Mont-Saint-Michel

In the Gallo-Roman times on the site of the present Gulf of St. Michel, a thick forest rustled, and the future Mountain was a low hill. The first Christian hermits chose it as a place of solitude and prayer. The local people wore food for the devotees, and in their time buried their remains. The previously unknown hill was called the Grave Mountain. By the 7th century, the ocean had absorbed the land, and the mountain had taken on modern outlines, and in 709 the first monastery was founded on the summit. Over the centuries it has grown, changed its owners several times, experienced many wars and sieges, was once burnt to the ground and restored to a pebble - until it was closed during the years of the French Revolution. The monks were banished, their cells were turned into cells for political prisoners. The most dismal period of Mont Saint Michel lasted almost 100 years, and only in the late 19th century the prison was closed, and Mont Saint-Michel received the status of a national museum. In 1966 part of the monastery was returned to the Catholic Church, and now the Benedictine brothers serve Mass daily in the chapel of the abbey.