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The fortified village at the foot of the abbey
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Mont Saint Michel is a very natural place isolated in the middle of the bay and protected by the incessant coming and going of the tides.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a remarkable development of defensive military architecture was constructed with thick walls, ramparts, towers and bastions.
During the Hundred Years War in the fifteenth century between the kingdoms of England and France, one hundred and ten horses from Mont Saint Michel added a glorious chapter in the history of the Marvel of the West.
Their courage, the solidity of the defences and the complicity of the tides that disrupted enemy offensives put an end to the strong English army of twenty-five thousand men and an end to a siege that lasted 30 years!
This was held up as an example by Joanne of Arc in her conquest of the kingdom in 1467. King Louis XI created the order of the Saint Michel horses in tribute to the courage of the defenders of Mont Saint Michel.
Constantly attacked yet never conquered, Saint Michel became the symbol of French resistance and French identity.
This glory was succeeded by the military decline of Mont Saint Michel against the evolution of weaponry and strategies which rendered useless its role as a strong place.
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