Located on the borders of the communes of Dragey and Genêts, the Manoir de Brion was, originally, a simple Benedictine priory, dependent on the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel, founded in the year 1137, by Bernard le Vénérable, thirteenth abbot of the Mont .
After having served as a rest home for elderly monks and as the residence of the abbot, the priory was abolished by the decree of King Charles VI, in the year 1387, at the request of Mgr Laurent de Faye, bishop of Avranches, and erected, as well as the lands adjoining it, as a seigneurial fief, under the crown.
The home of Brion no longer served as a pleasure residence for the abbots and relay of the court of France, and for the great figures of the kingdom coming on pilgrimage to Mont-Saint-Michel.
King Charles VI stayed there, with his retinue, when he came to the Mont in 1393.
On August 26, 1462, the King of France, Louis XI, also stayed in Brion, in the company of his brother Charles, Duke of Berry, and Gaston de Foix, his brother-in-law.
In the year 1509, the abbot de Lamps, prior of the abbey, started the construction of the main building; this was not completed until 1526, by the care of Jean Le Veneur, bishop of Lisieux, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, who completed the buildings in the Renaissance style.
King François 1er, accompanied by his son the Dauphin, and Cardinal du Prat, legate of the Holy See, stayed in Brion during the month of May 1532.
It was during the king's stay in Brion that Father Le Veneur introduced François 1er, the Saint-Malo pilot Jacques Cartier, who had come with the aim of obtaining from the king the subsidies intended for the arming of a vessel with a view to explorations in the north of the New Continent. In memory of this event, Jacques Cartier gave the name of Brion to an island which he discovered in the vicinity of Newfoundland.
Finally, we note the passage or stay at the manor, of various dignitaries or prominent figures of the Kingdom:
Marie d'Estouteville, Duchess of Bourbon on June 17, 1576.
The Duchess Gaston d'Orléans, sister-in-law of King Louis XIII, stayed with her suite for nearly a week in Brion.
The Cardinal of Lorraine, in 1646.
Charles de Broglie, Marshal of France (1719), etc.
The last commendatory abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, having resided in Brion, was the cardinal de Montmorency, bishop of Metz, grand chaplain of France (1788).
Count Jean de Rolland