AN ABBEY ON A ROCK
In spite of all that has been said of the glory of Mont St Michel,
not the half has been told. This magnificent abbey, palace, citadel,
church, remains unique, no less in its situation than in its stupendous
strength, in its intricate variety than in its architectural beauty.
The solidity and awe-inspiring grandeur of the Norman work is softened
and enhanced by the delicate tracery of the thirteenth century; the
towering citadel impresses as much by its elegance as by its strength.
From the heights of Avranches the cliff-fortress is seen as in a
miniature, clearly outlined against the sapphire sea of summer, set
off by the long, rolling, richly-wooded slopes of the shore. Three
rivers flow into this bay, the Sée, the Sélune, and the Couesnon, and
their channels make long tracks of shining water over the sands at low
tide. The island of Tombelaine, resembling a couched lion, serves the
same purpose to the Mount as the spire of St Dunstan’s on Ludgate Hill
does to St Paul’s, it gives a unit by which to measure the height of
the grander island. But it is impossible to approach St Michel from
Avranches. The only feasible road is over the sands from the Pontorson
side, and to attain this it is necessary to circle round the forked bay
from Avranches, a proceeding which, as the way is as bow to string to
that across the bay, makes in all some sixteen miles to be traversed.
But a more startling effect is gained from the new view thus obtained.
For there, growing larger with every yard we advance toward it, is the
most graceful, most striking, and most wonderful island in the world!
Within the last thirty or forty years a tower and spire, rising high
into the air, bearing a gilt figure of St Michael, has been erected at
the summit of the rock, and this has altered the outline considerably,
drawing the eye upward at an angle ending in a sharp point, instead
of to the conical or blunt summit familiar from old representations.
It is impossible to deny that from an artistic point of view this is
an improvement, however much one may revolt against modern work being
patched on to antiquity.
From the Pontorson road we approach the island, facing northward, and
if we are fortunate enough to arrive in the evening when the sun is
setting behind the line of sea in the west, we shall see a gorgeous
vision,
“One gleam like a bloodshot swordblade swims on
The sky line, staining the green gulf crimson.”
[Illustration: MONT ST MICHEL--SUNSET]
The flame-coloured glowing background shows up the Mount dark and
sombre, yet not wholly unrelieved, because lit by gleams that catch
the facets and angles innumerable that stud its surface. The wide
stretch of level water gently heaving round the base gives a strange
mystical sense of illimitable space, and this with the majesty of the
rock fills any who have imagination at all with the same emotion and
sensation of eternity and infinity as is aroused by the sound of grand
music. Yet in the morning light, glowing with an extraordinary amethyst
hue, the Mount is mystic and wonderful too; it has then a more joyous
and softened beauty; seen in storm and rain it is forbidding, and the
grandeur alone is predominant; in every season, in every phase of
weather, one or the other of the characteristics that combine to make
up its unsurpassable glory, its mystery, its grandeur, or its wonder,
start out and proclaim themselves supreme. So that according to a man’s
luck at his first approach will he be ready to exclaim, “How grand it
is!” “How wonderful!” or “How beautiful!” The actual road over the
sands is about a mile and a quarter in length. It was made in 1880,
before which time the sands could only be crossed at low tide. It is
built up high, and hedged on either side by a low wall. It is bare,
exposed, and dusty. Around it lie the wide flats of half-uncovered
sand, resembling those of the Northumbrian coast near Coquet Island.
Yet though this approach in itself is slightly chilling to
feelings of enthusiasm, its deficiencies are lost in the vision ahead,
which grows each minute more and more detailed, more and more vivid.
There is in reality only one hotel on the island to which any ordinary
tourist would think of going. Its message has been proclaimed half a
mile away, for directly mystery began to give way to detail, it could
be seen, in letters six feet high, on every building of any size that
rises up on the precipitous face of the cliff, that Hotel Poulard
Ainé and its _dépendances_ occupied all the prominent houses that
were available. Some rival establishments have been set up by other
members of the same family, but their light is a candle to the electric
arc compared with the original Poulard, famous for its excellent and
Brobdingnagian omelets.
No vehicles enter the gateway of the island, they stop at the end of
the causeway; it would be impossible for them to effect an entrance,
and if they could they would be of no use in the steep, narrow, broken
street like a Scottish wynd, which is all the island boasts.
At the end of the causeway a rough platform of raised boards carries
the traveller over an expanse of slimy mud, and from this he descends
by steps to the gateway.
Once inside the gateway there is a narrow street with the entrance
of the Poulard Hotel on one side, and small recesses with seats and
tables for refreshments on the other; while the street itself is
spanned a little higher up by a massive gateway called La Porte du
Roi. In the season the hotel is generally crammed, and largely by
the English. It is frequently necessary to get put up in one of the
_dépendances_, and for sheer wonder it is hard to beat that which
stands some fifty feet higher up the cliff. Entering the main hotel to
go to this, one traverses many flights of stairs, and finally, coming
out by a wholly unexpected door in the wall, finds oneself on the
rugged face of the cliff, with rough-hewn stone steps stretching higher
still to the number of fifty or sixty. These lead to a terrace whereon
is a large white and red house; and from the terrace what a view! Sea
and sky, and the great green scimitar of the French coast, low-lying
in the distance, are the principal components. The _dépendance_ is
built absolutely plumb with the rock, so by leaning out of one of the
long French windows in the front, one might fling a pebble into the
murmuring lapping water below; and at night when above gleams “the
intense clear star-sown vault of heaven,” and below the tide steals up,
and there arises the gentle sucking of the tethered boats, one might
well imagine oneself in Mohammed’s coffin, swung between heaven and
earth.
[Illustration: LA PORTE DU ROI]
Such are a few of the glories of the Mount when first approached; but
the reverse side of the medal quickly shows itself. It is impossible
to be there for a couple of hours without feeling oneself in a
cage. To begin with, the mountain, like the moon, shows only one face,
and try as one will, it is but unsatisfactory glimpses one can get of
the other. Full of the ardour of discovery the visitor starts out.
The little, crooked, narrow main street, if street it can be called,
is full of picturesque bits, of visions of blue sky of an intense and
dazzling brightness, framed in towering irregular walls. But no time
is allowed for enjoyment of these peeps, for in the tiny shops full of
penknives, trinkets, paperweights, and every atrocity that has ever
been perpetrated under the name of souvenir, the women are waiting
to pounce like spiders on any visitor, and pester him to buy their
wares. There is no escape. One may pass on quickly, only within a very
short time to be brought up by a high blank wall, baffled and annoyed,
as visions of sitting on a rocky promontory, and enjoying the quiet
evening light grow more remote. The result of a fresh start is to find
oneself back on a higher level on the terrace of the _dépendance_,
stopped by the hotel wall, and the entrance to a Musée, where two
officials are no less persistent than the women in pressing visitors
to come in. One may repeat the experiment, only to realise that, like
Sterne’s starling, one “can’t get out.” In despair, one goes on to
the walls, broad and flat, and free from shops, with bastion towers
at intervals. For a moment irritation is quieted by the repetition of
the view, for in front lies the sea, behind, towering into the air,
that marvellous fortress of masonry. At the very end of the promenade
there is a glimpse, over the high boundary wall, which hems one in so
exasperatingly on the east, of growing trees and cool greenness, but
admittance to this paradise is apparently unattainable.
In the middle of the day the odours rising from the insanitary
pavements is intolerable; oh for a torrent of rain! It is marvellous
the inhabitants do not suffer from typhoid fever, but they, like the
rest of their countrymen, seem absolutely impervious to any ill-effects
arising from lack of sanitation.
By this time one has realised that only a strip of the island, the
front facing shorewards, is available; that the whole of the other
side is cut off, and can only be seen by descending through the main
entrance, and making one’s way at low tide across the wet sands, and
fording numerous tidal rivers _en route_. It is difficult to see why
doors should not be pierced in that horrible encircling barrier; a
small charge might even be made, and visitors allowed access to the
slopes beyond; steep they may be, but it is not beyond human power to
cut a few terrace paths for walking.
[Illustration: THE STREET, MONT ST MICHEL]
Yet there is still the abbey to be explored, with its endless
ramifications. The wonder grows as it is examined, how could monks of
the thirteenth century, with no mechanical contrivances, bring the
ponderous blocks of stone across the sands, so treacherous and often
impassable, raise them up five hundred feet, and plant them so
that they stand with an air of finality, impregnable, unshakable? So
steep, so massive are those walls, that to look up at them produces
almost the same sensation as looking down over a great height: it makes
one giddy. Over one corner there peeps a bit of lace work in stone,
flying buttresses and decorated pinnacles; old also, older than the
marvellous abbey itself. Below this are two rounded towers that guard
the entrance to the chatelet. Abbey, fortress, church, and castle, St
Michel comprises them all, and the masonry of the various buildings
is so interwoven, so intricate, that it is impossible to separate one
from the other by mere external looking. The island is small, but its
abbey is vast, and much as has been said about it, familiar as are
the representations of the Mount, very little has been written about
its internal beauties; consequently most people go there expecting to
find a ruin, but here is an almost perfect bit of masonry, perfect in
construction and in repair.
The oldest part is the church, which is the pinnacle or crown of the
island, standing at its highest point, more than four hundred feet
above the sea-level. The first church on this lonely and windswept
spot was built in the eighth century by the Bishop of Avranches, named
Aubert, who declared that St Michael had appeared to him in a dream,
and commanded him to undertake this task: before that time the islet
had been called Mont de la Tombe, a name recalled in the isle of
Tombelaine near. The place is called in old charters “St Michel au
péril de la Mer,” and the name must have seemed more fitting then in
its loneliness than now, when connected by the solid causeway to the
mainland. The bishop’s church was a mere grotto, and of it nothing
remains, though the good man’s own name is preserved in a little
chapel of St Aubert on the inaccessible southern face of the rock.
The incredible difficulty of the task was quite sufficient to ensure
its repetition, for what man has done man will do. But the succeeding
church, built in the reign of Duke Richard the Fearless, was swept
away by fire, and the present one is the third on the same site, built
in the course of the eleventh century. The surprising difficulty of
the task may be gauged by the fact that only a very small part of
the building rests on the solid rock, most of it being founded on a
platform or platforms. It seems curious that the apex of the rock was
not cut down to make a basis instead of being built up to the required
level, but from whatever reason, the more arduous method was chosen.
The choir fell down in 1421, and was rebuilt, so that it is of later
date than the rest.
Pilgrims had flocked to the shrine built by St Aubert, and in time
a few rough houses clung like limpets to the sides of the rock, and
became the nucleus of the present village.
[Illustration: A VIEW FROM THE TOP OF MONT ST MICHEL]
Below and on each side of the church is the abbey, justly called La
Merveille. This is composed of two vast buildings, backing on the
rock and facing landward. It was built in the first half of
the thirteenth century, and is one of the most perfect specimens
of the architecture of the time in existence. Of the same date are
the fortifications, ramparts, and bastions, which transformed the
mount into a fortress and citadel. This tiny rugged island has had a
chequered career. The Mount was the only spot in the whole of Normandy
which defied England when she ruled the rest of the territory. It was
besieged and attacked again and again without success. The ancient
monks, with as much of the church militant as the church penitent in
them, clung to their bare sharp rock, and defied the would-be invaders.
The abbot was a personage of great importance; at the time of the
Conquest he fitted out six vessels for the Norman duke, and for this
he was well rewarded, for monks of the abbey were raised to the
highest ecclesiastical dignities in England. One became abbot of St
Hilda, another of St Peter at Gloucester, another of Canterbury.
Coins, bearing the image of the Archangel Michael, were struck also in
commemoration of the Conquest.
In the fifteenth century the abbot had attained almost regal power,
holding not only the adjacent isles of Tombelaine and Jersey and
Guernsey, but even the sister isle of Mount St Michael off the Cornish
coast, which had been given to the monastery by Edward the Confessor.
Tombelaine has a history of its own, independently of Mont St Michel.
In 1048 two monks came and took up their abode here to live the
contemplative life, and nearly a hundred years later a priory was
founded on the rock, which was very popular with the abbots of the
neighbouring monastery, so that one of them was buried here by his own
request. After a while fortifications grew up around the cloistral
walls of the priory, and thus the island was fitted to become an
important strategic base. When the English seized it in Edward III.’s
reign, they saw its possibilities, and strengthened the fortifications
immensely.
What fortifications there were, remained till 1669, when they were
demolished by order of the King of France. During the fourteenth
century, when war flamed continually between England and France,
they played a notable part. Mont St Michel itself was menaced, and
though the pilgrims were allowed to pass to it over the yellow sands
without hindrance, the inhabitants of the Mount were for a year more
or less in a state of siege. But it was not until 1423 that the grand
siege began, when pilgrims were intercepted and turned back, and
sallies and counter-sallies passed between the large and small rock,
crouching like two lions about to spring. Then the investment became
more strict, English vessels appeared in the shallow waters of the
bay, and the English soldiers thus reinforced, might probably have
succeeded in cracking this very hard nut, had not the Bretons come to
the assistance of the garrison, and sailing into the bay engaged the
English in combat. There is little to be gathered of the details of
the fight, but the effect was to make the English retire hastily to
their entrenchments. This was by no means their last attempt, however,
on the island fastness, for in 1427 a great attack was made under Lord
Scales. It was at this time that the two cannons which now stand within
the gate of the Mount were taken by the French.
A strange incident is the pilgrimage of 400 children, in the middle
of the fifteenth century, to the Mount, from Germany and Flanders.
These children had left their homes without the consent, and in many
cases against the wishes, of their parents. The sight must have been
an impressive one as the little pilgrims, travel-worn and stained, saw
at length their goal, and crossed the shifting sands toward it. What
became of them afterwards is not recorded, whether they returned to
their homes or settled down in the country near, but the actual fact of
the pilgrimage seems well attested, though the numbers taking part in
it must be received with caution.
In the reign of Louis the Eleventh, the island was made into a state
prison, and continued to be so more or less until 1863. During the
French Revolution many of those called “enemies of the Republic” were
incarcerated here, in deep and vaulted dungeons from which there was
no possibility of escape. The buildings are now government property,
and admittance is nominally free, as the officials who show strangers
round are paid by the State; but a tip is also expected! The system is
another of those annoying little arrangements which so mar the pleasure
of a visit to the island. The guardian of the abbey waits until he has
collected a sufficient party, say thirty or forty people, and then
leads them through from room to room, locking each door behind him, and
pouring forth a voluble string of monotonous words in the very worst
“guide” style.
So intricate is the architecture, so numerous the rooms, halls, and
corridors, that a description in detail of the whole of the building
is impossible, nevertheless one or two points stand vividly out in
the mind. One is the marvellous flight of steps beneath the archway
by which entrance is obtained; another, the winding stone staircase,
called L’Escalier de Dentelle, by which one mounts to a platform
running round the exterior of the choir beneath the flying buttresses,
with their delicate turrets and pinnacles; another, the wide panorama
seen from any of the platforms around the church. The church itself
is half Norman, half Pointed, and the nave, with its solid pillars
and rounded arches contrasts with the later decorative work in the
choir. Nor is the crypt beneath--rightly called the Crypt of the
Great Pillars--less interesting. These stupendous columns, planted in
couples, support the whole fabric, and their colossal strength strikes
one with wonder and awe.
The abbey is in three stories, the highest containing the dormitory and
cloister, and the second two vast halls, while in the lowest are the
almonry, and endless vaults.
The cloisters are the most perfect of their kind in Europe, and strike
one the more imperiously from their delicate and almost fragile beauty
amid much that is so stern and massive. They were made in the early
part of the thirteenth century, and the twenty-first abbot, Raoul de
Villedieu, was the designer. The cloisters consist of a double row
of slender columns of polished granite round an interior courtyard,
and the rows are placed so that the columns in each do not coincide
with one another in the line of vision, but interlace. Within the
narrow passage between the rows are ribs, admirably and symmetrically
disposed, connecting the two, and in the spandrils of the exterior rows
there is carving of fruit and foliage of such fairy-like delicacy, that
it is almost impossible to believe it was executed seven centuries ago.
The cloister was “restored” 1877-81.
The dormitory, which is reached from the cloister, is vast, and has
an arcade of deeply-set lancet windows on each side, to the numbers
of thirty-one and twenty-six. This is of slightly later date than the
cloister. In the Salle des Chevaliers on the floor below a raised
terrace runs along one side, and there are two carved mantelpieces,
while the ribbed roof is supported by pillars with carved capitals.
The same profusion of space and detail is noticeable everywhere. The
refectory adjoining shows fireplace, ribbed roof, and graceful columns
also, and was finished about 1215. There are nine large mullioned
windows. Each hall varies, yet all are animated by the same spirit
of artistic loving care. In the lowest storey there is the ancient
cloister, superseded by the work of Villedieu, and also a beautiful
crypt with short thick pillars, and a delicately groined roof.
One carries away loving memories of all this beauty, embodying so much
strength and thought and care; one forgets, as one always does forget,
the herding together, the sense of imprisonment, the disagreeable
sights and sounds; and one thinks of this island, standing alone,
and rising from the bosom of the sea, as one thinks of some glorious
picture well-known and loved. It is said that once all this bay was
clothed with wood; that the island was no island; and rumour whispers
now that the bay is to be reclaimed, the land planted and cultivated,
and the island be an island no more; may it be but lying rumour, and
not based on any foundation, for the day that St Michel ceases to be
an island, that day will she have been robbed of half her beauty and
nearly all her charm. Long may it stand, that church-citadel, graceful,
stern, and solitary “St Michel in peril of the Sea.”