In and out of Three Normandy Inns

by Anna Bowman Dodd

And that was the beginning of our deeds finding favor in the eyes of
Madame Poulard.

It was our happy fate to drink many a morning cup of coffee at those little iron tables; to have many a prolonged chat with the charming landlady of the famous inn; to become as familiar with the glories and splendors of the historical hill as with the habits and customs of the world that came up to view them.

For here our journey was to end.

The comedy of life, as it had played itself out in Normandy inns, was here, in this Inn on a Rock, to give us a series of farewell performances. On no other stage, we were agreed, could the versatile French character have had as admirable and picturesque a setting; and surely, on no other bit of French soil could such an astonishing and amazing variety of types be assembled for a final appearance, as came up, day after day, to make the tour of the Mont.

To the shore, and for the whole of the near-lying Breton and Norman rustic world, the Mont is still the Hill of Delight. It is their Alp, their shrine, the tenth wonder of the world, a prison, a palace, and a temple still. In spite of Parisian changes in religious fashions, the blouse is still devout; for curiosity is the true religion of the provincial, and all love of adventure did not die out with the Crusades.

Therefore it is that rustic France along this coast still makes pilgrimages to the shrine of the Archangel St. Michael. No marriage is rightly arranged which does not include a wedding-journey across the grève; no nuptial breakfast is aureoled with the true halo of romance which is eaten elsewhere than on these heights in mid-air. The young come to drink deep of wonders; the old, to refresh the depleted fountains of memory; and the tourist, behold, he is as a plague of locusts let loose upon the defenceless hill!

After a fortnight's sojourn, Charm and I held many a grave consultation; close observation of this world that climbed the heights had bred certain strange misgivings. What was it this world of sight-seers came up to the Mont for to see? Was it to behold the great glories thereof, or was it, oh, human eye of man! to look on the face of a charming woman I It was impossible, after sojourning a certain time upon the hill, not to concede that there were two equally strong centres of attractions, that drew the world hither-ward. One remained, indeed, gravely suspended between the doubt and the fear, as to which of these potential units had the greater pull, in point of actual attraction. The impartial historian, given to a just weighing of evidence, would have been startled to find how invariably the scales tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable, shot up like feathers in lightness when over-weighted by the modern realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an omelette of omelettes, and the all-conquering charms of Madame Poulard. The fog of doubt thickened as, day after day, the same scenes were enacted; when one beheld all sorts and conditions of men similarly affected; when, again and again, the potentiality in the human magnet was proved true. Doubt turned to conviction, at the last, that the holy shrine of St. Michael had, in truth, been, violated; that the Mont had been desecrated; that the latter exists now solely as a setting for a pearl of an inn; and that within the shrine—it is Madame Poulard herself who fills the niche!

The pilgrims come from darkest Africa and the sunlit Yosemite, but they remain to pray at the Inn of the Omelette. Yonder, on the grèves, as we ourselves had proved, one crosses the far seas and one is wet to the skin, only to hear the praises sung of madame's skill in the handling of eggs in a pan; it is for this the lean guide strides before the pilgrim tourist, and that he dippeth his trident in the waters. At the great gates of the fortifications the pilgrim descends, and behold, a howling chorus of serving-people take up the chant of: "Chez Madame Poulard, à gauche, à la renommée de l'omelette!" The inner walls of the town lend themselves to their last and best estate, that of proclaiming the glory of "L'Omelette." Placards, rich in indicative illustrations of hands all forefingers, point, with a directness never vouchsafed the sinner eager to find the way to right and duty, to the inn of "L'Incomparable, la Fameuse Omelette!" The pilgrims meekly descend at that shrine. They bow low to the worker of the modern miracle; they pass with eager, trembling foot, into the inner sanctorum, to the kitchen, where the presiding deity receives them with the grace of a queen and the simplicity of a saint.

Life on the Mont, as we soon found, resolved itself into this—into so arranging one's day as to be on hand for the great, the eventful hour. In point of fact there were two such hours in the Mont St. Michel day. There was the hour of the cooking of the omelette. There was always the other really more tragic hour, of the coming across the dike, of the huge lumbering omnibuses. For you see, that although one may be beautiful enough to compete successfully against dead-and-gone saints, against worn out miracles, and wonders in stone, human nature, when it is alive, is human nature still. It is the curse of success, the world over, to arouse jealousy; and we all have lived long enough to know that jealousy's evil-browed offspring are named Hate and Competition. Up yonder, beyond the Porte du Roi, rivalry has set up a counter-shrine, with a competing saint, with all the hateful accessories of a pretty face, a younger figure, and a graceful if less skilled aptitude in the making of omelettes in public.

The hour of the coming in of the coaches, was, therefore, a tragic hour.