Mount MICHAEL

Mount MICHAEL, formerly one of the most celebrated state prisons of France, lies about 20 miles from Granville. It is a rock situated in the middle of the bay of Avranches; and is only accessible at low water. Nature has completely fortified one side, by its craggy and almost perpendicular descent, which renders it impracticable to mount it by any address or courage, however consummate. The other parts are surrounded by walls fenced with semilunar towers after the Gothic manner; but sufficiently strong, together with the advantage of its situation, to render it impregnable to any attack. At the foot of the mountain begins a street or town, which winds round its base to a considerable height. Above are chambers where state prisoners are kept, and where there are other buildings intended for residence. On the summit is erected the abbey itself, occupying a prodigious space of ground, and of a strength and solidity equal to its enormous size; since it has for many centuries withstood all the injuries of the weather, to which it is so much exposed. In an apartment, called the Sale de Chavalerie, the knights of St Michael used to meet in solemn convocation on important occasions. They were the defenders and guardians of this mountain and abbey, as those of the Temple, and of St John of Jerusalem, were of the holy sepulchre. The hall in which they met is very spacious, but rude and barbarous. At one end is a painting of the archangel, the patron of their order; and in this hall Louis XI. first instituted and invested with the insignia of knighthood the chevaliers of the cross of St Michael. There is a miserable dark apartment, or rather dungeon, in which many eminent persons were formerly confined. In the middle of it is a cage, composed of prodigious bars of wood; and the wicket which gives entrance into it is 10 or 12 inches in thickness. The inside of it comprises about 12 or 14 feet square, and it is nearly 20 in height. Towards

Michael wards the latter end of the 17th century, a newswriter in Holland, who had presumed to print some very severe and sarcastic reflections on Madame de Maintenon, was confined in this place. Some months after his publication, he was induced, by a person sent expressly for that purpose, to make a tour into French Flanders. The moment he had quitted the Dutch territories, he was put under arrest; and immediately, by his majesty's express command, conducted to Mount Michael, where he was shut up in this cage. Here he lived upwards of 23 years; and here he at length expired. During the long nights of winter, no candle or fire was allowed him. He was not permitted to have any book. He saw no human face, except the gaoler, who came once every day to present him, through a hole in the wicket, with his little portion of bread and wine. No instrument was given him with which he could destroy himself: but he found means at length to draw out a nail from the wood, with which he engraved, or cut on the bars of his cage, certain fleurs de lis and armorial bearings, which formed his only employment and recreation. They are very curiously performed considering the rudeness of his instrument.

The subterraneous chambers in this mountain are said to be so numerous, that the gaolers themselves do not know them. There are certain dungeons called aubliettes, into which they were accustomed anciently to let down malefactors guilty of very heinous crimes: they provided them with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, and then they were totally forgotten, and left to perish by hunger in the dark vaults of the rock. This punishment, however, has not been inflicted by any king in the last or present century.

Here also is a remarkable chamber, in one corner of which is a kind of window: between this and the wall of the building is a very deep space, of near 100 feet perpendicular, at the bottom of which is another window opening to the sea. It is called the Hole of Montgomeri; and the history of it is as follows: In the year 1559, Henry II. king of France was unfortunately killed at a tournament by the count de Montgomeri*. He was a Huguenot; and having escaped the massacre of Paris, made head against the royal forces in Normandy, supported by Queen Elizabeth with arms and money. Being driven from his fortresses in these parts, he retired to a rock called the Tombelaine. This is another similar to Mount Michael; only three quarters of a league from it, and of nearly equal dimensions. At that time there was a castle upon it, which has since been demolished, and of which scarce any vestiges now remain. From this fortress, accessible only at low-water, he continually made excursions, and annoyed the enemy, who never dared to attack him. He coined money, laid all the adjacent country under contribution, and rendered himself universally dreaded. Desirous, however, to surprise Mount Michael, he found means to engage one of the monks resident in the abbey; who promised to give him the signal for his enterprise by displaying a handkerchief. The monk having made the signal, betrayed him, and armed all his associates, who waited Montgomeri's arrival. The chieftain came, attended by 50 chosen soldiers, all desperate, and capable of any attempt. They crossed the sand; and having placed their scaling-ladders, mounted one by one. As they came to

the top, they were despatched, each in turn, without noise. Montgomeri, who followed last, discovered the perfidy, and escaped with only two of his men, with whom he regained the Tombelaine. They preserve with great care the ladders and grappling irons used on this occasion. The count was at last besieged and taken prisoner, by the maréchal de Matignon, in 1574, at Domfront, in Normandy; and Catharine de Medicis, who hated him for having been, though innocently, the cause of her husband's death, caused him to be immediately executed.

The church of Mount Michael is a great curiosity. It stands on nine pillars of most enormous dimensions, built on the solid rock. Each of them appears to be about 25 feet in circumference: besides these, there are two others much inferior in size, on which the centre of the church rests, and over which is the tower. The following is the legendary account of the origin of this church: In the reign of Childbert II. there was a bishop of Avranches named St Aubert. To this holy man the archangel Michael was pleased to appear one night, and ordered him to go to this rock to build a church. St Aubert treated this as a dream; upon which the angel appeared a second time; and being still disobeyed, he returned a third time, when, by way of imprinting his command upon the saint's memory, he made a hole in his skull, by touching it with his thumb. The skull is still preserved in the treasury of the church. It is enclosed in a little shrine of gold, and a crystal, which opens over the orifice, admits the gratification of curiosity by the minutest examination of it. The hole is of a size and shape proportionable to the thumb said to have produced it; but it is impossible to determine whether it has been really made by a knife or any other way. It is not to be supposed that the saint would forget such a sensible mark of the angel's displeasure; he therefore immediately repaired to the rock, and constructed a small church, as he had been commanded. Here, however, true history supplies the place of fable; and informs us, that it was in 966 when Richard the second duke of Normandy began to build the abbey. It was completed about the year 1070, under William the Conqueror, though many other additions were made by succeeding abbots.

In the treasury of the church are innumerable other relics: among which some few have a real and intrinsic value. There is a fine head of Charles VI. of France, cut in a crystal, and the representation of a cockle-shell in gold, weighing many pounds, given by Richard II. duke of Normandy, when he founded the abbey. There is an arm said to belong to St Richard king of England; but who this saint was it must be very difficult to determine. Such is the history of the prison, abbey, and church of Mount Michael previous to the revolution; they have probably undergone some changes since that period.

St MICHAEL'S, a borough town of Cornwall, between St Columb and Truro, 247 miles from London. Though one of the oldest boroughs in the county by prescription, and of great note in the Saxon times, it is a mean hamlet in the parishes of Newland and St Enidore; yet it is governed by a portreeve, chosen yearly by a jury of the chief inhabitants, out of the six chief tenants, called deputy lords of the manor, because they hold lands in the borough. Here

Michaelis is no market, but two fairs. A court-leet is held here twice a year. This place was formerly called Modihole, and afterwards Michael. Its list of members begins in the 6th of Edward VI.

St Michael's Mount, in the county of Cornwall, in the corner of Mount's Bay, is a very high rock, only divided by the tide from the main land, so that it is land and island twice a-day. The town here was burnt by the French in the reign of King Henry VIII. At the bottom of this mount, in digging for tin, there have been found spear heads, battle axes, and swords, of brass, all wrapt up in linen. The county is contracted here into a sort of isthmus, so that it is scarcely four miles between the Channel and the Severn sea.—Large trees have been driven in by the sea between this mount and Penzance.