Chapelle et source de Montégoutte

Built in 1828 by Jean-Baptiste Grandhomme, this chapel should have been demolished by order of the Fraize forestry sub-inspector, but was eventually retained at the request of the Saint-Léonard town council.

One day, so long ago that the date has been lost, one of the lumberjacks working on the site where the chapel now stands found a statue of the Virgin Mary in the heart of a fir tree he had just felled. He grabbed it and took it home. He was surprised to discover the next morning that the Virgin had disappeared! During the night, his wife and daughter had gone blind.

Disturbed, the woodcutter hurried back into the forest and found the statuette in its original location. At its feet, a hitherto unknown spring had gushed forth.

Thinking he had been punished for his selfishness in keeping the statue for himself, he led his wife and daughter to the foot of the Virgin. They washed their eyes with water from the new spring and immediately regained their sight.

From then on, people flocked from the surrounding area to venerate the Virgin and bathe in the clear water. The woodcutter himself erected the chapel and placed the statue in a bark niche, as a reminder of where she had been discovered.

DATAtourisme France