Of all the peaks that bear his name through the length and breadth of Europe none has been more signally his own than this one on the coast of Brittany. The East has its own, in Phrygia, where also the Archangel deigned to manifest his love for us poor mortals by his visible presence, and where the marvel of that love is commemorated under the title of “The Synax of Michael, Prince of the Army and of the other Incorporeal Powers.” The Greeks always give such thunderously full tides to their Friends in Heaven! But I am sure they cannot honour their great protector half so heartily as he has been honoured on the Mont Saint-Michel ever since he touched it and consecrated it for all time, in the Eighth Century. The details that have come down to us of that apparition are somewhat less full than those of the one at Monte Gargano, but the subsequent history of the French Sanctuary, which stood for just a thousand years as an impregnable fortress, is connected, right through, with humanity as the lonely shrine of the South has never been. Its name alone is like a war-cry—“Saint Michel au Péril de la Mer”—St. Michael of the Peril of the Sea—and bespeaks the invincible ally of the race that was once the ardent apostle of Christianity and its most valiant champion. It was to St. Aubert that the revelation came, when he was Bishop of Avranches, in the reign of Childebert III. The Archangel appeared to him in his sleep, says the Breviary, and bade him build a Church on the sentinel rock, round which already many pious hermits were gathered to serve God in solitude. Now St. Aubert was a man who reflected much before taking any new step, and he hesitated so long that the Archangel had to repeat his visit three times before he was obeyed—a great encouragement, this, to timid souls!—but then the Saint went to work valiantly enough. The rock was of a strange rounded shape, and he built on its summit a great round Church, as closely resembling the holy cave at Monte Gargano as possible. Then he sent to that place to fetch stones and relics from it, all of which he set with great honour in the newer sanctuary; and when all was done he established and endowed there a monastery of twelve “holy clerks for the perpetual service of the Blessed Archangel.” But Richard I, Duke of Normandy, wished still further to honour St. Michael, so he sent away the clerks and established the Benedictines in their place; and the fame of the Shrine and of the many miracles performed there drew a great concourse of pilgrims from all over the world, especially royal pilgrims, from England and Europe generally, so that when the order of the Knights of St. Michael was instituted, this was their Chapter House. By that time it was already one of the most ancient and one of the few “maiden” fortresses of the realm, and never, until the monarchy succumbed to the Revolution, did a single foe to France succeed in setting foot within its walls. For a