This water source in Burgundy conceals a great mystery: no one has ever found its origin!
Haunted castles and forests, abandoned houses, bottomless lakes, mysterious rocks… France is full of places, each more enigmatic than the next. Did you know that there is an old gigantic wash house in France, the scene of tragic events, the origin of the source of which remains unknown to this day?
In the town center of Tonnerre, a small town of character in Burgundy, the Fosse Dionne conceals many secrets. Its deep turquoise-colored waters flow to the surface all year round, resulting from underground flows whose origin has never yet been revealed, giving birth to multiple explorations and legends… “This a kind of small corridor which opens to another world that is the Fosse Dionne, is a magical place”, exclaimed in 2021 the cave diving specialist Pierre-Éric Desseigne to TF1, he who had obtained authorization in 2018 to dive into the pit to find its origin, in vain.
The first attempts to explore the pit date back to the 19th century, most of which led to tragedies: in 1962, two cavers died there at a depth of 32 meters and in 1996, the death of a diver going down to at 70 meters causes a diving ban. Since 2018, filmed diving has been authorized to a depth of 80 meters, 370 meters from the water surface.
Although the mystery of its source has never been solved, many objects have been found there such as pipes and glass ashtrays. “I imagined the person 200 or 300 years ago who smoked this pipe and threw it into the water. There is also the beauty of the gallery, of the contrasting rock because there are some quite dark and then there are very light carpets of clay,” Pierre-Éric Desseigne tells TF1.
This exsurgence source, already venerated in Antiquity under the name of Fons Divina, was transformed into a wash house in the Middle Ages by the mayor of the city Louis d’Éon. Since then, the mystery of the Fosse Dionne has maintained legends that span the centuries: the oldest dates back to the 6th century AD. and refers to a snake that kills the inhabitants of Tonnerre when it comes out of its hiding place, by the sole force of its gaze.
In the year 700, it is said that the bottom of the pool became the abyss of hell when the devil threw himself there after trying to corrupt the soul of a child with gold coins. The most recent legend tells that one moonless night, a young girl about to be overtaken by a demon implored the Virgin to come to her aid. The Virgin then appeared in a large emerald cloak and dragged the young girl into this vast crater filled with water to save her from the devil.
Even today, the Fosse Dionne makes certain residents and tourists think that its creation is of celestial or diabolical origin… Head to Yonne if you want to discover this immense washhouse, 14 meters in diameter with a strange green color. . Disturbing atmosphere guaranteed.