the scene.

A walk round the ramparts reveals an endless series of picturesque
groupings of the old houses with their time-worn stone walls, over which
tower the chatelet and La Merveille. Long flights of stone steps from the
highest part of the narrow street lead up to the main entrance of the abbey
buildings. Here, beneath the great archway of the chatelet, sits an old
blind woman who is almost as permanent a feature as the masonry on which
she sits. Ascending the wide flight of steps, the Salle des Gardes is
reached. It is in the lower portion of the building known as Belle-Chaise,
mentioned earlier in this chapter. From this point a large portion of the
seemingly endless series of buildings are traversed by the visitor, who is
conducted by a regular guide. You ascend a great staircase, between massive
stone walls spanned by two bridges, the first a strongly built structure of
stone, the next a slighter one of wood, and then reach a breezy rampart
where great views over the distant coasts spread themselves out. From here
you enter the church, its floor now littered with the debris of
restoration. Then follow the cloister and the refectory, and down below
them on the second floor of the Merveille is the Salle des Chevaliers.
Besides the wonderful Gothic halls with their vaulted roofs and perfect
simplicity of design, there are the endless series of crypts and dungeons,
which leave a very strong impression on the minds of all those whose
knowledge of architecture is lean. There is the shadowy crypt of Les Gros
Pilliers down below the chancel of the church; there is the Charnier where
the holy men were buried in the early days of the abbey; and there is the
great dark space filled by the enormous wheel which was worked by the
prisoners when Mont St Michel was nothing more than a great jail. It was by
this means that the food for the occupants of the buildings was raised from
down below. Without knowing it, in passing from one dark chamber to
another, the guide takes his little flock of peering and wondering visitors