Last modified: 2003-07-05 by ivan sache
Keywords: manche | mont-saint-michel (le) |
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Mont-Saint-Michel is the most visited place in France, and deserves its reputation because of its unique site and architecture.
Administratively, Mont-Saint-Michel is a municipality of 72 inhabitants (Montois). It does not have a specific flag, but the other flags deserve attention because they reflect the odd geographical location and long history of the place.
Mont-Saint-Michel is a small granitic island of ca. 900 m of
circumference and 80 m of elevation, linked to the mainland by a dike
built in 1877. The Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, including the island and
the companion uninhabited islet of Tomblaine, is listed as World
Heritage by UNESCO (1979). The Bay has the shore with the highest
tides (maximum foreshore 15 m) in France.
Polders protected by dikes have been established there since (at
least) the XIth century, and the area is famous for its moutons de
prés-salés ('salted-pasture sheep'), which graze on
the herbus a grass very rich in salt and have a very specific
taste.
Unfortunately, the Bay is subjected to constant silting up, and Mont-Saint-Michel is really an island only a few days per year. A huge project of restoration of the Bay shall involve the replacement of the dike by a bridge and the suppression of some of the dams that limit fresh water flow into the Bay.
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001
In the beginning of the VIIIth century, Saint Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, was ordered by Saint Michael to build a sanctuary on the Mont-Tombe. Aubert was a bit reluctant until the Archangel sticked his finger into Aubert's head. In the past, Aubert's putative skull with the mark of the Archangel's finger was exhibited in the cathedral of Avranches. In the meantime, a geological disaster engulfed the woody area around the Mount, which became an island on which Aubert built the required sanctuary.
The building of the Merveille ('The Wonder'), the Gothic
fortified abbey, lasted from XIIIth to XVIth century, and the
sanctuary rapidly became a popular pilgrimage place. The single
steep, narrow street which leads from the fortified entrance gate of
the island to the fortified entrance gate of the abbey was already
crowded with shops offering souvenirs and pseudo-relics to the
pilgrims. During the Hundred Years' War, the English, who ruled over
the area, granted access to the sanctuary. The fortified abbey was
the only place in the North-West of France which was never
seized.
In 1969, a small group of Benedictine monks came back to the abbey
and they are still trying to maintain a monastic life in spite of the
touristic turmoil.
The location of Mont-Saint-Michel is a traditional matter of controversy between Bretons and Normands. In the IXth century, the border between the two feudal states was fixed as the Couesnon river, which flows into the Bay, and leaves the Mont to its right. Therefore, Mont-Saint-Michel is in Normandy, and a famous Breton dictum (with several variants) says:
'Et le Couesnon en sa folie, / And Couesnon, in its
madness,
A mis le Mont en Normandie. / Placed the Mount in Normandy. '
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001
Several hotels, bars, shops etc. have been established on the Normand mainland with view on the Mount, and most of them fly, in a spirit of consensus, both the Breton and Normand flags.
Conversely, the only flag seen inside the Mont-Saint-Michel is the Normand flag. There is a blue flag with three yellow fleur-de-lys over the main entrance gate (now walled up), probably to emphasize the fact that the place always remained French. On the inner side of the second gate (King's Gate) flies the French flag, because the city hall is located in the tower above the gate (in the place where the King of France maintained a small garrison to symbolize his rights on the place).
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001
![[Flag of the Logis Tiphaine]](../images/f/fr-50!ms.gif)
by Ivan Sache
The only unusual flag I have seen in the Mont-Saint-Michel is a vertical, forked banner divided red-yellow, hoisted on the windows and balcony of the Logis de Tiphaine ('Tiphaine's Abode').
Famous Constable Bertrand Du Guesclin is said to have purchased
this house in 1365 to establish his wife Tiphaine Raguenel in a safe
place when he was Captain of the neighbouring garrison of Pontorson,
on the border between Normandy and Brittany.
Du Guesclin met Tiphaine Raguenel in
Dinan in 1357 during a tournament that
opposed him to the infamous knight Cantorbery, who had broken a truce
and captured Bertrand's brother by felony. Tiphaine was said to be
clever and refined, but was immediatly charmed by Du Guesclin, known
as very coarse. Anyway, their union was very happy, they married and
got a lot of children
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001