Grotte de la Loutinière

Historic Site Landmark

Location Quiz Nearby Places Spéléométrie Contexte géologique Risques naturels Bibliographie

La grotte de la Loutinère est une cavité naturelle de la commune de Rigny-Ussé, département d'Indre-et-Loire.

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Location

Nearby Places

1.4 km

Rigny-Ussé

Rigny-Ussé is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.

Neighbourhood

Château d'Ussé

Ussé is a castle in the Indre-et-Loire département, in France. The stronghold at the edge of the Chinon forest overlooking the Indre Valley was first fortified in the eleventh century by the Norman seigneur of Ussé, Gueldin de Saumur, who surrounded the fort with a palisade on a high terrace. The site was passed to the Comte de Blois, who rebuilt it in stone. In the fifteenth century, the ruined castle of Ussé was purchased by Jean V de Bueil, a captain-general of Charles VII who became seigneur of Ussé in 1431 and began rebuilding it in the 1440s; his son Antoine de Bueil married Jeanne de Valois in 1462, the biological daughter of Charles VII and Agnès Sorel, who brought as dowry 40,000 golden écus. Antoine was heavily in debt and in 1455, sold the château to Jacques d’Espinay, son of a chamberlain to the Duke of Brittany, who, in turn, was chamberlain to the king. Espinay built the chapel, completed by his son Charles in 1612, in which the Flamboyant Gothic style is mixed with new Renaissance motifs, and began the process of rebuilding the fifteenth-century château that resulted in the sixteenth-seventeenth century aspect of the structure seen today. In the seventeenth century Louis I de Valentinay, comptroller of the royal household, demolished the north range of buildings in order to open the interior court to the views over the parterre terrace, to a design ascribed to André Le Nôtre. Valentinay's son-in-law was the military engineer Vauban, who visited Ussé on numerous occasions. Later, the castle was passed to the House of Rohan. In 1802, Ussé was purchased by the duc de Duras; as early as March 1813, low-key meetings were held at Ussé among a group of Bourbon loyalists, who met to sound out the possibilities of a Bourbon Restoration: such men as Trémouille, duc de Fitzjames, the prince de Polignac, Ferrand, Montmorency and the duc de Rochefoucault attended. Here later François-René de Chateaubriand worked on his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe as the guest of duchesse Claire de Duras. In 1885 the comtesse de la Rochejaquelein bequeathed Ussé to her great-nephew, the comte de Blacas. Today the château belongs to his descendant Casimir de Blacas d' Aulps the 7th Duke of Blacas. Charles Perrault, author of the versions of several of the most famous fairy tales known today, often visited the castle and was a guest there. He had the castle of Ussé in mind when writing "The Sleeping Beauty". Famed for its picturesque aspect, Ussé was the subject of a French railroad poster issued by the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans in the 1920s and was one of several that inspired Walt Disney in the creation of many of the Disney Castles. Ussé was classified as a monument historique in 1931 by the French Ministry of Culture.

Castle Historic Site

Rivarennes, Indre-et-Loire

Rivarennes is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.

Neighbourhood

Saint-Benoît-la-Forêt

Saint-Benoît-la-Forêt is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France.

Landmark Neighbourhood

3.7 km

Coteaux-sur-Loire

Coteaux-sur-Loire is a commune in the department of Indre-et-Loire, central France. The municipality was established on 1 January 2017 by merger of the former communes of Saint-Patrice, Ingrandes-de-Touraine and Saint-Michel-sur-Loire.

Landmark Neighbourhood

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Spéléométrie

La dénivellation de la cavité est d'environ 10 m pour un développement de 564 m.

Contexte géologique

La grotte s'ouvre dans le tuffeau jaune du Turonien supérieur (Crétacé).
L'orifice de la cavité s'ouvre au fond d'une vallée aveugle qui draine une partie du bois d'Ussé. Les écoulements superficiels y sont rares, ce qui est caractéristique d'un drainage karstique. Le ruisseau qui parcourt la grotte a été jaugé par le Groupe spéléologique de Rennes à 0,03 l/s. Plusieurs colorations ont été effectuées et ont permis d'identifier la résurgence dont le débit est de 0,04 l/s.

Risques naturels

Le 9 mai 1975 à la suite d'un orage, dix-sept enfants d’un institut médico-éducatif (IMP) du département des Deux-Sèvres se trouvent bloqués dans la grotte par une crue. Le groupe, réfugié dans les grandes salles de la cavité à environ 500 m de l’entrée, attend la décrue. En effet, la zone d’entrée de la grotte est constituée d’un laminoir assez bas d’une centaine de mètres, qui plus est parcouru par un ruisseau. Ce laminoir est impraticable pour des enfants atteints de troubles neurologiques légers. Après pompage du ruisseau, les enfants peuvent enfin sortir.

Bibliographie

Plissier Jean-François (1988) – Grotte de la Loutinière. L'Aven, bull. du S. C. de la Seine, n° 48, p. 6-7. Le Garrec Marie-José, Rehspringer Jean-Pierre & Rochette Philippe (1975) – Grotte du Gros Chillou ou de Loutinière. Rennes-Spéléo, n° 4, p. 23-25. Ad augusta per angusta, bulletin du S. C. Touraine. 1974, n° 3. Couderc Jean-Marie (1970) – Inventaire descriptif des phénomènes d'hydrologie karstique de Touraine. Ét. Ligér., 1970/03, n° 5, p. 29-56.