A BIT OF HISTORY

Our bed and breakfast "Entre Cour et Jardin" is housed in the Hotel Lefebvre-Cayet, built in the Basse-Ville (lower town) district of Arras. In its inception, this new district was designed around a royal square as found on sketches dating back to 1749. However, it was only in 1751 that it was accepted as part of Pierre-Louis Beffara’s town planning. The lands that it was to be built upon constituted of swamps located around the winding course of Crinchon river. Three years later, the first mansions began to rise in this new neighborhood and the Hotel Lefebvre-Cayet was among one of first constructions (1754).

It was a lawyer at the Council of Artois, Pierre-Guislain Cayet who had it built. Today, the communal archives of Arras still have a copy of the building permit and drawing that were attached to the request to build, which were presented to the Echevinage back in the day. After the death of his son in 1773, Victoire, his daughter continued to live in the mansion. Then, in 1780 she married François-Joseph Bartélémy Auguste César Lefebvre du Prey - also a lawyer at the Council of Artois, who transferred his law firm to rue des fours the following year. Lefebvre-Cayet practiced politics in the region and surroundings and had a seat in the “Constituent Assembly” (the equivalent of parliament) in Paris. He resigned during the hard times brought on by the revolution. In 1804 he was the only civilian to receive the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon himself. His widow, then his daughters continued to live in the mansion after his death in 1811. The last two sisters were 89 and 83 in 1876. In 1884, the General Treasury settled in the mansion and occupied it until 1930. It is from the children of the later owners that we bought this property.