THE LAST PILGRIMAGE TO MONT SAINT-MICHEL.
When the traveller who is visiting the beautiful localities of the Channel Peninsula quits the southern faubourg of Avranches—a picturesque little town built of sparkling granite—a road, marked by a succession of rapid declivities, brings him to the shore of a large bay formed by the sinking of the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. Before him reaches, far away and out of sight, the flat extent of sands, furrowed by the rivers Sée, Sélunce, and Coësnon, whose silvery windings the eye can follow to a considerable distance. On the higher parts of these sands grows a fine kind of grass, the poa of the salt-meadows, and which, mingled with marine plants and sand-weeds, furnishes a favorite pasture for sheep. The lower and barren portion of the sands disappears twice a day beneath the tide, which at times spreads gently and caressingly over them, while at others it rolls foaming in with precipitate fury, as if eager to pass its appointed boundary. At high tide nothing is visible but an immense lake, partially engirdled with hills; and in the distance, like a pyramid of granite, sometimes from the bosom of the waves, sometimes from the expanse of sand, rises a nearly circular rock, laden with constructions of various kinds intermingled with vigorous vegetation, and crowned by large and lofty buildings.
This is the famous Mont Saint-Michel: au péril de la mer—in periculo mortis, as our fathers were wont to say in their strong and simple language, which, like nature, speaks in images.
The first time we saw St. Michael’s Mount was in sailing from Southampton to St. Malo, towards four o’clock one bright morning in June. The early sunshine lighted up the higher part of the rock, with all its wealth of natural and architectural inequalities, in one blaze of gold, while its base lay still in shadow. The only illuminated object, rising from a purplish haze, its brightness heightened by the blue of sea and sky, above, beneath, and around, it appeared rather like an ethereal vision than anything of earth.
Mount St. Michael! What memories are awakened only by the name, which is in itself a magical evocation of bygone centuries! Here, too, present realities still rival the memories of the past. With respect to its natural situation, as well as the share which human hands have had in its formation, there is about it much that defies comparison. It is at once a nest of legends, the home of religious thought, of prayer and meditation, as well as of learning and the arts. Mount St. Michael, being a monastery, a cathedral, and a fortress, is, in its triple unity, a summary of the three great elements of the life of France during all the poetic, heroic, and religious though stormy period of the middle ages.
Beaten into ruggedness by the storms of heaven, and discrowned of the golden statue of its patron archangel, the summit of the mount no longer springs upward into space with the same loftiness and lightness that used to strike so forcibly those who beheld it for the first time. The great human work thus seems as if arrested in its heavenward climbing; but, like other and grander majesties, St. Michael’s Mount has been uncrowned without undergoing any diminution of its glory, and it still presents its singular threefold aspect to the eye. On the western side the rock, stern and bare, seems to bid defiance to the hand of man; on the north a strong wall rises to the height of two hundred feet from base to battlements, strengthened with buttresses and flanked by bastions, pierced irregularly with pointed windows, and surmounted by a series of elegant arcades. To the south we find a rich display of architectural art, the exuberance of which is almost equalled by its caprice. Above all, and larger than all the rest, rises the church, with its forest of granite pinnacles and turrets overlooking the distant horizons of Normandy and Brittany, and, to use the language of the ancient chroniclers, imposing the fear of the archangel on the vast expanse of ocean—immensi tremor oceani.
In ages long anterior to any of its architectural constructions, and before the Christian era, this rock, much loftier then than now, rose from the midst of a vast forest which extended from Coutances to the rocks of Cesembre beyond St. Malo. This forest of Scissey, or Chesey (Sissiacum), took its name from the goddess Sessia, who was invoked at the time of sowing, and worshipped as the protectress of the corn while in the ground. The rock itself was called Tomba, and also Belenus, the name given by the Gauls and Druids to their sun-god,[[13]] and which was identical with Baal of the Phœnicians, Bel of the Assyrians, and the Apollo of the Greeks.
On Mount Belenus was a college of nine Druidesses, the eldest of whom, like the pythoness of Delphi, uttered oracles.[[14]] The Romans, in the course of their conquests in Gaul, made Bel give place to Jove: Tomba Belenus became Mons Jovis and was sacred to Jupiter.
In the year 708 Mount Belenus, which until that period had formed a part of the mainland of Armorica, was suddenly detached from it by a terrible catastrophe which spread desolation over the country. The sea, flowing in with tempestuous fury, overpassed its limits, submerged the ancient forest, as well as the inhabited parts of the coast, and, except when the tide is out, made an island of the Mount.[[15]] It was in this same year of 708, in the reign of Childebert II., that St. Aubert, the first Bishop of Avranches, in obedience to a vision built there a church dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael, and at the same time founded a monastery of clerks regular, who replaced the two or three hermits who had formerly lived in seclusion on the Mount.
This monastery acquired, later on, a fresh importance under the Dukes of Normandy. Duke Richard I. enlarged and made of it an abbey of the Order of St. Benedict. In 1002 or 1003, great part of the church and surrounding buildings being consumed by a fire which broke out, Duke Richard II. considerably enlarged as well as strengthened the foundation by the construction of the crypt, upon which the new edifice was raised. This crypt appears to be cut out of the solid rock, and is divided in two parts by a wall. Its low and vaulted roof is supported by massive pillars, round or square. A larger or grander subterranean vault does not perhaps exist, with its space of seventy metres in length by twelve in breadth, and its three aisles formed by about twenty pillars. The roof sustains the weight of two stories of building, the dormitory over the refectory, and the magnificent cloister over the Hall of the Knights.[[16]]
The original church soon becoming too small to contain the numerous pilgrims who flocked thither, the construction of a new one was begun by the Abbot Raoul, who, in 1048, raised the four pillars and the arch of the great tower. The nave, and that part of the monastery called La Merveille, were built by his successor, Renaud.
It was in 1091 that Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was besieged in the fortress of Mont Saint-Michel by his brothers Robert and William. After the expulsion of the wretched John from Normandy, Abbot Jourdain wishing to preserve the Mount to the kings of England, Philip Augustus sent against him Guy de Thouars, who, after a lengthened siege, being unable to take it, set in on fire. It suffered severely from another conflagration in 1350, when struck by lightning during a terrible storm. The liberality of Philip de Valois restored the church and monastery to more than their former splendor.
Early in the fifteenth century Abbot Jolivet surrounded the town with fortifications. The English, at this time invading France, besieged Mont Saint-Michel, but were repulsed by the brave d’Estouteville and his companions-in-arms, one hundred and twenty-nine in all, who successfully defended the post entrusted to them when the greater part of France had submitted to the conquerors.
During the religious wars Mont St. Michel was several times attacked by the Protestants. On the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1577, a number of them, habited as pilgrims and concealing their weapons, were admitted without suspicion into the church, where, after hearing several Masses with great show of devotion, they divided into small groups, and, with an air of calm indifference, occupied different parts of the buildings, until, secure of their position, they murdered such of the guards as did not escape by flight or concealment, and then fell not only upon the garrison but on the monks, even massacring the priests who had been saying Mass for them.
This noble abbey had for more than a thousand years an existence worthy of its origin. Mingling in the religious and warlike history of France, it was simultaneously or by turns occupied by knights and monks; the abode of faith and courage; an advanced sentinel in the direction of England, and thus affording protection against the foes of this world and of the next, defending alike with the cross and with the sword, and held in veneration by the whole of Christendom.
During the ages of faith pilgrims came hither by thousands, from all lands, braving the danger of these treacherous sands, to invoke in this his sanctuary the prince and leader of the armies of heaven.
The sacrilegious impiety of modern times could no more spare St. Michael’s Mount than so many other holy and beautiful relics of the past which it has seen fit to mutilate or destroy. The First Republic suppressed the monastery, drove out the monks, demolished a portion of their church, changed the name of Mont Saint-Michel to that of le Mont Libre, or the Free Mount, and turned it into a prison!—doubtless in order to prove the suitability of its new appellation.
The first prisoners there were the priests of Brittany and Normandy. Prayer was thus at least not yet banished from its ancient abode. In 1811 Napoleon made of it a Maison de Réclusion, which, in 1818, became a Maison de Détention, and it was at the same time also a state prison. Rarely has any place seen more sad and strange vicissitudes. The chosen dwelling-place of those called to serve God in a religious life became the sink of every crime pursued and punished by society, and the population of Mount St. Michael was now recruited not from men who had received a holy vocation, but from courts of assize.
A decree of 1863, however, relieved it from this unworthy fate, alike saddening to Christians, archæologists, and poets, and Mont Saint-Michel, which now belongs to the see of Coutances, has been confided by the ecclesiastical administration to the charge of twelve priests of the Congregation of Pontigny in the diocese of Sens, who carry on the services in its church, receive the visitors drawn thither by the sanctity or historical interest of the place, and fulfil the office of preachers and missionaries to all the parishes of the Channel Islands. An orphanage for boys is now flourishing in the old barracks, and by its side are ateliers where painting on glass is carried on—a kind of painting (or staining, rather) which, more than any other, has a religious object. All this is, so far, a return to a better state of things, but the solicitude of its diocesan does not find it enough, feeling that, though much has been done, still the present is too unlike the past, and earnestly desiring to restore the abbey to its former splendor. And he will do it yet. Already the pilgrimages thither are renewed with a fervor worthy of ancient days.
Few things can be more beautiful and edifying than the holy festivities of which the most recent of these pilgrimages has just been the occasion, and which have left so deep an impression on those who took part in them, and who followed the imposing order of the successive religious ceremonies, stamped as they were with the character of dignity and grandeur which the Catholic Church has impressed upon her liturgy and worship.
From earliest dawn long bands of pilgrims, conducted by the priests of their respective parishes and preceded by their banners, began to enamel with picturesque groups the white monotony of the sands. On arriving at the Mount they formed into regular columns and slowly ascended the steep acclivity to the church. Towards nine in the morning the Mount presented a singular aspect, not unlike a gigantic ant-hill: the flights of steps disappeared under the long processions mounting them, while the ramparts were as if crenellated with the heads of the crowds watching for the arrival of the Bishop of Coutances and Avranches and the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux. An involuntary delay on the part of the bishops was for a time the cause of extreme anxiety. Anything may be feared from this dangerous bay, whose shifting sands change their direction after every tide, and engulf the late or unwary traveller in an abyss of mud. The first carriage had passed safely on to terra firma, but the wheels of the second were perceived to be sinking, and the horses, terrified at no longer finding any footing, were becoming so unmanageable that a fatal catastrophe would have been almost inevitable, had not the men of the place hastened to the rescue and succeeded by their prompt energy in dragging the carriage out of danger.
The two prelates presented themselves at the entrance gate as the clock of the great tower began to strike eleven, and were saluted by acclamations so enthusiastic that it seemed as if the whole Mount were bidding them welcome. They proceeded up the steep lane that winds upward between houses that look as if piled almost one upon another, and which date from three or four centuries back, low, square, and solid, and having for the most part only one story, plunging their foundations into the rock, and wedged, as it were, against each other, the better to resist the force of hurricanes and tempests. Here and there trees of thick foliage overshadow the narrow, winding ascent, which at intervals through some unexpected opening shows a vast horizon over the waters of the Channel, with its lovely islands, and the coast of France.
The procession reached in due time the threshold of the ancient abbey, and, after a few words of warm and respectful welcome spoken to the bishops by the reverend father prior, entered the church.
There is something unique in the beauty of this basilica which so nobly crowns the summit of Mont Saint-Michel, and of which the four extremities rest on four enormous arched vaults founded in the rock. It possesses all the essential parts of a great cathedral—nave, aisles, transepts, choir, and apse. The nave is Roman, the choir Gothic, and the aisles Moresque or Byzantine. Boldly cut in granite, the architecture is as remarkable as the site.
The nave was formerly two hundred and forty feet in length, but underwent an irreparable mutilation under the First Republic, when it was shortened by the cutting away of four of its eight transverse vaultings. It nevertheless remains singularly imposing—simple even to severity, but relieved by its triforium and a gallery with deep arcades. The collateral arches, which are somewhat narrow, have the horseshoe form usual in Arabian architecture; the transepts, like the nave, are Roman, but of more recent date; the choir, which is of the best period of flamboyant Gothic, very delicately sculptured, has in the clerestory a square window of remarkable richness; and in the apse, which is of granite, delicate lines of tracery spring upwards with exquisite lightness. On the keystone of its vaulted roof is the escutcheon of the abbey. The choir is surrounded by bas-reliefs representing the four evangelists, and a ship, symbolical of the church militant, tossing on an angry sea which cannot overwhelm her, guided as she is by an unerring pilot—Fluctuat, non mergitur.
The noble edifice had on this day received an additional decoration from the number and beauty of the banners there displayed, the principal of which was a large standard in the nave representing the archangel St. Michael victorious over the dragon. On the balustrade in front of the altar were hung the sword and banner of General Lamoricière, with his motto, In Deo spes mea. Within the balustrade were erected the two episcopal thrones. The chapel of St. Michael, which occupies the left arm of the cross, and in which is the statue of the archangel, was thickly hung with the banners of the different parishes represented in the pilgrimage. Among their mottoes were such as these: Quis ut Deus? Defende nos in periculo; Deo soli semper Honor; Deo et Patriæ, etc. Above these floated the banner of the Sovereign Pontiff. There is in the same chapel some rich tapestry, the work and offering of the ladies of Avranches—les Avranchines, as they are prettily called in the country.
In the chapel facing this one, and in the left arm of the cross, are the two crowns offered to the glorious archangel, the one by the Holy Father, the other by the faithful of France. The latter, resplendent with diamonds and other precious stones of great value, is to be used next year for crowning the statue of St. Michael.
High Mass having been sung by the Bishop of Bayeux, his right reverend colleague addressed the assembled multitude. Mgr. Germain, although one of the youngest members of the French episcopate, is also one of the most eloquent, and owes simply to his merit the rapidity with which he has risen to be chief pastor of one of the most religious dioceses of France. As chaplain of the Lycée of Caen, he quickly gained the hearts of the youth placed under his spiritual care; as curé of the Cathedral of Bayeux, he made his influence felt in the whole city; and now, as Bishop of Coutances and Avranches, the influence for good which has marked each step of his career finds a wider field of action, of which he does not fail to profit. With a few words from his discourse, which are a summary of the whole, we conclude:
“The days in which we live find the church still engaged in a warfare similar to that which St. Michael, the champion of God, sustained against the rebel angels. Still the same revolt continues, and man has learnt from Satan to declare, ‘Non serviam!’ As children of God and of his church, let it be our happiness, as it is our privilege, to obey. God and his church having an authoritative claim on our obedience, let us see that ours shall resemble that of the blessed angels, which is loving, intelligent, thorough, and prompt.”