St. Petersinsel

St. Petersinsel or Île de St-Pierre ( _en. St. Peter’s Isle) was an island situated in Lake Biel in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. It was formed in the last Ice Age (see Pleistocene), when the Rhône Glacier reached as far as the Jura mountains. In the late nineteenth century following engineering work to control the flow of water in the Jura, the water-level of Lake Biel dropped, and today, St. Peterinsel is a peninsula.

Monks of the Cluniac order were the first inhabitants of the island, and built a monastery here in 1127.

Before his expulsion, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, spent two months on the island in 1765 calling it the "happiest time of his life". ["Rousseau's Expulsion from the Ile Saint-Pierre" Edward D. Seeber M.L.N., Vol. 79, No. 5, (December 1964), pp. 539-543]

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