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.”
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.