CAMBRAIS

I got up before dawn and left Paris. The beltway north, then east, to the A-1, then the A-2 when it split off. About 200 kilometers to my first destination stop. Several rest stops to replenish the Coke Light supply, and to make room for more.

On my way north I was pleased to have the sunrise to my right. The road's destinations were very clearly marked, but it is good to have confirmation from Mother Nature that you are headed north. Sunrises are not known to be wrong in terms of their direction.

I drove into the main street of Cambrais and was pleased and impressed. Pleased to find a parking spot being vacated just as I drove up. So I parked in front of this church, built many centuries after Marguerite was here. Up the street is the central square of the town, city hall dominates in the center.

I was impressed at the somber signs downtown explaining the human suffering that took place in and around Cambrais during World War I. Several 15th to 17th century churches stand, however, and some are beautifully restored, others are being restored. Most all business and residential buildings were relatively new. In the first WW, about 50,000 German and 44,000 Allied soldiers were killed here and near here. When the Germans finally left they punished the city by purposely destroying it, burning what did not otherwise get demolished to make it impossible for locals to just move back. The human suffering here was so devastating in scale and horror that it seemed downright silly to try and sense anything about Marguerite here.

I thought the Archbishop's headquarters here, behind the ornate, Roman-looking archways, may have been the site where the two Bishops of Cambrais that confronted Marguerite had their offices at the time of her writing and teaching career.

The red brick building behind the gates was the Archbishop's palace, according to the sign. Maybe it still is.

It was likely from here that one Bishop came to Valenciennes to confront her. A few years later it was also likely that it was here that a successor to that first Bishop had her brought when he sent for her. He then sent her, as a prisoner, to the Inquisition in Paris.

From that pretty place with its little garden with fountain, the local defensive (lookout and military equipment) tower was visible:

[I actually had filled a whole disk with pictures taken while walking through town. It included pictures closer to that tower and other city scenes. But I erased that disk by mistake. Oh well.]

Across from the Archbishop's palace there sits a giant 17th and 18th century cathedral, rebuilt on top of an earlier Medieval cathedral:

The cathedral was so large I had to divide it into several pictures to get it from bottom to top:

[The tower to the right in the above photo is a 16th century structure, the bailiff's house, offices and jail.]

A few blocks past this cathedral brought me to the central square I had seen already from where I parked my car:

Entering the square, however, showed it to be huge parking lot:

Making a right turn showed some nice fountains and old houses/businesses:

So, a delightful town with much history. Much modern history as well as Medieval and more ancient. But reading that history made me very sad on the one hand, and also happy for the obviously peaceful place this now is and has every expectation of continuing to be.

The remnant of a gate from the city wall caught my attention. It has a 1390 completion date on a sign. Could Margaret have seen this? Probably she saw what it replaced or fortified.

Walking through to the "outside," this is the view back in:

From the outside, it is more apparently a defensive fortification. Sorry about the angle.

Well, I feel bad about the lost photos taken along the way, but perhaps this is still a pretty decent quick impression of what I thought was of interest to me in Cambrais. I liked this town. The people, and there were many in the streets, were friendly and the weather was great: cool and bright. But, it was time to move on, so I did.

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