For the same reason he was, while the pagan danger lasted, the patron saint of France. His place was where the danger was greatest therefore you find him here. He is the conqueror of Satan, the mightiest of all created spirits, the nearest to God. The Archangel stands for Church and State, and both militant. Standing on the summit of the tower that crowned his church, wings upspread, sword uplifted, the devil crawling beneath, and the cock, symbol of eternal vigilance, perched on his mailed foot, Saint Michael held a place of his own in heaven and on earth which seems, in the eleventh century, to leave hardly room for the Virgin of the Crypt at Chartres, still less for the Beau Christ of the thirteenth century at Amiens. Recognized as an astute observer of cultural and historical change, Adams remains a controversial figure for his antisemitic views. A decade later, just after his death at the age of 80, it found wider publication and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. In 1907, his memoir The Education of Henry Adams appeared in print in a small, private edition. In addition to his lauded nine-volume History of the United States of America (1801-1817) (1889-1891), Adams wrote the novels Democracy: An American Novel (1880) and Esther (1884).

By 1870, he embarked on a brief career as a professor of medieval history at Harvard, a position from which he would retire in 1877 to devote himself to his writing. In 1868, Adams settled in Washington, DC, where he earned a reputation as a journalist against political corruption. Upon returning in 1860, he attempted to pursue a career in law but soon found himself working as a journalist, first in Boston and then in London, where he was an anonymous correspondent for The New York Times while his father served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Lincoln. Adams graduated from Harvard University in 1858 before traveling through Europe on a grand tour. Through his mother, he was related to the Brooks family of wealthy merchants. Born in Boston, Adams was the grandson of statesman and lawyer John Quincy Adams on his father’s side.

Henry Adams (1838-1918) was an American historian and memoirist.

Mont saint michel and chartres