he archangel St.
Michael, but afterwards styled the order of the Coquille, from the
cockleshells that formed the collar of the knights, and the golden
cockle-shells that bordered their mantles. The motto of the order was the
old motto of the Mount, "Immensi tremor Oceani" (the trembling of the
immeasurable ocean), being an allusion to the popular belief that when the
English approached St. Michel, the guardian archangel of the Mount raised
a tempest to drive the enemy's vessels upon the rocks. This belief may be
traced back to the time when the island was occupied by the Druid
priestesses, who were supposed to have the power of raising storms and
stilling them by their magic arrows of gold.

We ascended by the flight of steps to the "Merveille," as the convent
building is called, and well it deserves its name, from its elegance, its
boldness, and its position, with a wall of above one hundred feet high,
and of immense length, rising from the rock and supported by fifteen
buttresses, and divided into three stories. In every point of view it is
one of the most remarkable edifices of the thirteenth century. The salle
des chevaliers, where the chapters of the knights were held, is a fine
hall, with three rows of columns, and above it are the beautiful Gothic
cloisters. The "preau" or court is surrounded by a double row of pointed
arches, interlacing each other, and filled in with flowered spandrils and
cornices, carved with the greatest delicacy and endless variety. The
church which crowns the building is supported by a circle of enormous
columns in the crypt beneath, called the Souterrain des Gros Piliers: it
has been entirely restored, and the carvings are the work of the prisoners
who were confined here. From one of the doors we went out to the platform
or terrace called Beauregard, from the beauty of its prospect, or
sometimes Sault Gautier, from a prisoner of that name, who three times
threw himself off the platform to commit suicide. The view from hence is
most extensive, the whole circuit of the bay extending to the west as far
as Cancale. In 1203 St. Michel became a royal demesne, and the buildings
were entirely reconstructed by the Abbot Jourdan, assisted by Philip
Augustus; and the works were continued by his successors to 1260.

Beneath and adjacent to the Mount, is the little island of La Tombeleine
or tombeau d'-Helene, so called from a young lady of that name, who unable
to accompany her lover knight when he l