TROYES, a town of France, capital of the department of Aube, 104 m. E.S.E. of Paris on the Eastern railway to Belfort. Pop. (1931) 57,601. The town stands in the wide alluvial plain watered by the Seine, the main stream of which skirts it on the east. It is traversed by several small arms of the river, and the Canal de la Haute-Seine divides it into an upper town, on the left bank, and a lower town, on the right bank. The churches of the town are numerous, and especially rich in stained glass of the Renaissance period. St. Pierre, the cathedral, 13th to i6th centuries, consists of an apse with seven apse chapels, a choir with double aisles, on the right of which are the treasury and sacristy, a transept without aisles, a nave with double aisles and side chapels and a vestibule. There are stained glass windows of the 15th and i6th centuries. The treasury contains some fine enamel work and lace. The church of St. Urban has windows dating for the most part, from the years 1265-80. Most of the old houses of Troyes are of wood, but some are of stone of the i6th century, notably the hotels de Vauluisant, de Mauroy and de Marisy. The prefecture occupies the buildings of the old abbey of Notre-Dame-aux-Nonnains; the hotel-de-ville dates from the 17th century.
Troyes is the seat of a bishop and a court of assize. Its pub lic institutions include a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade arbitrators and a chamber of commerce. It has a school of hosiery. The dominant industry in Troyes is the manufacture of cotton, woollen and silk hosiery, printing and dyeing of fabrics.
the beginning of the Roman period Troyes was the principal settlement of the Trecassi, from whom it derives its name. In the first half of the 4th century its bishopric was created as a suffragan of Sens. St. Loup, the most illustrious bishop of Troyes, occupied the episcopal seat from 426 to 479. In the early
middle ages the bishops were supreme in Troyes, but in the loth century this supremacy was transferred to the counts of Troyes (see below), who from the r ith century were known as the counts of Champagne. Under their rule the city attained great prosperity. Its fairs, which had already made it a prominent commercial centre, flourished under their patronage, while the canals con structed at their expense aided its industrial development. The union of Champagne with the domains of the king of France in 1304 was disastrous to the city, since one of the first measures of Louis le Hutin was to forbid the Flemish merchants to attend its fairs. For a short time during the Hundred Years' War, the town was the seat of the royal Government, and in 1420 the signing of the Treaty of Troyes was followed by the marriage of Henry V. of England with Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. in the church of St. Jean. In 1429 the town capitulated to Joan of Arc. The next roo years was a period of prosperity, marred by the destruction of half the town by the fire of 5524. In the 16th century Protestantism made some progress in Troyes, but in 1562, after a short occupation, the Calvinist troops were forced to retire, and in 1572 fifty Protestants were put to death. The revo cation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was a severe blow to the commerce of Troyes, which was not revived by the re-establish ment of the former fairs in 1697. The population fell from 40,000 to 24,000 between the beginning of the 16th century and that of the 19th century.
See T. Boutiot, Histoire de Troyes et de la Champagne meridionale (4 vols. Troyes, 1870-80) ; R. Koechlin and J. Marquet de Vasselot, La Sculpture a Troyes et dans la Champagne meridionale an seizieme siecle (19oo).