‘Narrow streets predominated, though there were also a certain number of open spaces--notably at the markets, and in front of the Cathedral, where there was a traffic in those relics and rosaries which Geneva was presently to repudiate with virtuous indignation. One can form an idea of the appearance of the narrow streets by imagining the oldest houses that one has seen in Switzerland all closely packed together--houses at the most three stories high, with gabled roofs, ground-floors a step or two below the level of the roadway, and huge arched doors studded with great iron nails, and looking strong enough to resist a battering-ram. Above the doors, in the case of the better houses, were the painted escutcheons of the residents, and crests were also often blazoned on the window-panes. The shops, too, and more especially the inns, flaunted gaudy sign-boards with ingenious devices. The Good Vinegar, the Hot Knife, the Crowned Ox, were the names of some of these; their tariff is said to have been fivepence a day for man and beast. ‘The streets, being narrow, were also very generally crowded, and were particularly crowded in the evenings. From the stuffy houses--and even in these days of sanitation a really old Swiss house is sometimes stuffy enough to make the stranger gasp for breath--the citizens of high as well as low degree sallied to take their pleasure in the street. The street was their drawing-room. They stood and gossiped there; they sat about on benches underneath their windows. Or some musician would strike up a lively tune, and ladies of the highest position in society--the daughters and wives of Councillors and Syndics--attired in velvets and silks and satins, would dance round-dances in the open air. For all their political anxieties, these early Genevans were, on the whole, a merry people.