[54] Mount St. Michel, on the coast of Brittany, which was commonly called St. Michel _ad tumbam_ or _ad tumbas_, and was a place of great celebrity in the romantic, as well as in the religious, legends of the middle ages. It is more than probable that, before the foundation of the monastery, the top of the mount was occupied by a cromlech, like so many of the islands on this coast. [55] Sichard was a cruel and oppressive tyrant, and was deservedly hated by his subjects. At length, having attempted to violate the wife of one of his nobles, the latter excited the people of Beneventum to revolt; and they burst into his palace; and slaughtered him, towards the end of the year 839. This act of popular vengeance was succeeded by a period of domestic troubles, which favoured the designs of the Saracens, and ultimately brought Beneventum under the power or protection of the emperor Louis II., or the Germanic, (the brother of Lothaire and Charles the Bald, and grandson of Charlemagne,) who was emperor and king of Germany from 840 to 876. [56] Salomon III. was count of Brittany at this time; but history hardly bears out Bernard's boasts of the peace and good government of the country under his rule. THE TRAVELS OF SÆWULF. A.D. 1102 AND 1103. I, Sæwulf, though conscious of my own unworthiness, went to offer up my prayers at the Holy Sepulchre; but, owing to my sins, or to the badness of the ship, being unable to proceed thither by the direct course on the open sea, I will commence with an enumeration of the different islands at which we touched.