Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-02
OLD MONT ST. MICHEL
1t Has Long Been Famous
for Eggs and Learning.
MECCA FOR TOURISTS
MINE HOSTESS COOKS oMELETTEs
FOR ALL CoMERS.
Chickens Thrive Remarkably at the
Monastery-Annette Poulard Has
Made Them Famous.
MECCA FOR TOURISTS

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
MONT ST. MICHEL, Normandy,
August IS, 1905.
Annette Poulard is the most celebrated
egg-cooli in all France.
There are few upper and middle-class
Frenchmen, of the north, at least, who have
rot eaten of her omelettes. This is because
Annette has been for thirty years fixture
beside tie gigantic old milltary-and- monas-
tic Gothic structure of Mont st. Michel,
more visited by touring Frenchmen than
no matter what sight of the past In France
OF the tens Of thousands of touring Ameri-
cans, also, there are few, indeed, who DO
not look in on the towering monument;
and as they all must eat, and as the ONE
lettes of Annette are the standby of the
isolated spot, her celebrity is American
as well as French.
The spot is on the English channel coast.
1t is a gigantic island-rock connected with
the mainland by a causeway. Up TO the
year 1US it formed part of the mainland
surrounded by the forest of SCisSey and be-
ing called Mount Tumba. St. Aubert, an
ancient French bishop, built chapel to
Saint Michael on its granite summit.
Then d tidal-wave swallowed up the for
est and made an island of the rocky point,
which IN time. thanks TO the liberalties of
Dukes of Normandy and Kings of France,
became TIE seat u IL very iI'Ii bei'uI1tiiiS
monastery and strong fortress against the
English For centuries II remained such,
being enlarged and beautiiied by marVeis
of architectural labor and becoming the
strongest as well the most learned and
pious spot of all the coast of France. For
that matter the English beseiged it in vain
In the years 14lT. l423 and 1894. Today 1t
is an empty sightplace, swept and gar
nished and beautifully restored by the arch-
iteCt Corroyer.
Now for the present The causeway is
two miles long, and Pontorson, the nearest
village. Is eight miles inland The only oc-
cupation of Mont ST. Michels population
is to keep the gigantic monument in repair
and to feed and lodge visitors and sell them
relics photographs and illustrated post
cards Mont. st. Michel produces nothing
but eggs
You have seen vertical hotels? In the old
days hotels used to be horizontal. Today
an eighteen-story hotel may be called YER
teal. But here the hotels are diagonal
The whole town exists bling
the mountain-rock at an angle Of forty-five
degrees. You enter a hotel. You go up
stairs to the dining room; and on upstairs
again to the smoking room and parlors.
Annette Poulard will promise you room
on the second floor. That means two floors
above the parlor, does 1t not? Yes; and for
most Of the rooms you have to quit the
house by way of the roof and mount a
stone staircase with an iron balustrade to
protect you from falling into the void!
Efghty-seven steps bring you to terrace
cut In the rock, with q view or the sea ana
breakfast and smoking-room Enclosed in
glass.
These make the first floor in this ingenious
counting All along the terrace is villa
like construction three floors high. Up to
the second. Up to the third. There is moth
ing but lot of bed rooms, each having its
own little covered balcony with a view of
the sea.
And so on. Annette Poulard runs the big
hotel of Mont ST. Michel, and no tourist
ever yet learned where 1t begins or where
II ends. She can always send you up
higher, and the higher you go the better Is
the view; and the nearer you are to the
marvellous old monastery-fortress itself,
perched on the summit of the mountain
rock.
Repute Built on Eggs.
An eleventh century manuscript-written
| by Benedictine who made the conquest OF
England with William the NormahAde-
! scribes Mont St. Michael even in his days,
as 1.-THE most bilious city Of Gaul." City
in this sense means simply an important as
semblage of persons dwelling together: two
centuries later this same monastery was
also called 1.-The City of Erudition" because
it contained the greatest library In western
Europe. The eleventh century Benedictine
went on to explain himself. It was because
Of eggs.
In this monastery, perched on the rocks,
separated from the mainland at high tide
] and vogy much q fortress built for stand