By Hesba Stretton
In the southwest point of Normandy, separated from Brittany only by a narrow
and straight river, like the formal canals of Holland, stands the curious granite
rock which is called Mont St. Michel. It is an isolated peak, rising abruptly out of a
vast plain of sand to the height of nearly four hundred feet, and so precipitous
toward the west that scarcely a root of grass finds soil enough in its weather-
beaten clefts. At the very summit is built that wonderful church, the rich
architecture and flying buttresses of which strike the eye leagues and leagues
away, either on the sea or the mainland. Below the church, and supporting it by a
solid masonry, is a vast pile formerly a fortress, castle, and prison; with caverns
and dungeons hewn out of the living rock, and vaulted halls and solemn crypts;
all desolate and solitary now, except when a party of pilgrims or tourists pass
through them, ushered by a guide. Still lower down the rock, along its eastern
and southern face, there winds a dark and narrow street, with odd, antique
houses on either side. The only conveyance that can pass along it is the water-
cart which supplies the town with fresh water from the mainland. The whole place
is guarded by a strong and high rampart, with bastions and battlemented walls;
and the only entrance is through three gateways, one immediately behind the
other, with a small court between. The second of these strong gateways is
protected by two old cannon, taken from the English in 1423, and still pointed out
to visitors with inextinguishable pride by the natives of Mont. St. Michel.
A great plain of sand stretches around the Mont for miles every way—of sand or
sea, for the water covers it at flood-tides, beating up against the foot of the
granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. But at neap tides and eaux
mortes, as the French say, there is nothing but a desert of brown, bare sand, with
ripple-marks lying across it, and with shallow, ankle-deep pools of salt water here
and there. Afar off on the western sky-line a silver fringe of foam, glistening in the
sunshine, marks the distant boundary to which the sea has retreated. On every
other side of the horizon rises a belt of low cliffs, bending into a semicircle, with
sweeping outlines of curves miles in length, drawn distinctly against the clear
sky.
The only way to approach the Mont is across the sands. Each time the tide
recedes a fresh track must be made, like the track along snowy roads; and every
traveller, whether on foot or in carriage, must direct his steps by this scarcely
beaten path. Now and then he passes a high, strong post, placed where there is
any dangerous spot upon the plain; for there are perilous quicksands,
imperceptible to any eye, lurking in sullen and patient treachery for any unwary
footstep. The river itself, which creeps sluggishly in a straight black line across
the brown desert, has its banks marked out by rows of these high stakes, with a
bush of leafless twigs at the top of each. A dreary, desolate, and barren scene it
is, with no life in it except the isolated life upon the Mont.
