After dinner we went to see a show of fencing in the public hall, where there was a vast crowd. We had to pay for entrance as to a puppet show, and for our seats in addition. They showed us some play with the poignard, with the two-handed sword, with the quarter-staff, and with the hanger. Afterwards we saw them shooting for a prize with bow and crossbow, on a ground far finer than that of Schaffhausen. Beyond this place, at the city gate by which we had entered, we observed a copious stream of water which was brought into the city from outside and led under the bridge used for traffic. It is conveyed by a wooden aqueduct built below the bridge aforesaid, and is thus carried over the stream which forms the city ditch. This current in its course turns a number of water-wheels attached to pumps which, by means of two leaden pipes, raise the water of a spring, which rises in a hollow, to the top of a tower some fifty feet in height. On the top of this tower the water is poured into a great stone cistern, and from this cistern it runs down through divers pipes and is distributed all over the city, which in consequence is abundantly supplied with fountains. Private persons, if it be their wish, may have a right of water for their own use on payment of an annual rent of ten florins to the city, or for two hundred florins paid down. The city was enriched by this magnificent work about forty years ago.[73] Marriages of Catholics with Lutherans are common, and the one most keenly set on marriage commonly conforms to the faith of the other. There are thousands of marriages of this sort. Our host was a Catholic and his wife a Lutheran. Here they clean the glasses with a hairbrush fixed to the end of a stick. According to report, excellent houses may be bought for forty or fifty crowns apiece. The city guard did M. de Montaigne and M. d’Estissac the honour of presenting to them fourteen large vessels of wine for supper. This was brought by seven sergeants clad in uniform and an officer of worship, whom our gentlemen invited to sup, as is the custom in such cases. Something, moreover, is always given to the bearers of the offering, and the sergeants aforesaid got a crown. The officer who remained to supper told M. de Montaigne that the city maintained three officials whose duty it was to greet strangers of quality who came to visit the place, and that on this account they always took care to ascertain the quality of each visitor, so that he might receive the honours due to him. Moreover, they offered more wine to some than to others. If a duke should arrive in the city, one of the burgomasters would attend to bid him welcome. Us they took for barons and knights. For certain reasons M. de Montaigne was inclined to assume this counterfeit dignity, and to keep silence as to our real quality. He spent the whole of the day walking through the town by himself, and was convinced that he was treated with greater consideration on account