Brittany Its Byways | Page 9

water. Below, at the foot of the Mount, picturesquely situated on an
insulated rock, is the little chapel of St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches,
the founder of St. Michel. The Mount has been the residence of many
of our English princes. Matilda, queen of the Conqueror, visited St.

Michel. It was here her son Henry I., then only Count of the Cotentin,
was blockaded by his brothers William and Robert, and obliged to
surrender. Here Henry II. held his court, and, when Henry V. overran
Normandy, St. Michel was the only fortress that held out against him,
under its gallant defender Louis d'Estouteville of Bricquebec. Two
cannons, now at the entrance of the castle, are said to have been taken
from the English at the siege. Normandy was always the scene of the
quarrels between the English Norman princes, of the disputes between
the sons of the Conqueror, between Stephen of Blois and Henry of
Anjou, and again of those between Henry II. and his sons, and of
Richard and his brother John, to the latter of whom the Normans were
attached.
Seven French kings have made pilgrimages to St. Michel; and here
Louis XI. instituted the order of knighthood, called in honour of the
archangel St. Michael, but afterwards styled the order of the Coquille,
from the cockleshells that formed the collar of the knights, and the
golden cockle-shells that bordered their mantles. The motto of the order
was the old motto of the Mount, "Immensi tremor Oceani" (the
trembling of the immeasurable ocean), being an allusion to the popular
belief that when the English approached St. Michel, the guardian
archangel of the Mount raised a tempest to drive the enemy's vessels
upon the rocks. This belief may be traced back to the time when the
island was occupied by the Druid priestesses, who were supposed to
have the power of raising storms and stilling them by their magic
arrows of gold.
We ascended by the flight of steps to the "Merveille," as the convent
building is called, and well it deserves its name, from its elegance, its
boldness, and its position, with a wall of above one hundred feet high,
and of immense length, rising from the rock and supported by fifteen
buttresses, and divided into three stories. In every point of view it is
one of the most remarkable edifices of the thirteenth century. The salle
des chevaliers, where the chapters of the knights were held, is a fine
hall, with three rows of columns, and above it are the beautiful Gothic
cloisters. The "préau" or court is surrounded by a double row of pointed
arches, interlacing each other, and filled in with flowered spandrils and

cornices, carved with the greatest delicacy and endless variety. The
church which crowns the building is supported by a circle of enormous
columns in the crypt beneath, called the Souterrain des Gros Piliers: it
has been entirely restored, and the carvings are the work of the
prisoners who were confined here. From one of the doors we went out
to the platform or terrace called Beauregard, from the beauty of its
prospect, or sometimes Sault Gautier, from a prisoner of that name,
who three times threw himself off the platform to commit suicide. The
view from hence is most extensive, the whole circuit of the bay
extending to the west as far as Cancale. In 1203 St. Michel became a
royal demesne, and the buildings were entirely reconstructed by the
Abbot Jourdan, assisted by Philip Augustus; and the works were
continued by his successors to 1260.
Beneath and adjacent to the Mount, is the little island of La Tombeleine
or tombeau d'-Helène, so called from a young lady of that name, who
unable to accompany her lover knight when he left for England with
the Conqueror, as soon as the vessel which carried him away
disappeared from her sight, laid down on the shore and died. Every
year, on the anniversary of her death, the fishermen will tell you they
see a dove seated upon the Tombeleine rock, and remain there till
morning's dawn.
The guide pointed out to us the window of St. Michel, from which
Barbès tried to escape by means of a cord made of his sheets cut into
strips and tied together; but the line was too short, and he fell upon the
rock and was taken up much hurt. The provisions for the fortress are
brought in up an inclined plane, and raised by means of a tread-wheel,
formerly worked by the prisoners. We were conducted to the spot
where stood, with bars only three inches apart, the iron cage in which
so many celebrities were immured. Dubourg, the Dutch journalist, who
wrote against Louis XIV., died within its bars, devoured, it is said, by
the rats. In