First translation of this page was made using the Alvistata free translation service.

This page is like the page "Gayant" intended for the "vint' d'osier"! This page has no connection with the Douai municipal authorities.

The French and Burkinabe connection !

At last, the city of Douai has recognized Burkina Faso as a member of her family. Douai has a new sister city: Dedougou in Burkina Faso! Let's hope that the people of Douai will be deserve these new brothers.

Giants: Gayant and his family!

The Gayant page of this site is entirely devoted to our local giant, the most beautiful and largest (if one exempts Reuze Papa which is not carried), with his tradition, his history but also his measurements and those of the other members of the family.

Sport

The World Junior BasketBall Tournament in June 2^nd week end

Tourism:

Some images,modern or older, of the city.

Other images of Douai, mainly from early 20th century, can be found on theTritz family site

Culture:

	hommage in patois to Jean de Bologne (image JPEG 14K)
	Marceline Desbordes Valmore
	The other giant of Douai: its belfry

Other artists from Douai:

• Homage to Michel Warlop, jazz violonnist, the equal one and Stéphane Grapelli's friend .
• Even if it carried out the essence of its work in Italy, Jean de Bologne remains dear with the douaisiens which raised to him a monument at the beginning of XX^th century. See the homage in patois to Jean of Bologna (image JPEG 14K).
• Many works of Jean Bellegambe can be seen with the Chartreuse museum in Douai (Chartreuse).
• Douaisien by his mother, Hugo Renard is a young singer (composer and author)
• Artist Bernard Lévêque's virtual exhibition on the internet !

Regional products

• Brasseurs de Gayant, formerly known as "Enfants de Gayant"

Other sites

• The official Douai web site made by municipal authorities
• Twin towns:
  • Recklinghausen (Germany)
  • Harrow or another site(Great Britain)
  • Kenosha (The USA)
• A curiosity: Douai School and Abbey where the past of English university town of Douai is discovered!
• The mining historical center of Lewarde: a site devoted to the museum of the coal mines. Versions in several languages, and even in patois!
• An other "douaisien" home page (Alain-François Tritz)
• other links

Others

A comic strip, "Douai, Sous le regard des Géant s" (" Douai, Under the glance of the Giants ") has beean published by Editions "Le Téméraire" (70, av Jean Jaurès 59174 la Sentinelle) in the collection " History of the cities ". Here is the summary of the Douai history which it proposes in last cover. " Whereas the merovigien king Sigisbert is assassinated in Vitry in the year 575, Duacum, which will become Douai, is yet only one hamlet among others. With the evangelization, carried out by Saint Mauron, Saint Amé and Sainte Rictrude, this hamlet comes out little by little of the shade. But, it is under the impulse of the counts de Flandre, successors of Arnoul 1^er, that Douai becomes, about the year 1000 a small prosperous city in the Ostrevent. In the following centuries, it bases its economy on the production of cloth and textile fabrics: it is the time of the merchant drappiers, such famous Jehan Boinebroke, make the richness of the city and monopolize the government of it. In 1530, in full storm of the reform, whereas one often burns on the public place Lutherans, heretic and witch, appears first Gayant of Douai, in a carnavalesque procession. Nearly 20 years later, the University is established downtown while the convents and churches multiply there under the influence of the Counter-Reformation. In 1667, king Louis XIV, who has taken Douai and has just attached thus the city to France, is greeted downtown by a couple of Gayants. Later, as well as the University, disappear from the douaisien landscape in the revolutionnary storm. But the giants reappear at the beginning of XIXth century, which brings to Douai the coal industry, the railway and a revival of its prosperity. After two german occupations overcome with courage, Douai, which has at least found its University, is today a young and dynamic city , proud of its past but turned towards the future, under the benevolent glance of its giants.

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