The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-19
GLORIES OF ST. MICHAEL
IT IS CROWNED WITH 4 BUILDING
 THAT IS CENTURIES OLD.

THAT IS CENTURIES OLD.
 There Are Refrectorles Where on a Time
 Good Cheer Abounded and There Are
 Also Cells in Which Prisoners Were
 Tortured to Death-rhere Are Thousands
 of Steps for the Tourist to Walk.
 Dinard, Aug. B. 1885
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER
 Divest East Rock of all the smaller rocks about 1t till it stands alone in It's columner grandeur with all It's sides nearly as upright as where it faces Or ange street; tow is out into some grand bay, Massachusetts bay for instance. anchor it midway between Plymouth and Provincetown: connect it with the main land by a long, broad causeway, and you will have a fair idea of Mt. St. Michael. When the tide Is in the cause- way is the only means of approach. When the tide is out the rock stands in the midst of vast sands reaching to the
 
 turous may come with safety if they be skilfully guided and tempt not the in- coming floods. But the picture is not yet half finished. Crown the rock with an immense church built of the archi- lectures of a thousand years. The foundations are of the tenth century. The spire is of to-day and incomplete. The nave shows the building skill of the dark ages. The choir is of lovely Gothic, fine and graceful though carved an adamant granite Down below are crypts where Druids worshipped and offered human sacrifices to their un- known deities. All about the church and way down the rock are enormous and varied buildings supported by huge buttresses reaching towards the sands. Here the abbots lived in princely splen- dor, entertained kings, exercised sover- eign justice, went forth to war and re- turned to incarcerate foes and behead prisoners. There are vast groined halls where Louis XI. held court and found- ed orders of knighthood. There are SUI. perb refectories where good cheer abounded in saintly measure. There are kitchens with fire-places wide and high, where oxen might roam while awaiting their turn to be spitted. You are led up and down, now by magnifi- cent stairways, now by narrow and tor turous steps cut in the rock and leading Ito dark and contracted cells where prisoners of state were tortured till death relieved their misery. Every step you take stirs the dust of some his- toric event which the guide sets forth with clear and delightful volubility. In one part of the enormous structure there seem to be three superimposed stories of enormous halls two halls to each story, each hall apparently many scores of feet long and but fewer wide. What grandeur the church produced during the ages when the world still be- lieved in archangles and in their pro- tecting power! Close to the church there is a. cloister than which no more beautiful bit of architecture exists in alt Europe. The next moment you may find yourself facing the enormous wheel which prisoners turned within like tread-horses, and by which provisions were drawn up from the depths below. Though there are thousands of steps up and down and your knees begin to creak and shake, interest never flags. Not till the next morning do your stiff and tired legs inform you with a groan That you are not as young as you were and that you need day off.
 About the base of the rock is the mar TOW circuitous ascending single street of the village. It starts where the causIeway ends and winds half way round the rock up to the entrance of the holy citadel. It is narrow and dir ty. On either side are the hostelries where pilgrims lodged; now hotels with flaming signs and gallant touts, male and female, who venture far out on the causeway to intercept and beguile the approaching stranger. "Poulard jeune' and ''Poulard aine' are the great rivals. Either will receive you so kindly and feed you so well that you will wish yourself a repeater. You will eat with a noisy busy crowd of all creeds and nations; some arriving with high expectations, others respectfully leaving with expectations more than filled; all happy, all crowding knees and elbows to make room for others. Some places you are happy to leave and nev- CT care to see again. Dinard, for in- stance. Other places you only com mence to see at the first visit and never exhaust. Mount St. Michael is of the inexhaus tible-like Litchfield. Histori- an, archaeologist and artist could roam dts halls together for weeks; each mo- ment full of new thoughts, new views, new inquiries. When was this arch blocked? Why and by whom was the door walled up? Can this capital be Of the twelfth century? What can be the date of this window? Where exactly did Frances I. sleep? See the light playing amid the lovely shafts of the cloisters. How glorious the expanse of sand, sea and sunshinen All about the bottom of the rock enclosing it, it's church, its palatial citadel and it's hum- ble village, are high walls of medieval
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