2-982-286 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St. Michel, 1858. 'Mont St. Michel...[is in] Lower Normandy, in the department of La Manche. There is something mysterious and almost awful in the aspect of this solitary cone of granite, rising alone out of the wide, level expanse of sand. One might imagine it the peak of some colossal mountain just piercing through the crust of the earth...Slight as is its elevation, its isolated position in the midst of the sea, and its heaven-pointed top, render it the prominent object of every view from the surrounding coast, and from a long distance give it the appearance of being much nearer at hand than it really is. On approaching it, it is found to be girt round at its base by a circlet of feudal walls and towers, washed by the sea; above these rise the quaint, irregular houses of the little town, plastered, as it were, against the rock, and piled one over another, Above them project the bare beds of rock, serving as a pedestal from which the lofty walls, high turrets, and prolonged buttresses of the conventual buildings are reared aloft, surmounted in their turn by the pinnacles and tower of the church (bearing a telegraph) which crowns the whole, and forms the apex of the pyramid'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.