25/02/2023
Positioned on the border between Normandy and Brittany, Mont-Saint-Michel was both a place of passage and a fortress for the Duchy of Normandy.
From the 14th century onwards, the successive conflicts of the Hundred Years War between France and England required new, powerful fortifications to be erected. The Mount, defended by a few knights loyal to the King of France and protected by a wall flanked by several defensive towers, managed to resist attacks by the English army for nearly 30 years.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Mount, deserted by its administrator abbots, lost its importance in both military and religious terms.
In 1622, the reform of the Congregation of Saint-Maur established a new religious order at the Abbey. They redeveloped the site and attempted to revive the monastic life and the pilgrimages. These monks also had to cope with the arrival of prisoners sentenced to imprisonment without trial, as the Abbey became a kind of "Bastille on the sea".
Following the Revolution, the property of the Church was declared "national property", the monks of Mont-Saint-Michel were driven away and the "Mont Libre" became a prison for refractory priests in 1793. In 1811, an Imperial decree transformed the Abbey into a reformatory, mainly for common law prisoners and some political prisoners, such as Armand Barbès and Auguste Blanqui.
Closed in 1863, the prison had the merit of saving the Abbey from destruction, but the monument was left in a state of severe dilapidation. In 1874, the Abbey was classified as a historical monument and the long process of restoration began. A causeway, constructed in 1878, made access to the Mount easier, followed by a tramway line for transporting visitors, whose numbers continued to grow.
