In the sixteenth century these dancers and tumblers became so numerous that they were to be met with everywhere, in the provinces as well as in the towns. Many of them were Bohemians or Zingari. They travelled in companies, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, and sometimes with some sort of a conveyance containing the accessories of their craft and a travelling theatre. But people began to tire of these sorts of entertainments, the more so as they were required to pay for them, and they naturally preferred the public rejoicings, which cost them nothing. They were particularly fond of illuminations and fireworks, which are of much later origin than the invention of gunpowder; although the Saracens, at the time of the Crusades, used a Greek fire for illuminations, which considerably alarmed the Crusaders when they first witnessed its effects. Regular fireworks appear to have been invented in Italy, where the pyrotechnic art has retained its superiority to this day, and where the inhabitants are as enthusiastic as ever for this sort of amusement, and consider it, in fact, inseparable from every religious, private, or public festival. This Italian invention was first introduced into the Low Countries by the Spaniards, where it found many admirers, and it made its appearance in France with the Italian artists who established themselves in that country in the reigns of Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I. Fireworks could not fail to be attractive at the Court of the Valois, to which Catherine de Médicis had introduced the manners and customs of Italy. The French, who up to that time had only been accustomed to the illuminations of St. John's Day and of the first Sunday in Lent, received those fireworks with great enthusiasm, and they soon became a regular part of the programme for public festivals (Fig. 176). [Illustration: Fig. 176.--Fireworks on the Water, with an Imitation of a Naval Combat.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on Copper of the "Pyrotechnie" of Hanzelet le Lorrain: 4to (Pont-à-Mousson, 1630).]