Fontaine-lès-Dijon, la maison natale de saint Bernard

Fontaine-lès-Dijon

Tescelin le Roux, a knight of the duke of Burgundy, held on this hill a castle that guarded the road from Dijon to Châtillon. It was there that his third son, Bernard, was born in 1090, and there that his wife Aleth de Montbard had a chapel built. In the spring of 1112, Bernard came down from Fontaine with some thirty relatives and friends — his brothers, an uncle, neighbours — to present himself at the gate of Cîteaux; three years later he founded Clairvaux, and the hill of Fontaine became, as his fame grew, a place of memory. The parish church, built from the 14th to the 16th century on the site of the chapel, keeps a doorway by Belin de Comblanchien, master mason to the dukes; it was placed under the patronage of Saint Bernard in 1860. The castle itself was bought in 1613 by the Feuillants, a Cistercian reform born near Toulouse, who built there a "royal monastery" under the protection of Louis XIII and showed pilgrims the room in which the saint was said to have been born. The Revolution drove out the monks; the monastery was taken down stone by stone in 1821, then bought back in 1840 by a canon who restored it, and a centenary basilica was raised in 1891, for the eight hundredth anniversary of the birth. One comes here for the point of departure: tradition rather than stone, but a tradition that goes back to those who knew Bernard.

Wikipédia — Château et basilique de Fontaine-lès-Dijon ↗

Getting there : By city bus from Dijon or by car, with parking at the top of the hill. The parish church of Saint-Bernard is open during the day; the basilica and the "birth room" can be visited at services, on the summer tours organised by the parish and during the Journées du patrimoine (enquire at the Dijon tourist office).

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound