St Michael's Mount

“ 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. ”

“ Trevennack’s eye was fixed on him now more carefully and more earnestly, Tyrrel observed, than ever.
“I wonder why it is,” Eustace Le Neve interposed, to spare Cleer’s feelings, “that so many high places, tops of mountains and so forth, seem always to be dedicated to St. Michael in particular? He seems to love such airy sites. There’s St. Michael’s Mount here, you know, and Mont St. Michel in Normandy; and at Le Puy, in Auvergne, there’s a St. Michael’s Rock, and at ever so many other places I can’t remember this minute.” ”

“ The village at the foot of the Mount, with its little harbour, occupies a humble feudal situation beneath the castle of my Lord St. Levan. If you would seek revived mediævalism in a democratic age, then St. Michael's Mount is the place to find it, for Lord St. Levan maintains a body of gorgeously liveried boatmen to row him across, to and from his island hold; and nowadays, instead of being free to ramble about the craggy sides of the Mount, the stranger must resign himself to a guide. ”

“ It is not for the inspection of these ruins that we direct the stranger to ascend the hill, for they are too insignificant to merit attention, but it is for the purpose of his viewing the extensive prospect which its summit commands,—a wild expanse of waters occupying twenty-nine points of the compass!—From this spot also Saint Michael's Mount has a singularly fine effect, appearing as if placed in the centre of a lake at a distance from the ocean. ”

“ PENZANCE HARBOUR: NIGHT.
But we leave these, and embark upon that little voyage of three miles to “the Mount,” as you come to abbreviate Saint Michael’s crags, across the shallow waters of the tumbling bay.
In less than half an hour our little launch runs alongside the massive stone walls of the tiny haven, at the foot of the historic Mount, and we presently disport ourselves upon its delightful slopes, whose history, with that of the grey castle above, goes back to very dim antiquity: a history of sieges, surprises, and fierce fights among the rocks, and on the sands below. ”

“ The only question which, in conclusion, I should like to address to geologists, is this: As geologists are obliged to leave it doubtful whether the insulation of St. Michael's Mount was due to the washing of the sea-shore, or to a general subsidence of the country, may it not have been due to neither of these causes, and may not the Mount have always been that kind of half-island which it certainly was two thousand years ago?
1867.
[pg 343]
XVI. BUNSEN.97 Ours is, no doubt, a forgetful age. Every day brings new events rushing in upon us from all parts of the world ”

“ The western shores are sprinkled with picturesque villages, churches, cottages, and villas; and near the eastern margin of the bay, a pile of rocks, supporting a venerable chapel on its summit, starts abruptly from the waves, and presents an appearance of a most singular and beautiful description—this is Saint Michael's Mount, an eminence equally celebrated in the works of the poet, the naturalist, the antiquary, and the historian. ”

“ St. Michael’s Mount is a pyramidal rock in Mounts Bay on the coast of Cornwall. This was guarded by the angel, St. Michael, whose gaze was directed seaward, toward Namancos and Bayona, in northwestern Spain. In some unknown place between these widely sundered limits, the body of Lycidas is tossed.
170. with new-spangled ore. Ore, from its original meaning of metal in the natural state, comes to signify metallic lustre generally. See Comus 719, 933. ”

“ The town of Penzance is rapidly extending itself; new houses are continually rising in commanding situations; and, since the publication of the first edition of this work, Hot and Cold Sea Baths have been completed upon a suitable scale of convenience. The waiting room belonging to this establishment commands a prospect of very singular beauty. St. Michael's Mount rising boldly in front, forms a striking relief to the extended line of coast which constitutes the back ground ”

“ It refers to the well-known apparition of St. Michael at Avranches. The third and fourth apparitions are of no consequence to us.
As we read on, we come next to William's own measurements, fixing the extent of St. Michael's Mount at two hundred cubits. After that we are met by a passage which, though it hardly construes, can be understood in one sense only, namely, as giving an account of the Abbey of St. Michel in Normandy. I suppose it is not too bold if I recognize in Aubertus Autbertus, and in Abrincensis antistes, the Abrincatensis episcopus or antistes, the Bishop of Avranches. ”

“ The origin of this outstanding mass, connected with the mainland only by a causeway covered save at low water, is “lost in antiquity,” as historians are wont to explain when nothing detailed or more satisfying is forthcoming. Some authorities, however, have thought that the Roman occupation324 or a period only a short time anterior to it saw the formation—by reason of seismic convulsion—of St Michael’s Mount, which was “cast up out of the bed of the sea.” ”

“ 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 255first time. The great human work thus seems as if arrested in its heavenward climbing ”

“ The first thought that comes to the visitor as he views the Mount from the shore is, What could have induced anyone to choose so difficult a site for the foundation of a monastery? But here legend conveniently steps in and explains all. In the eighth century Aubert, the Bishop of Avranches, one of the 241 most pious in an age of piety, was in the habit of retiring to the Mount for rest and meditation, and during one of his visits there the Archangel Saint Michael, the Prince of the Armies of the Lord, appeared to him and told him to build on the top of the Mount a sanctuary in his honour. ”

“ Many relics, chiefly armour and antique furniture, are preserved in the castle. The chapel of St Michael, a beautiful 15th-century building, has an embattled tower, in one angle of which is a small turret, which served for the guidance of ships. Chapel rock, on the beach, marks the site of a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary, where pilgrims paused to 'worship before ascending the Mount. ”

“ Michael’s Mount, adjoining the shore of this parish, is an object of great attention to the geologist as well as to the tourist. It is composed almost entirely of granite, having only two small patches of slate, one on the western and the other on the eastern side; at these two places, and more particularly at the latter, the junction of the granite and of the slate may be seen, the slate being intersected with numerous granite veins. The granite of the Mount is not so large-grained as that of the Land’s End ”

“ Michael’s Mount having been long a cell to Mount St. Michael in Normandy, the shrub may very probably have been introduced by the monks. It powerfully resists the sea winds, and grows freely on the banks of earth or sand surrounding inclosures near the shore. The wood is so solid as to sink in water.
The Panicum Dactylon grows on the bank of gravel lying between the sea, and the road leading from Marazion to Penzance.
The Sibthorpia Europæa may be found in great plenty about half a mile inland from thence, in a stream flowing westward by the road near Gulval church town. ”

“ Michael's Mount, an islet, forming a precipitous granite mass, in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, connected with the mainland by a low causeway passable only at low tides; a fine old castle crowns its rocky height, and a small fishing village lies sheltered on the northern side. ”

“ From the foot of Mount St. Michael you ascend the hill or rock through a narrow, crooked, craggy path to the outer portal or gate; a considerable height on the one side, by the way in the rock, is a small spring of water, that falls into pits made in the stones to lodge the same, for the lower or bottom inhabitants’ use; which water never intermits its currrent. ”

“ As one leans over it its waters may sometimes be seen to simmer and boil, and the peasants of the country-side devoutly believe that when this occurs infernal forces are working beneath, madly revelling, and that it is only the near presence of St Michael, whose mount is hard by, which restrains them from doing active harm to those who may have to cross the Yeun. ”

“ On which, Francis said to his companions: "Brother, money is, as regards the servants of God, but as a venomous serpent, and even the devil himself." We may here add, that it is the same thing for those who are too fond of it, and who avariciously keep it, or make it serve for the gratification of their passions. A chapel, which has been built in that place, is a memorial of the teaching of the Patriarch to the poor of Jesus Christ.
His devotion induced him also to visit the grotto consecrated by the apparition of the Archangel Michael, on Mount Gargano. ”

“ Tradition has not preserved the place where the vision appeared, but antiquarianism has attempted to supply the deficiency by conjecture; the spot was denominated "Saint Michael's Chair," and is said to be one of the large rocks overhanging the battery, an appellation which has been erroneously transferred to the carcase of a stone lantern, situated, as we have just stated, on the tower of the chapel. ”

“ Malo, and to the east the Bay of Mont St. Michel.
Michelet wrote of this famous mount off the Breton coast as follows:
“The gigantic rock is an abbey, a cloister, a fortress, and a prison, with exquisite sublimity and true dignity. It rises like a titanic tower, rock upon rock, keep upon keep, and century upon century. Below the monks; higher the iron cage of Louis XI. (who, it seems, left these details rather numerously about his domain) ; higher yet the cell of Louis XIV.; higher yet the prison of to-day. All is in a whirlwind; Mont St. Michel is a very sepulchre of peace.” ”

“ Then the entire population of these mountains flocks hither from the most distant heights and the most secluded valleys, so that church and village can scarcely contain the crowds. The legend is that on that day Saint Michael, although invisible, descends from the Eagle ridge and ploughs the earth with his flaming sword as he did visibly centuries ago, when his shrine was founded here. ”

“ The garden of God is a radiant place, And every flower has a holy face: Our Lady like a lily bends above the cloudy sod, But Saint Michael is the thorn on the rosebush of God. David is the song upon God's lips, And Our Lady is the goblet that He sips: And Gabriel's the breath of His command, But Saint Michael is the sword in God's right hand. The Ivory Tower is fair to see, And may her walls encompass me! But when the Devil comes with the thunder of his might, Saint Michael, show me how to fight! ”

“ At the summit of this mountain is a church in honour of St. Michael; the mountain is surrounded by the tide twice every day, at morning and evening, and men cannot go to the mountain until the sea retires. But on the Feast of St. Michael the sea does not join round the mountain when the tide comes in, but stands like walls to the right and left, so that on that day all who wish to perform their devotions there can pass to the mountain any hour of the day, which they cannot do on other days. There Phinimontius, a Breton, is abbot. ”

“ The views from this mountain are scarcely inferior to p. 304those from the Sugar-loaf; while its craggy form, its asperitous summit, jagged into an immense fissure, and shelving to a ridge apex of fearful narrowness, impress a mixed emotion of awe and admiration on the adventurous climber of the height, that more than compensates for a small inferiority of altitude. There was formerly, at the top of this mountain, a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St. Michael, of which no vestiges remain ”

“ The details that have come down to us of that Apparition are somewhat less full than those of the one at Monte Gargano, but the subsequent history of the French sanctuary, which stood for just a thousand years as an impregnable fortress, is connected, right through, with humanity as the lonely shrine of the South has never been. Its name alone is like a war-cry—“Saint Michel au Péril de la Mer,” Saint Michael of the Peril of the Sea—and bespeaks the invincible ally of the race that was once the ardent apostle of Christianity and its most valiant champion. ”

“ It is the common habit of hills and mountains, as we all know, to turn disdainful as they grow skyward; they only too eagerly drop, one by one, the things by which man has marked the earth for his own. To stand on a mountain top and to go down to your grave are alike, at least in this—that you have left everything, except yourself, behind you. But it is both the charm and the triumph of Mont St. Michel, that it carries so much of man's handiwork up into the blue fields of air ”