Under the Valois dynasty, the towns and cities of France were very much as they had been through the long period of the Middle Ages. During the last fifty years, the spirit of change and improvement has spread so rapidly, that, except in the remoter parts of the country, the traces of the old towns have almost disappeared. The towns were surrounded with high walls, such as may still be seen confining the Haute Ville of Boulogne-sur-Mer, or parts of York, Chester, and Norwich. The streets were narrow and winding, the houses tall, the successive stories sometimes projecting over each other, so as almost to exclude the sun. With the exception of the mansions of the nobles, and sometimes of the wealthier traders, the houses were built of wood--often straw-thatched, and with windows formed alike to exclude air and light. This was one cause of the frequent pestilences which ravaged Europe, and of the low average of human life. The mansions of the nobles and gentry still retained a semi-fortified aspect. They were entered by huge gate-ways, and few windows looked into the street. The shops of the traders resembled greatly the modern greengrocers’ or butchers’, in being without glazed windows, and open to the street as soon as the shutter was let down. Sometimes they were connected by a sort of arcade, still traceable in the _Piliers des Halles_, where the name remains while the thing has disappeared. These middle-class dwellings were often covered externally with slates, or the intervals between the timbers were filled up with bricks arranged in fantastic patterns. The external wood-work was often as exquisitely carved as the internal. A spacious staircase with massive balustrades occupied a disproportionate share of the house. The roof was so arranged as to show a gable to the street, and it often projected so far as to permit a small gallery to be built out of the top story, where the inmates might enjoy the fresh air under shelter. There were no facilities for pedestrians: the roadways were unpaved (except in a few rare instances), and no smooth _trottoir_ invited the curious or the idle to stroll and gaze at the shops. In wet weather the streets were impassable from mud, in hot and dry weather they were almost as troublesome from the dust and stench; for the road was the general receptacle of the rubbish of the houses, and the scavenger’s trade was in embryo. Drainage was unknown, and even in Paris there was only one sewer, namely that constructed by Aubriot in the reign of Charles V.