Picturesque and lively as a French market of to-day undoubtedly is, with the red and green, russet and pearl-colour of its vegetables, the white caps of its women, the gay blues and crimsons of the umbrellas guarding the stalls, the laughter and chatter of the buyers, sellers, and idlers, it has nothing to compare with the wonderful colour-mass and movement of a mediæval crowd, above all in such a place as this, the fame of whose fairs might well have attracted buyers from all parts of Europe. Stately, bearded Italian merchants--men like Antonio of Venice with argosies on every sea--in furred cap and gold chain, dark-faced, keen-eyed Jews, young nobles, exquisite in silk and velvet, wandering minstrels fantastically arrayed, dancing-girls like bright-hued butterflies, all the good citizens of Troyes in their gayest holiday attire, and the inevitable jester in his motley, skimming in and out of the crowd, shaking his cap and bells in every face--the many-coloured banners of the town guilds streaming in the breeze above their heads, and the summer sunshine flooding the whole scene, giving added light to every street-corner, added brilliancy to every hue. The Troyes of to-day is a picturesque town enough, with many beautiful timber-framed houses; but the light and life of the town went out with the departure of the fairs, and beyond its churches Troyes now has little to distinguish it from the hundreds of quondam-mediæval towns scattered through the length and breadth of France. [Illustration: A STREET IN TROYES]