The apartment in which these miscreants were assembled, was a hall about one hundred feet long, by thirty-five or forty in breadth, and was adorned with two rows of massy, antique pillars, resembling those which we find in Gothic churches.  From hence we proceeded to the subterranean chapel, where are seen those prodigious columns upon which the weight of the whole building reposes.  The scanty light, which glimmers among these enormous shafts, is just sufficient to discover their magnitude to the eye, and to enable one to find his way among them.  Having crossed this chapel, we entered the quadrangular court, around which the cloisters, supported by small, graceful pillars, of the most delicate workmanship, extend.  Here the monks used to walk in bad weather, contriving the next day’s dinner, or imagining excuses for detaining some of the many pretty female pilgrims who resorted, under various pretences, to this celebrated monastery.  At present, it affords shelter to the veterans and gendarmes who keep guard over the prisoners below.

From various portions of the monastery, we obtain admirable views of sea and shore; but the most superb coup-d’oeil is from a tall slender tower, which shoots up above almost every other portion of the building.  Hence are seen the hills and coasts of Brittany, the sea, the sandy plain stretching inland, with the rivers meandering through it, and the long sweep of shore which encompasses the Greve, with Avranches, and its groves and gardens, in the back ground.  Close at hand, and almost beneath one’s feet, as it were, is the barren rock called the Tombelaine, which, though somewhat larger than the Mont St. Michel, is not inhabited.  Even this rock, however, was formerly fortified by the English; and several remains of the old towers are still found among the thorns and briers with which it is at present overrun.  Several fanciful derivations of the word Tombelaine are given by antiquaries, some imagining it to have been formed of the words Tumba Beleni, or Tumba Helenae; and in support of the latter etymology, the following legend is told:—­Helen, daughter of Hoel, King of Brittany, was taken away, by fraud or violence, from her father’s court, by a certain Spaniard, who, having conducted her to this island, and compelled her to submit to his desires, seems to have deserted her there.  The princess, overwhelmed with misfortune, pined away and died, and was buried by her nurse, who had accompanied her from Brittany.

At the Mont St. Michel was preserved, until lately, the enormous wooden cage in which state prisoners were sometimes confined under the old regime.