Several fanciful
derivations of the word Tombelaine are given by antiquaries, some
imagining it to have been formed of the words _Tumba Beleni_, or
_Tumba Helenae_; and in support of the latter etymology, the
following legend is told:--Helen, daughter of Hoel, King of Brittany,
was taken away, by fraud or violence, from her father's court, by a
certain Spaniard, who, having conducted her to this island, and
compelled her to submit to his desires, seems to have deserted her
there. The princess, overwhelmed with misfortune, pined away and died,
and was buried by her nurse, who had accompanied her from Brittany.
At the Mont St. Michel was preserved, until lately, the enormous wooden
cage in which state prisoners were sometimes confined under the old
regime.
The most unfortunate of the poor wretches who inhabited this cage was
Dubourg, a Dutch editor of a newspaper. This man having, in the exercise
of his duty, written something which offended the majesty of Louis XIV.,
or some one of his mistresses, was marked out by the magnanimous monarch
for vengeance; and the means which, according to tradition, he employed
to effect his purpose, was every way worthy of the royal miscreant.
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