Cambrai

Town of 34 000 inhabitants, Cambrai is situated in the Escaut Valley at borders of Hainaut and Artois plateaus. Named as “City of Art and history”, Cambrai presents an architectural patrimony of an exceptional interest which accounts for a heritage of seventeen centuries of a rich and singular past. Cambrai origins go back to the Gallo-Roman period. Cambrai became the capital of the Nerviens instead of Bavay in the IV century, but it was in the VI century that the town really soared thanks to the implantation of the see. The Middle-Ages corresponded to the gold age of the city. Cambrai occupied the strategic position of frontier town between the Kingdom of France and the German Holy Empire which was linked to Cambrai. This town developed itself sheltered from its fortifications. Governed by counts and bishops, Cambrai was powerful and wealthy, so, the city became an artistic, an intellectual and a cultural place.

Cambrai has had numerous religious buildings whose a gothic cathedral named as “marvel of Netherlands”. In the middle of the XVI century, Charles Quint built in Cambrai a powerful citadel. The following century, Cambrai which was linked to the Spanish Netherlands knew a new period of prosperity and became a diffusion centre of the baroque art.

Louis XIV took over the citadel in 1677, the French stylistic influence overtook the private and religious  architecture. The French Revolution put a stop to the religious apogee of the town but only three buildings remain: the Jesuits’ Chapel, the St Gery Church and the former abbey-church which is nowadays named “Our lady of Grace Cathedral”. In the XIX century, Cambrai stayed in the background of the industrialization of the region which developed itself around the coal basin.

Cambrai had traditional activities such as textile and farm produce industries. During the First World War, Cambrai had been taken up and bombed, so, it made an important reconstruction which deeply modified the centre to transform it into a city of “deco Art”.

The Second World War affected the outskirts of the town which was equipped itself with a reconstruction of houses. Let you to tell the history of the town over its streets. Vestiges of its fortifications, religious prestigious buildings, private hotels, deco Art houses… witness the rich past and constitute the tie between the former history and the current one.