Sources de la Touvre et la cage de François Ier

Touvre

East of Angoulême, the Touvre is born all at once, in the form of powerful springs coming out of an underground network of 450 km²: the karst of La Rochefoucauld. With an average flow of 13 m³ per second, it is the second resurgence in France after the Fontaine de Vaucluse. The Bouillant, the most spectacular, makes the water gush from the depths; the others are called the Dormant, the Font de Lussac and the Lèche. According to a legend reported by a travel website, François I had a condemned man lowered in an iron cage to sound the chasm; the man, terrified by the darkness and strange fish, is said to have come to a bad end. No archive was found to attest it. A panel on the trail also evokes a ‘légende de Tolvère’ without telling it, and links the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 to sudden overflows of the spring. Around it, the water drove mills, paper mills and the Fonderie royale de Ruelle, and lime was also burned there. The site is listed for its biodiversity, notably its water birds. Above the springs, the Romanesque church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine watches over this place where the water seems to come from nowhere.

Getting there: Free: car park of the sources de la Touvre (toilets), interpretation trail of 1.3 to 2.2 km (loops) or about 4 km for the full tour, 1 h 30, easy. Swimming is forbidden. Coordinates: photo of Font de Lussac on Commons (45.6625 / 0.2565); they designate a point of the group of springs, not the Bouillant.

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

Ambient sound