Every one who has the slightest regard for historical monuments, who values mediaeval architecture, or cares in the least degree for the beautiful and the picturesque, must heartily sympathize with M. Victor Hugo in his protest against the proposed scheme for uniting the wonderful island of Mont St. Michel with the mainland by means of a causeway, and possibly a railway!
Those who know Mont St. Michel well, and, like the writer, have spent several days upon the island, cannot but feel that such a scheme would not only be a frightful disfigurement, but would entirely destroy all the associations and the poetry of the place. Practical people will say, "Modern improvement cannot stop in its march forward to consider poetical associations and mere artistic whims and fancies." Now, this would be a possible argument if Mont St. Michel were a busy, thriving town, a commercial port, or the seat of great industries; but in a case where the only trade is that of touting, the only visitors sightseers, the only "stock-in-trade" mediaeval remains, surely, from a practical point of view, anything which will injure these antiquities will really destroy the importance of the island, as its only value consists in its wonderful historic and artistic associations.



The first glimpse of Mont St. Michel is strange and weird in the extreme. A vast ghostlike object of a very pale pinkish hue suddenly rises out of the bay, and one's first impression is that one has been reading the "Arabian Nights," and that here is one of those fairy palaces which will fly off, or gradually fade away, or sink bodily through the water. Its solemn isolation, its unearthly color, and its flamelike outline fill the mind with astonishment.
Mont St. Michel is by far the most perfect example of a mediaeval fortified abbey in existence, with its surrounding town and dependencies, all quite perfect; just, in fact, as if time had stood still with them since the fifteenth century. The great granite rock rises to the height of two hundred and thirty feet out of the bay; it is twice an island and twice a peninsula in the course of twenty-four hours. The only approach is at low water, by driving or walking across the sands. When, however, one arrives within a few yards of the solitary gate to the "town," walking or driving has to be abandoned, and here the commercial industries of the inhabitants commence. A number of individuals, half sailors and half fishermen, are standing ready to carry you on their shoulders over the small gully, which is very rarely quite dry. Entering through the old gate one sees two ancient pieces of cannon taken from the English, who unsuccessfully laid siege to the place in 1422. Close to the gate are the two rival inns, which are very primitive in their arrangement, the entrance hall forming the kitchen, as in many old Breton houses.



A second frowning old gateway leads to the single street, which, passing between two rows of antique gabled houses, and under the chancel of the little parish church, conducts one to the almost interminable flight of stone steps leading to the gateway of the monastery. Upon ringing the bell a polite lay brother opens the iron-studded door, and we are admitted into a solemn, vaulted hall, with another stone staircase opposite. Here we go up and up, to a second vaulted hall, where, in olden times, we should have had to give up any arms which we were carrying. Then another stone staircase, which lands us in a small court with a well in it, at the opposite end of which is a heavy and solid arched doorway. We pass through this, expecting to find ourselves on the top of the central tower of the church at least, and are surprised to find ourselves in the solemn and almost dark crypt of the church. Here we have climbed up some 230 feet above the world and the sea to find ourselves in an underground vault; up in the air and down under the rock at the same time. Wonderfully beautiful is this strange crypt, when one's eye gets accustomed to the gloom, with its exquisite ribbed and vaulted roof, supported upon huge circular columns.
Returning to the court, another doorway conducts us into a most superb Gothic hall, with a row of slender columns down the center. This was the monks' refectory in ancient times; adjoining this is another grand hall, divided into four aisles by rows of granite columns, all of the most perfect thirteenth century work. Above these are two other halls, still more magnificent than those below. One of these, called the "Salle des Chevaliers," is probably the most beautiful Gothic hall in existence. Again a flight of stone stairs, and we find ourselves, where we should certainly not have expected, in the cloisters of the monastery, the exquisite architecture of which, with its countless marble columns and delicate double arcades, cannot be described.
 The church deserves a few words, as it is a veritable cathedral as to size and grandeur. The choir is immensely lofty, and constructed of granite most elaborately wrought in the later Gothic or flamboyant style. The nave and transepts are in the old Romanesque style, with solid pillars and low round arches. The church is beautifully kept, and contains some very interesting old reredoses and altars with carving in alabaster. The one modern altar in the Lady Chapel is composed entirely of silver! Our space will not permit us to describe the numerous interesting old Abbey buildings--the library, the prior's lodging, the vast kitchen, the prisons, the dungeons, and the means of supplying the place in times of siege. The proposed causeway would join the island to the left of our view, and our readers can imagine the abominable effect of a high embankment disfiguring this point, and breaking through the interesting old walls and towers, with, perhaps, a Brummagem Gothic station against the old time-worn gateway.--H. W. Brewer, in London Graphic.