It was in 966 that the first Benedictine monks settled in Mont-Saint-Michel. For eight centuries, they built, administered, and developed the abbey, which became one of the most popular pilgrimage centres of the Middle Ages. An architectural wonder and a fortress often besieged although never taken by the enemy. In 1790, the Revolution drove the monks from the Mont-Saint-Michel and transformed the abbey into a prison. It was not until 1965 that the state authorised some fifteen monks to live in the abbey lodgings and to celebrate services again.