Matisse’s colours light up Le Cateau-Cambrésis; in Valenciennes, the Rhonelle Gardens have about them something of Watteau’s Fêtes Galantes; in Douai, the belfry points its Hugoesque profile to the heavens; far from Versailles, in classical and serene Cambrai, Fénelon found peace, and the soul of the Cistercians still permeates the abbey in Vaucelles. This land of generosity, industriousness and trade, home of the famous “bêtises”, is also a land of cultural interchange, a land of Art. Zola rightly created an epic novel out of its mining, reflected still in the Lewarde Centre for Mining History. In Caudry, Cambrai and Valenciennes, lace and embroidery show us that work itself can be an Art. And even Nature, from the works of the medieval monks to the present-day Scarpe-Escaut Regional Nature Park, has here been fashioned by Man.