as 600 ( let the years be solar, or lunar, or a mixture of the ten ) I hold that the Sacred Scriptures use solar years. And at the end of these 600 years, Noah entered the Ark to be saved from the deluge. This deluge was universal, and lasted one year and two months. 

And 295 years elapsed from the end of the flood to the birth of Abraham, and 100 from then till the birth of Isaac. And 60 years later Jacob was born. 130 years elapsed between the time he entered Egypt and the time he came out. Between the entry of Jacob into Egypt and the exodus, 430 years passed. From the exodus to the building of the Temple by Solomon in the fourth year of his reign, 480 years. According on the calculations of the Sacred Writings, it was 490 years from the building of the Temple to the time of Jesus Christ."

"Thus, this calculation of mine, collected from the holy writ, comes to about 4,173 years and 8 months, more or less. Because there is such a diversity of sects, I will not go beyond Jesus Christ. I have calculated the present prophecies according to the order of the chain which contains its revolution, all by astronomical doctrine modified by my natural instinct. After a while, I found the time when Saturn turns to enter on April 7 till August 25, Jupiter on June 14 till October 7, Mars from April 17 to June 22, Venus from April 9 to May 22, Mercury from February 3 to February 24."

According to this translation (not mine) there are 22 periods.  That makes this somewhat understandable, as 22 complete sentences.  However, in the actual text, there is not such punctuation that indicated the end of one thought and the beginning of a separate and new thought.  Commas, colons and ampersands marked most of these transition points, not periods.

However, if one looks at these two sections of the letter to Henry, you see the first section refers to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus.  Then, in the second section, separated by a significant amount of text that has no connection to this biblical theme, Nostradamus wrote again of: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses (indirectly), Solomon (indirectly) and Jesus. 

While these are not the exact same biblical figures, Noah, Abraham and Jesus are repeated and each set follows in a chronologically correct order.  The first segment offers broad strokes of timing, with the second section adding more detail to the first timing.  When added together we have a chronological timeline of the years from Adam to Jesus; and this means Nostradamus is clarifying that Eusebius attempted to make official, albeit to some argument from various other historians.

There are several important observations that can be made from connecting these two sections.  I call it the “Rosetta Stone” for making sense of the Letter to Henry II.  This is the first importance of this awareness of linkage: the whole letter needs to be cut up and spliced back together (following rules of separation, based on specific punctuation patters – meaning sentence fragments are not broken up into multiple sets of words that are then spliced to other sentence fragments, likewise broken into pieces) so a smooth and continuous flow of meaningful words is the result of the letter.  As a letter that would fully explain how to understand The Prophecies, meaning the break apart and reconstruct theme is the most basic explanation of how to read the quatrains for meaning – cut up and reorder.

Second in the importance is understanding that in a letter meant to explain the meaning of The Prophecies, there is little that makes sense about why Nostradamus would simply run amok and start writing about a biblical timeline.  The only logical reason for such words being useful in explaining The Prophecies is the quatrains come from a divine source.  As such, the quatrains are telling of a future that has yet to come; but that future is part of the same timeline that began with Adam.  Nostradamus is thus explaining that the quatrains are not individual glimpses of the future, but part of a stream of events.  While those events are as individualistic as the events of the past, portrayed by the Patriarchs: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus; the future is part of the same timeline and storyline.

The third observation of importance is then that the theme of Nostradamus’ quatrains is that they are divinely inspired and not simply some form of human-only function, such as: a wild imagination; astrological calculations a thousand and more years into the future; or some kind of magical form of self-induced trancelike state, following some black art formulas for making connection to the dark side (another form of divine inspiration, but only sourced from Satan).  By writing about the biblical timeline, which was not any part of the quatrains’ stories, Nostradamus is telling us he was shown what some call the Akashic Record (biblically called “the book of records”), which has recorded all times, past, present and future.  By writing a correction (if any was required) of the years between Adam and Jesus, Nostradamus was directly stating The Prophecies was divine, and indirectly stating that the future content of the quatrains is directly related to the future content of The Revelation of John.  John was shown the future by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, which is what Nostradamus also states (when you read the words by full meaning and not by what partial meanings you casually collect).

One final important observation (and I do not mean to imply there are no other important meanings) is: by Nostradamus explaining the future is explained by understanding the biblical timeline to Jesus, he is saying the future is relative to the future state of Christianity.  This was the initial message of John, when he was told to write seven letters to the seven churches.  Those letters told of the corrupted states that worshippers of God were seen to fall into.  With the theme of the future all about the result of a state of degradation in the relationship between human beings and God, it points out that the entire focus of the Bible is the buildup of that relationship, beginning with Adam and climaxing with Jesus.  This is a strong, albeit quite indirect statement that the Bible is not a story of the timeline of mankind, but rather a timeline of the beginning of a relationship God would make with mankind, due to the fall of the original Son of God to the earthly plane.  Genesis chapter one states life on earth pre-existed Adam’s fall.  Adam was not created (as an immortal in heaven, i.e.: Eden) until after God rested from the Creation.  Adam then does not challenge science.  Adam represents the beginning of religion on earth, which has the pre-requisite of human intelligence able to grasp the philosophies and concepts of religion.