The Loire regularly experiences floods. This is why dikes that channel the river have been enhanced and improved over the centuries. However, major floods managed to open breaches, especially in the nineteenth century. In October 1846, an open breach upstream of the Amboise bridge caused flooding of the Val de Cisse, from Limeray to Vouvray.
Ten years later, on June, the 3rd, of 1856 at noon, a breach 7.5 m high and 300 m long occurred again in the same place, then a second one at around 8 o’clock in the evening, 400 m long, at the level of Onzain, opposite to the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire.
A breach in the levee opened at Saujon (in the commune of Cangey), flooding the Varenne. At the Grillons farm, although located on a high point, the flood reached 1.20m at the key to the large cupboard, a mark passed down through the generations. On the public domain, two marks attest of the highest flood known in the 19th century, the one of 1856.
The Loire joined the Cisse and the Bief. The town was flooded as well as the interior of the church, lifting the terracotta tile paving, as attested to by the list of repairs to be made, noted in the register of deliberations of the town council dated 1857.
In 1866, the levee broke at Amboise, on the right bank, as in previous floods, and the valley was once again submerged.