Breakfast at the Abbaye Royale Hotel is a wonderful way to start any day, for the restaurant is built around the lazar house cloisters. It is like gazing through a window to the past. So despite our rather bumpy introduction to Fontevrault, we were all very happy to be here. And we were eager to begin the day’s expedition. If Henry had left his heart in Le Mans, Eleanor gave hers to the city we would be visiting today, Poitiers.

Like Le Mans, Poitiers is an ancient city and may have been the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania in the second century. It was known then as Limonum and boasted two amphitheatres that were as large as the Coliseum in Rome. Sadly, not a trace remains of them, for their ruins were utterly razed in 1857 by very ill-advised city councilors. In the Middle Ages, Poitiers was the center of the dominions ruled by the powerful Dukes of Aquitaine. Eleanor was often here during the course of her long and eventful life and in 1199, she issued a charter bestowing autonomy and communal rights upon the city. We felt Henry’s presence very strongly in Le Mans, were sure that we would find Eleanor in Poitiers.

We were lucky, too, to have a very special guide in Mary McKinney. Mary is an American who has lived in Poitiers for the past ten years, teaching at a local university, and if she weren’t a friend, I’d be stricken with envy, for she has the life I’d love for myself. She gets to hear Mass in Eleanor’s cathedral, to visit castles and abbeys whenever she has a free weekend, and she plans to spend Christmas this year in Carcassonne. It doesn’t get any better than that!

When my friend Valerie and I visited Poitiers in 2009, Mary offered to give us a private tour of Eleanor’s city, and we had so much fun that I was determined our tour group would experience one of Mary’s tours, too. She met us in Poitiers and I am sure she surprised Janus by greeting him in Hungarian. Mary spent time in Hungary on her travels; she has probably racked up more frequent flyer miles than Marco Polo, assuming they had them in the 14th century, of course.

For me, the high point of Mary’s tour was the Palais de Justice, the great hall of the palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s notorious grandfather, William IX, added a donjon in 1104 and named it after his equally notorious mistress, the aptly named Dangereuse, wife of a neighboring lord, the Viscount of Chatellerault. When he moved Dangereuse into the palace, that was the last straw for his long-suffering wife and she took up residence at Fontevrault Abbey, where she must have had some interesting conversations with her husband’s first wife, a frequent guest. William then added insult to injury by wedding his son to Dangereuse’s daughter; the result of this unlikely union was our Eleanor. In Saints, I have a scene where Henry and Eleanor share their family histories on their wedding night, in between lovemaking. It is not easy to impress a man who can claim the Demon Countess of Anjou as one of his ancestors, but Eleanor manages it with her stories about her grandsire. Henry finds it hilarious that “your grandfather was having an affair with his son’s mother-in-law,” and points out gleefully that “between the two of us, we’ve got a family tree rooted in Hell!”

So the palace must have seen some truly fascinating scenes during those years that the Dukes of Aquitaine reigned over Poitiers. We owe the stunningly beautiful great hall to Eleanor. Today it is known as the Palais de Justice, but in Eleanor’s time, it was called La Salle des Pas Perdus, the “hall of lost footsteps,” for it was huge, one of the largest halls in Europe, 160 feet in length, 55 feet in width. The original beamed ceiling has been replaced, but the splendor remains. Eleanor often held court here and the hall must have resounded with the music of the finest troubadours in Christendom. It was also here that Joan of Arc was subjected to an intense three week interrogation by the Archbishop of Reims in 1429; the churchmen concluded that the king might lawfully receive this “simple shepherd-maiden” for “there was nothing found in her which was not Catholic and reasonable.”

The city ramparts are ancient, too. The first set dates back to Roman times and the second set was ordered and funded by Eleanor. And the city’s main street, the Grand Rue, once echoed with the footsteps of Roman legionnaires, then the pageantry of its medieval dukes—and one unforgettable duchess. The churches of Poitiers are memorable, too. The cathedral of St Pierre was begun in 1162 by Henry and Eleanor, the older cathedral razed to make way for the new one; it was in the older cathedral that Henry and Eleanor were wed on May 18, 1152. The magnificent stained glass Crucifixion Window is said to have been donated by Henry and Eleanor, and they are portrayed in the bottom panel of the window. So our visit to the cathedral was special to all of us.

The church of Notre Dame la Grand is truly superb. It was first mentioned in 924 AD and was rebuilt in the second half of the 12th century. The west front of the church is one of the finest Romanesque facades in France, looking as it did when Eleanor attended Mass there. When I was here in 2009, Mary was telling me about an eagle etched into a window in appreciation for Eleanor’s generosity to the church. She’d never been able to find it, she said, despite numerous attempts to locate it. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than we both happened to glance upward and, lo and behold, there was Eleanor’s eagle. When we first arrived at Notre Dame la Grand, a Mass was in progress; imagine what it would be like to attend services in a church more than eight centuries old. Most of us missed seeing another beautiful church, for we were pressed for time, the abbey church of St Hilaire, a stop on the pilgrim route to San Juan de Compostella. Built in the 11th century over a Roman cemetery, St Hilaire was the site for the funeral and burial in March, 1168 of Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, uncle of the celebrated William Marshal, slain when Eleanor was ambushed by the de Lusignans. And in June of 1172, Eleanor’s son Richard was consecrated as Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine here.

We left Eleanor’s city with reluctance and headed back to the abbey that became her home in the years after Richard’s death. On the way, we stopped for a wine-tasting at a local winery; Chinon is famous for its red wines. We got back to the hotel in time to visit the abbey bookstore, where we discovered that they were selling some of my novels. I was pleased, of course, for they didn’t offer that many English language books, but at least this time I did not give out an excited and undignified squeal the way I did when I was there in 2006 and found one of my novels on their shelves.

J.D. had made dinner reservations for us at the restaurants in Fontevrault, sparing us the need for another emergency run to the McDonalds in Saumur. Some of us dined at the Plantagenet, more of us at La Licorne, the Unicorn. It is remarkable that such a small village would have a restaurant as exceptional as this one. But then, this is France. Afterward, we walked back to the hotel as a misting rain began to fall and got ready for our night tour of the abbey. Stay tuned for that.

I pick up the story on Wednesday, June 8th, in early evening. After a delightful afternoon in Le Mans, a wonderful place for communing with our Angevin ghosts, we headed for Fontevrault Abbey; by the way, I use the older spelling instead of the more modern Fontevraud for consistency, as this is what I’ve used since Here Be Dragons. But we were to encounter an unexpected obstacle on the way.

As we approached the Pont de Varennes sur Loire, the bridge spanning the River Loire, it became apparent at once that we had a problem. This was a very narrow bridge and there was no way our large tour bus would be able to stay in its own lane. There was no other route to Fontevrault, though. I’ve always been in awe at the driving skills of those who handle these huge buses; it sometimes seems as if they are trying to get that camel through the needle’s eye, and amazingly enough, they usually do. I’ve encountered tour buses on Welsh mountain roads with my heart in my mouth. Once I saw two behemoth buses trying to squeeze around each other on Aberglasyn Pass; it was like a mating dance of dinosaurs. So I’ve had experience with big buses and narrow roads. But I was not prepared for what happened next.

Fortunately, traffic was very light and once the bridge was clear of other cars, our intrepid guide, J.D., got out to lead us to the promised land, and Janus, our equally intrepid bus driver, began to edge out onto the bridge. It was then that we learned France has its fair share of crazy drivers, for a woman drove onto the other end of the bridge and headed right for us. Now if she failed to notice a six ton bus, she must have had a seeing-eye dog as her co-pilot. But on she came. Meanwhile, several other death-defying drivers seemed about to follow her out onto the bridge. J.D. ran over to her car, explaining politely that she really had to back up since we couldn’t. She was having none of that, though. I wouldn’t have objected had J.D. commandeered her car and backed it up himself, but I guess he didn’t want to see the inside of a French jail. So Janus took up the gauntlet Crazy Lady had thrown down and we began to creep across the bridge, with J.D. doing his best to keep our tour from ending up in the Loire. Thanks to Janus’s remarkable driving skills — and maybe a little help from Eleanor — we managed to squeeze by Crazy Lady’s car without making contact, and the other kamikaze drivers had thought better of it and backed up. As for me, I can only marvel that some people can apparently drive without ever activating their brains. Forget that old cliché about ignoring the elephant in the living room. From now on, I’ll be thinking of the bus on the bridge.

When we reached Fontevrault, Janus must have sworn under his breath at sight of the village. In the Middle Ages, village streets were not designed to accommodate modern tour buses. Janus had to maneuver us along streets that reminded me of a scene in Prince of Darkness, where Justin is caught in an alley that was a sword’s length in width. It was not quite that bad in Fontevrault, but Janus needed nerves of steel and eyes in the back of his head. Eventually we made it to the abbey and J.D. had to ask for admittance at the gate, just as he would have done in the Middle Ages. Well, aside from using an inter-com, of course.

The Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud is one of my favorite hotels, located in the abbey lazar house, or leper hospital. The last time I stayed there, I loved the intimacy, for hotel guests had the free run of the abbey after the other tourists were kicked out. So I felt as if I were coming home — only this turned out to be a home in which the cupboards were bare. The hotel’s restaurant is renowned for its cuisine, and I’d anticipated our group having dinner there. I was truly taken aback when we learned they were fully booked and could accommodate only five people. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I was one of the five, but we assumed the rest of our group would be able to get dinner in the restaurants in Fontevrault. We were wrong.

While the Lucky Five were enjoying a wonderful dinner, our friends were wandering the village in search of sustenance. Some of them were able to get into the last seating at the Plantagenet, but the other restaurants in Fontevrault were closed. It wasn’t that late, but once you are out in the French countryside, you soon find that village life is not like the Las Vegas Strip. Our flock couldn’t have had a better shepherd than J.D. and he arranged for Janus to drive fifteen of the group to Saumur, which is about 20 minutes away. Saumur is not a village like Fontevrault, has a population of over 25,000. But apparently they are larks, not owls, for all of their restaurants were closed by the time our group arrived. Well, there was one place still open, a McDonalds, so they could stave off starvation. But on the way back, they took a wrong turn; the roads in rural France are almost as pitch-black as mountain roads in Wales. They soon found themselves at a dead end, on a very narrow road, with ditches on each side of the bus. Janus is an excellent driver and got everyone safely back to our hotel, but the next time he is asked to leave Hungary for a job in France, he may well head for the hills, and who could blame him?

I’d never encountered a problem like this at the hotel, but I was there in the off-season. This was June and there just wasn’t room at the inn. Nor could we have made reservations in advance, not knowing when we’d be arriving. Their attitude did seem somewhat rigid to me, though, for they must have known that the local restaurants were closing. Couldn’t something have been done for thirty-nine hungry pilgrims? We’d have been happy with fruit and cheese and bread! Had Eleanor and her entourage arrived at the abbey in the middle of the night, they’d never have been turned away. So there is a drawback to democracy, after all. I’d still go back to the Abbaye Royale. Only if I came again in high season, I think I’d be sure to pack some snacks.

Next day we will be visiting Eleanor’s capital city, Poitiers, then after a stop at a winery, we will return to Fontevrault for a night tour of the abbey.

July 14, 2011

We arrived at Mont St Michel on Tuesday evening, still early enough to do a little shopping before our dinner at La Mere Poulard. The main street is crammed with small shops, all selling trinkets and souvenirs and any item you could possibly want stamped with the name Mont St Michel. Some people might have thought the scene was tawdry or tacky. Not us, for we knew how very medieval it was. In the Middle Ages, the same row of shops fronted the main street; only then they were selling pilgrim badges instead of post cards. Medieval merchants depended upon the flow of pilgrims just as the modern ones depend upon the crush of tourists. Human nature has not changed over the centuries and we all want mementos. It is just that in the MA, they came in the shape of scallop shells (San Juan de Compostela), badges depicting St Michael slaying the dragon (Mont St Michel) leaden images of the Blessed Mother Mary (Our Lady of Rocamadour) and little vials of the blood of the holy martyr, St Thomas of Canterbury. In Devil’s Brood, Henry cannot resist a snarky comment that it was almost a miracle in itself that Thomas bled enough to keep filling the little tin phials that the monks gave to pilgrims who made offerings at his shrine. But pilgrim badges were an important element of the medieval economy. In the late 14^th century, the citizens of Mont St Michel petitioned the French king, complaining that the tax imposed on the sale of pilgrim souvenirs was hurting their livelihoods; the king, who was devoted to St Michael, agreed to exempt Mont St Michel pilgrim badges from taxation in perpetuity. I suspect, though, that today’s merchants on Mont St Michel are not so lucky.

So after hitting the shops, we returned to our hotel, La Mere Poulard, which has been renowned since the 19^th century. I’d never stayed there before because I knew none of the island hotels had ascenseurs, lifts, or elevators, and in the interest of self-preservation, I’d chosen to stay at the Hotel Le Relais St Michel at the head of the causeway, which is a bit pricey but offers truly spectacular views of the abbey from the hotel balconies. I thought it was a good idea to book us into La Mere Poulard, though, for I knew our tour group would enjoy the medieval ambiance after all the other tourists had gone home. So for my readers planning to make pilgrimages of your own to Mont St Michel, pick one of the island hotels if you want to be able to wander about after dark. But unless you are as agile as a mountain goat or travel with only a toothbrush since cars are forbidden, it might be best to go with one of the hotels clustered by the causeway.

We had a private dinner that night in the hotel restaurant, and it was so much fun. We really had a good group, and friendships were already being forged that will last long after our memories of the tour start to fade. The food was excellent, with just one disappointment — the Flaming Dessert of Doom, as one of us called it. This was the house speciality, an omelette that actually resembles a soufflé and is cooked over an open fire. It was certainly entertaining to watch its preparation. The result, though, did not live up to the pyrotechnics or to its renowned reputation — at least for most of us. A few dissenters enjoyed it, Paula being one. Being a vegetarian, though, she was probably grateful for any food she could actually eat; French chefs didn’t seem all that interested in offering up tasty alternatives for non-meat eating guests.

The next morning I disregarded my inner warning voice and went for a walk along the steep medieval street. This entailed tackling way too many stairs and by the time we were ready to head out for our tour of the abbey, I was not only in considerable pain again but I was out of breath, too, which alarmed my doctor friend, John. Fortunately, the travel agency had hired a local guide for the abbey visit. So, knowing I would not be able to manage the 900 plus steps without a pair of wings, I sensibly elected to wait for them at the hotel, making use of Motrin and my support pillow. I’d bought a lumbar pillow especially for the trip and it had been very useful on the flight over, but it somehow disappeared between the airport and our Paris hotel. I’d asked J.D., our guide, if he could pick up another one for me and he found a perfectly-sized little pillow that would prove to be a godsend on our bus rides. I mention it because the pillow will figure in the story later on; consider this a clue.

For an abbey, Mont St Michel has a surprising amount of violence in its history. After Philippe Capet took Normandy from John, his Breton allies lay siege to the island, and the town and part of the abbey itself went up in flames. It would be caught up in the One Hundred Years’ War, too, and in 1424, it was once again besieged, this time by the English, and was saved by the Bretons. The French monarch known as the Universal Spider, Louis XI, created the Order of the Knights of Saint Michael, with the Archangel as its first member. Louis also created an appalling punishment for those poor souls who fell out of favor — a wood and metal cage suspended from the ceiling at the Mont; each time the prisoner inside moved, the whole cage would rock wildly. Political prisoners would be sent here in years to come, truly a fate worse than death for many. But ironically, it would be prisoners who saved the abbey from what befell so many other medieval treasures. By the eighteenth century, the buildings were falling into ruin. It is likely it would have suffered the fate of so many castles and abbeys, torn apart by local people in search of building material, had it not been converted into a prison, the “Sea Bastille.” But in the 19th century, people began to realize the importance of the abbey’s past, and in 1874, it was declared a historic monument — for which countless visitors are eternally grateful.

I had time to ponder the history of Mont St Michel during the two hours that the rest of the tour was getting a guided tour of the abbey. Not all of our guides were first-rate; that is the luck of the draw, after all. This one was very good and they told me she brought the past to vivid life for them. I am just sorry the did not get to see Notre Dame Sous Terre, one of the oldest parts of the abbey, an 11th century church where I committed a murder in Prince of Darkness.

As the abbey’s dramatic silhouette slowly faded into the distance, we sped toward our next destination. Le Mans is an ancient city, founded during the reign of the Emperor Augustus around 20 BC, known as Vindinium; its Roman walls are among the best preserved in Europe. To many people today, Le Mans means the Grand Prix. To me and my fellow medieval geeks, it means the city that Henry II most loved, a city that was the beating heart of the Angevin Empire. Henry was born here, christened here, came here often during his long reign, and suffered his greatest defeat here, when he was forced to flee the city before the forces of his son Richard and the French king. The chroniclers reported that he reined in on the crest of a hill and, as he looked back at the burning city, his anguish gave way to a wild, unholy rage. To the horror of his companions, he vowed that since God had taken from him the city where he was born and where his father was buried, he would deny the Almighty his soul.

We had a wonderful guide at Le Mans and she gave us a fascinating tour of the magnificent cathedral of St Julien and the medieval part of the town, known as Cite Plantagenet. La Cathedrale St Julien is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. There was a church on this site since the 5^th century; the present cathedral was begun in the 11^th century, consecrated in 1120. It has a Romanesque nave and a High Gothic Choir, and a collection of stained glass that only Chartres can rival. Above all, it resonates with the history of the Angevin dynasty. Henry’s parents were wed here in June of 1128. Henry was born in the palace, christened here in the cathedral, as were his brothers. Geoffrey was buried here. Henry was a generous patron of the cathedral, paying for the amazing flying buttresses, and as we gazed upon the spectacular stained glass Ascension window, we knew that Henry had often gazed upon it, too.

Our walk through the Cite Plantagenet was an absolute delight — cobbled streets and half-timbered houses, more than a hundred of them. Le Mans has begun to restore the original colors of these medieval houses, vivid reds, greens, and blues. People don’t always realize how colorful the Middle Ages were. Seven of these houses are decorated with bright corner pillars, one way of identifying locations, for all streets did not have names and none had numbers; if directions referred to the “red pillared house,” the inhabitants had a point of reference — rather clever, actually.

In Henry’s time, there were two royal residences in Le Mans, the ancient castle near the cathedral and the palace in the Place St Pierre, where he had been born and where he and Eleanor stayed upon their visits to the city. The palace would also be home for Richard Coeur de Lion’s queen, Berengaria. She was his wife for just eight years; she would be his widow for thirty. Richard had generously provided for her with dower lands in Normandy and England, but they were not to pass to her until after Eleanor died. In the years after Richard’s death, Berengaria lived at Beaufort en Vallee, Chinon, and Fontevrault, as she struggled to get John to honor her dower payments. He treated her very shabbily, and there is no evidence Eleanor ever intervened on her daughter-in-law’s behalf. Berengaria was treated more fairly by the French king, a man not known for his generosity of spirit. But in 1204. Philippe bestowed the city of Le Mans upon her in return for her surrender of lands, including Falaise and Domfront, which had passed to her upon Eleanor’s death. Le Mans would be her home for the remainder of her life, and she became known as The Lady of Le Mans. She devoted herself to works of charity, and founded the Cistercian abbey of L’Epau near Le Mans; here she was buried after her death in December, 1230. I was very pleased to find that she has not been forgotten in her adopted city; there is a street named Rue de la Reine Berengere, and her name graces a local museum, too. Berengaria is a name she would never have heard; she was born Berenguela, and that was translated into the French Berengere at the time of her marriage; Berengaria is the English version and — to me — nowhere near as pleasing to the ear as the musical Berenguela. As for the palace itself, it has been used since 1790 as the City Hall, and all that remains of the original building are the walls and the walled Roman windows.

I’d planned to end this blog with our arrival that evening at Fontevrault Abbey, but it is getting too long. So I am going to stop here, leaving us in the lovely city of Le Mans, so dear to Henry’s heart. Next — our arrival at Fontevrault, and our excursions to the capital of Eleanor’s domains, a local winery, and then a night tour of the abbey.

 July 10, 2011

We got a late start leaving Paris and it was afternoon by the time we were approaching Falaise. Its castle was a very important stronghold in Henry’s time. Today the town is small — about eight thousand inhabitants — and, as we found out the hard way, it shuts down so its residents can enjoy a long, leisurely lunch. I was surprised, for the castle is a popular tourist attraction, and this was June, after all, hardly the off season. But all of the appealing little restaurants we found were closed. I’m glad the citizens of Falaise have such an unhurried, laidback life style, but it can be challenging for hungry tourists. We eventually found a small market open and had a picnic lunch on the tables of an outdoor café before going up to the castle.

Falaise means “cliff” in French and it is well named, for the fortress is perched on a crag above the town. The current castle was begun in 1123, constructed by King Henry I on the site of an earlier one. It was in that older stronghold that William the Conqueror was born. He was known during his lifetime as William the Bastard, for his parents never wed. The most popular legend has it that his father, Robert, Duke of Normandy, was standing at a tower window and saw a beautiful girl in the village below. The droit de seigneur that supposedly allowed a lord to claim a bride on her wedding night is a myth, but lords did enjoy other rights and Robert exercised one of them by sending for her; in his defense, he was only about seventeen. The young woman, whose name was Herlive or Arlette, refused to be spirited in the back way, though, and, dressed in her finest clothes, rode proudly in by the front gate. Tradition says that she was a humble tanner’s daughter, but historians are skeptical of this, for she would later marry well and tanners were on the lower level of medieval society. Whatever the truth of her back-ground or her first meeting with the Duke of Normandy, she became his mistress and gave birth to William circa 1028. thus changing the course of history.

Falaise was one of our Henry’s most important strongholds and he was often here. He chose Falaise for his triumphant peace treaty in 1174 with the captive King of Scots, and he and Eleanor held at least one lavish Christmas court here. We do not know where Eleanor was held after she had the bad luck to fall into Henry’s hands in November of 1173; Henry kept her location a closely guarded secret. She was most likely confined for a time at Chinon, but it is my belief that she was eventually taken to Falaise. Henry kept his Christmas court at Caen in 1173, and Falaise was just twenty miles to the south, very convenient for a long overdue reckoning with his rebel queen. Moreover, Falaise would have been a safer choice than Chinon, which was too close to Eleanor’s own lands, and if she were being held at Falaise, it would have been easy to bring her to Barfleur when she and Henry and his court sailed for England in the summer of 1174.

The Lower Keep was built by Henry, with contributions by Richard and John. All of Normandy came under Philippe Capet’s control in 1204 and he modified the castle, building the cylindrical structure known as the Talbot Tower. The city and castle suffered under a lengthy siege by Henry V in 1417-1418, and another one during France’s Wars of Religion, when its once formidable walls could not withstand the barrage of cannonballs. The castle and town were badly damaged in World War II, although the two keeps were miraculously spared. But in 1980 a restoration project was launched in accordance with the guidelines of UNESCO, and both keeps are now open to the public.

What I found most interesting at Falaise was an audio station allowing us to listen to the haunting song, Ja Nus Hons Pris, written by Richard Coeur de Lion while held captive by the Holy Roman Emperor. It is a prisoner’s lament, and interestingly, was addressed to his half-sister, Marie, Countess of Champagne. You can hear it on Youtube at http://wn.com/Ja_Nus_Hons_Pris_ENGLISH_VERSION sung by Owain Phyfe. On the play-list on the right side of the screen, the first two songs are the ones I’d recommend, both sung in French. The first one includes a commentary that is not strictly accurate, but it is amusing to hear Eleanor described as Richard’s “mom.” The second song does not offer a commentary. The third is in English, but the acoustics are bad and it is not easy to hear. A full translation can be found in John Gillingham’s Richard I, pages 242-243. I did find one on-line, but the translation is not that good; for example, when Richard complains about his overlord (Philippe) ravaging his lands, it is translated as “father.” Here is the first verse:

Feeble the words and faltering the tongue

Wherewith a prisoner moans his doleful plight;

Yet for his comfort he may make a song.

Friends have I many, but their gifts are slight;

Shame to them if unransomed I, poor wight,

Two winters languish here.

After our visit to the castle at Falaise, we headed for the abbey at Mont St Michel. Eleanor’s connection to the abbey are somewhat tenuous, for it is more closely associated with Henry. He is known to have visited it and even brought Eleanor’s husband Louis along on an unlikely male bonding expedition in 1158. He may well have visited it again in 1172 after doing penance for Becket’s murder just across the bay at Avranches. The abbot, Robert de Torigny, was a good friend of Henry’s and was even accorded the honor of acting as godfather to Henry and Eleanor’s daughter, her namesake who would later become Queen of Castile. But even if Mont St Michel could not be tied to Henry or Eleanor, I think I would have tried to include it on the itinerary anyway, for it is truly one of the most spectacular sites in the western world.

In 708 AD, the Bishop of Avranches had a dream in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to build a sanctuary on Monte Tombe, an island in the nearby bay. He installed a community of monks there in 709 and gave it a new name, Mont St Michel. Pilgrims were soon trudging across the bay at low tide, calling themselves Miquelots, and by the time of our Henry and Eleanor, it was a very important pilgrimage site. It was also a very dangerous one, for the tide came in faster than a galloping horse, at more than 200 feet a minute, and pilgrims also had to contend with sudden sea mists and quicksand. Today that is no longer true; in fact the bay had become so silted that there were fears the island might one day be part of the mainland again. The result was Projet Mont-Saint-Michel, with plans to build a hydraulic dam and replace the causeway with an elevated light bridge; it is supposed to be completed in 2012.

The first sight of Mont St Michel is truly awe-inspiring; I am convinced I heard a collective catch of breath as our tour bus started out onto the causeway. I hope it won’t seem too prideful to quote from my own books, but I cannot improve upon these descriptions. The first is from Devil’s Brood. Henry has come to Avranches to atone for Becket’s murder, a phone-it-in penalty as opposed to the deadly serious penance he would later perform in Canterbury.

From the castle battlements, Henry had a superb view of the bay and, in the distance, the celebrated abbey of Mont St Michel. It was one of the marvels of Christendom, built upon a small, rocky island that was entirely cut off from the mainland at high tide. It had a dreamlike appearance, seeming to rise out of the sand and sea foam like a lost vision of God’s Kingdom, its high, precarious perch above the waves so spectacular and dramatic that at first glimpse, pilgrims did not see how it could have been the work of mortal men.

Here are two more images of Mont St Michel, both from Prince of Darkness. Brother Andrev is a monk at the abbey’s cell in Genets. As he stands on the beach and looks across the bay, this is what he sees.

As always, his gaze was drawn to the shimmering silhouette of Mont St Michel. Crowned by clouds and besieged by foam-crested waves, the abbey isle seemed to be floating above the surface of the bay, more illusion than reality, Eden before the Fall.

 And now it is Justin de Quincy’s turn.

They reached Mont St Michel as the late-afternoon shadows were lengthening. In spite of his fear for Arzhela, Justin was awestruck at sight of the abbey. At first glance, it looked to be a castle carved from the very rocks of the isle, its towering spires reaching halfway to Heaven, the last bastion of Christian faith in a world of denial and disbelief. A fragment of religious lore came back to him, that St Michael was known as the guardian of the threshold between life and eternity, and that seemed the perfect description for his abbey, too, a bridge between the land of the living and the sea of the dead.

I was planning to relate our arrival at Mont St Michel and our first night at Mere Poulard, a celebrated hotel dating from the 19^th century. But I think that can wait until the next blog since this one is already approaching novella length. Instead I will close with Justin’s desperate dash across the bay as the tide comes thundering in. He is well aware of the danger, but he is attempting to prevent a murder from occurring at the abbey.

The wind was cold and wet and carried the scent of seaweed and salt. The muted roar of the unseen sea echoed in Justin’s ears, as rhythmic as a heartbeat. Seagulls screeched overhead, their shrill cries eerily plaintive. His stallion had an odd gait, picking up its hooves so high that it was obviously not comfortable with the footing. One of the tavern customers had told Justin that walking on the sand was like treading upon a tightly stretched drum; he very much hoped that he’d not have the opportunity to test that observation for himself. Behind him, he could hear Durand cursing. Justin kept his eyes upon the glow of their guide’s swaying lantern, doing his best to convince himself that, as St Michael led Christian souls into the holy light, so would this Norman youth lead them to safety upon the shore.

Justin does outrun the tides, but sadly, he is too late to stop the murder. Tomorrow: Mont St Michel, Le Mans, and Fontevrault Abbey. 

July 5, 2011