The brisk clear autumn air this afternoon might be astir around our car, but inside our Parisian friends and we were enjoying the warm comfort and a smooth ride on our long-awaited journey to Troyes, a famed medieval town about 180 kilometers southeast of Paris. Earlier this morning our friends had whisked us from the Charles de Gaulle International Airport to their Paris home for a quick lunch, and now barely three hours of arrival we were whizzing along on a ribbon of asphalt toward this city farther upstream on the Seine.

Our destination is a historic town in the south Champagne region, one awash in champagne, replete with the relics of times long gone, and its inevitable medieval churches overflowing with quiet charm, a town nestled in a rolling country of vineyards and sugar beets sitting astride the placid River Seine.

Troyes has a history as turbulent as any town in France except perhaps Paris. In Roman times, this region once desolate and sometimes arid was given the Latin designation of Campania (the country of plains), which evokes the picturesque and fertile plains on the Gulf of Naples. But as one local historian, Gustave Carré, notes in his 1881 Popular History of Troyes and of the Department of Aube, this region was uninspiring for its monotonous and drab undulations, its discordant colors, its slow-moving rivers dragging their whitish waters among frail poplars and chalky hills, whose meager grass barely hides their sterility. If such a description is not enough to turn away even the most inveterate nature lover, its history is a litany of wars, invasion, exploitation, poverty, ruin, devastation, epidemic, and famine, but of glory as well.

At the outset of the fifth century, when barbarian Germanic assaults on the Roman Empire were unleashed with unprecedented fury, Gaul, which had been organized into 17 provinces and 114 cities, bore the brunt of the invasion of the Vandals, who left a trail of destruction everywhere. In the Champagne region, archaeological finds tell the horror story of these devastations in the remains of its hapless Gallo-Roman defenders. Rome under attack was unable to come to the rescue of its provinces. The political and administrative structure the Romans had painstakingly built in Gaul crumbled. Now the task of leading the populace was largely left to the Catholic church. Its bishops and archbishops had to double as administrators, magistrates, men of God, and, when necessary, men of war.

When Attila's hordes were defeated before Orléans in 451, he retreated to defenseless Troyes. These Huns, who were fearful in appearance, were known for their even more fearful skills and lifestyle. Superb horsemen who practically lived in their saddles, they drank sour milk, ate meat that they "cooked" by placing it between the horse's back and their saddle, and could shoot arrows backward and forward on the gallop with deadly accuracy. They had on their bodies one set of coarse clothes that they wore to tatters before replacing them. Their supplies came from the lands they subjugated. Their horses like themselves could subsist on a sparse diet. Their discipline and stamina were unsurpassed. Their military exploits had brought them from the steppes of Asia to the far reaches of continental Europe, leaving behind large swaths of defeated peoples and ruined lands. No resistance was strong enough to stop this invincible and highly mobile war machine. Now for the first time, it had run out of steam. Still its formidable reputation had struck terror in the hearts of men. The bishop of Troyes sent forth a peace-making delegation consisting of a church deacon and other clerics, whom Attila quickly executed because their white garments frightened his horses. The bishop and his clergy had no choice but to confront the Huns themselves with no more lethal weapons than their pontifical vestments and the aura emanating from such a group of churchmen. Attila was mollified, spared the town, and simply demanded an escort to the Rhine River.

Under the Merovingians of the sixth century, with the Franks battling mercilessly among themselves, monasteries appeared in the country for the first time, initially as refuges of the monks against the savagery of the times. Over the centuries these monasteries became veritable educational and economic centers. Three monasteries, including the Abbey of Saint-Loup erected in honor of the prelate who had saved the town from the Huns, were founded in Troyes. In the great social upheavals of the seventh and eighth centuries, Troyes also had the misfortune of having men with no sacerdotal inclination and plenty of bellicosity at the helm of its episcopal see, although in this respect it was not alone.

Then in the ninth century, Troyes was jolted by another wave of invasion, this time from the redoubtable Vikings, who had landed in what was to be known as Normandy and burned and pillaged with impunity all the way to the heart of Champagne. So far from their homeland, the Normans recruited the dregs of society, criminals, murderers, convicts, beggars, vagabonds, the down-and-outs, down to the unemployed, wherever they went to swell their ranks with hardy, fierce warriors. Troyes even supplied one of the Normans' best leaders in the person of Hastings. Still from 888 to 925 the Normans continued to ravage Champagne. They put Troyes to the sword and the torch. In 925 as the local population had become fed up with so much destruction and misery, the bishop of Troyes mounted a stiff resistance in alliance with the bishop of Langres, and the Counts of Sens and of Dijon, which succeeded in ridding the region of the Normans once and for all.

As a testimony to the people's resilience and spirit, only barely a century later, the counts of Champagne with Troyes as their center of power took a prominent part in the Crusades. The Order of the Templars was founded by a Champagne lord, Hughes de Paynes, in 1118. Champagne began to produce a succession of valorous Crusade leaders, who distinguished themselves in the Holy Land, and helped to shape the history of the Byzantine Empire. The count of Champagne Henri II became King of Jerusalem. During the twelfth century Troyes grew in stature and national importance having made great strides in agriculture, commerce, and industry. More importantly Troyes had given to Christendom Pope Urban IV, who was one of the great popes of the Middle Ages.

It was during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that French literature saw its flowering, and Champagne with Troyes as its capital led the way. The trouvère Chrétien de Troyes writing in the langue d'oïl, whose dialects were spoken in the Northern regions of France, composed the best Romances of the Round Table. For the first time French literature had escaped the harsh themes of the Chansons de gestes. From the old Chansons de gestes, which reflected the savage nature of feudal society, Chrétien de Troyes had lifted the spirit of the times to the best ideals of chivalry and courtly love, the mitigating catalyst for taming the barbaric and fierce temperament of men.

A signal contribution to France's literature was made by her first prose writer and chronicler, Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Marshall of Champagne, author of the History of the Conquest of Constantinople, who accompanied the Fourth Crusade (1204), which was launched as much, perhaps even less so, for religious purposes as for the fabulous treasures that previous Crusaders had observed in this city. Some of the looted relics now enrich the St. Peter's church in Troyes. The Count of Champagne Thibaut IV was as good a poet as he was a bad politician. Jean de Joinville, who had been raised in the elegant court of the Count of Champagne Thibaut IV, where he later became Seneschal, accompanied King Louis IX in the Seventh Crusade, and wrote his History of St. Louis in homage to his revered suzerain.

Gothic architecture came to Troyes during this time in all its glory in the St. Peter's cathedral, which, rising in 1208 from the remains of earlier churches, took 432 years to complete. The cathedral was a celebration of the august glorification of Redemption. Another more remarkable edifice still was the church of St. Urbain, which was constructed during the thirteenth century at about the same time as the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, with which it was often compared. St. Urbain was lighter and bolder than Sainte-Chapelle, according to Gustave Carré. Its graceful svelte flying buttresses, its finely carved archivolts around the windows of the clerestory, and the relatively slender composite pillars that support the vertiginous ribbed vaults with exquisite grace are features that distinguish it from the Sainte-Chapelle. Yet it is a quirk of history that the Sainte-Chapelle received more attention than the St. Urbain, perhaps because the Kings of France, whose capital was Paris, had worshipped in it.

Toward the end of the Hundred Years War (1338-1453), English forces under King Henry V, who had, after their decisive victory at Agincourt (1415), imposed the humiliating Treaty of Troyes (1420) on the French King Charles VI making Henry Heir of France after Charles's death, and their Burgundian allies occupied Champagne and Troyes, levied taxes and labor for the fabrication of the weapons of war, the maintenance of their garrisons, and the supply of provisions. They even impressed skilled local archers into their ranks to wage war against neighboring comtés. Amidst utter despair and despondency, from a strip of land in the eastern reaches of Champagne called Domrémy, emerged a humble shepherdess whose leadership and prowess were destined to change the course of French and English histories forever. Jeanne d'Arc, inspired by God according to story, convinced King Charles VII and his council, and rallied the country. Mounted on her stallion in a knight's armor, the maiden led her people to heights of glory where no man could. In her successful rescue mission at Orléans in 1429 and successive victories her forces forever cast doubt on the English reputation of invincibility acquired so brilliantly at Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), where the longbow had decimated the crème of French chivalry. In changing the fortunes of war, Joan of Arc and her men heralded the end of the English presence in France. In 1430, however, she was captured by the Burgundians before Compiègne, and delivered to the English. The bishop of Beauvais and the theologians of Paris, seizing upon her insistence that she had heard the voice of God, put her on trial for heresy, and condemned her to be burned at the stake. The flames rose around Joan of Arc at the Rouen marketplace on May 29, 1431, without King Charles trying to intervene. Her martyrdom however continued to inspire her countrymen. With French national feelings inflamed in the aftermath, the reign of King Charles VII finally mustered enough national will, and military strength, bolstered by the new artillery invented by the Bureau brothers of Troyes, to spell the demise of the English longbow, and the defeat of English forces, compelling them in 1453 forever to renounce their ambitions in France. This artillery was later employed with skill by King Louis XI to dismantle the feudal system, which had been relying on the fortified castles as impregnable defenses against archers, cavalry, and foot soldiers alike.

During the centuries in which the Italian Renaissance flourished Troyes was plunged into the depths of war, famine, and pestilence. Town and country folks alike suffered grievously. The medieval age, which had never been easy on life, unleashed its gloom for the last time before the Renaissance spread its revival of Classical ideals northward and ushered in an era of gentler customs and mores.

Today memories of these trying times have been relegated to the pages of history, and what remains has been sublimated into a romantic view that glows with charm. One such relic is the irresistible Troyes. It is this Troyes that, tempered by its tormented past, now breathes with ease and happiness, freed at last from the bad old days. It is with grace and gentleness that the Champagne town, in the crisp autumn air of this gorgeous sun-soaked afternoon, cheerfully greeted us at the approach of the new millennium. We couldn't have asked for a better day.

On a quiet street of Troyes's adjacent community of St. André Les Vergers stood a tidy castle-like home, with a peaked roof among several piercing the serene sky like a flèche, and its gabled windows overlooking a neat little garden. There in a harmonious blend of town and country, we were met by our friends' brother Jacques, who is the chief psychiatrist at the Troyes Medical Center, and his cheerful Parisian friend Martine. This nineteenth-century abode, fit for Troyes's upper crust, boasted a wine cellar full of vintage wines and Methuselah-size bottles of champagne, a back yard where apple and pear trees ruled, and a front yard adorned by a persimmon tree, ornamental grasses, and a flowerbed ablaze with colors. As we walked towards the door, the crushing sound of gravel punctuating our every step, the pervasive quiet and beauty of the place caressed us in its subtle embrace.

A few steps up and we crossed the threshold to a cozy living room, where original paintings from French artists greeted us, some with the delicate touch of local color and some with exotic flavor. During World War II some artists from Reims had fled its destruction to the relative security of Troyes, and created here a lively art scene. Some of the paintings were works given in appreciation by artist friends.

Over champagne and wine we admired Jacques's collection of antique objets d'art he had collected during his many trips to the Orient and Vietnam. Jacques, besides being a renowned psychiatrist, is a wine connoisseur of note, a champagne devotee, an art lover and collector, a history buff, a golf enthusiast, and an antique car aficionado. These varied interests made his conversation lively and captivating for any one with a modicum of curiosity about aspects of a cultured life. The day we arrived Jacques was preparing for an interview with a British radio station about an article on mood disorders he had published in a European journal of psychiatry. Martine, on the other hand, is an independent-minded free-thinker in search of a way of life more agreeable to her temperament and ideals, has refined taste, loves chamber music, especially cello concerti, and cooks with a Gallic flair.

Jacques showed us a Troyes that only an insider could. Here the wood frame medieval houses bordering narrow cobblestone streets devoid of sidewalks vied with the centuries old corbeled storefronts and homes on deserted alleys. In the quiet still atmosphere night streets bathed in dreamy light scintillated on the sluggish Seine with reflections reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting. Bundled in their coats nonchalant nocturnal strollers lingered at the lighted windows of closed shops. The restaurants and cafés bursting with diners out for an evening of gastronomic adventures extended their welcome to all who wanted to come in from the cold. On a downtown street the unpretentious home of "the world's most famous croissants" still catered to the faithful decades after it had won the distinction. And on a medieval plaza, the feebly illuminated Gothic cathedral suffused in the eerie darkness stood vigil as it had been doing for centuries. I just wanted to absorb this whole world into my being so that it will be mine forever. For where else can you find such peace, such tranquillity, such warmth, and such feeling of comfort and security that seemed to reign so effortlessly than in this town by night?

At the end of a pleasant promenade along the narrow lanes of Troyes we entered a Mediterranean restaurant whose specialty was couscous and Sahel wine. A small cozy nook it was. Here we ventured into another culture, another world. But it was an entirely rewarding adventure. After the exotic food that presumably was invented by the Berber nomads of north Africa, there must be a dessert to seal the marvelous experience in indestructible gold. So off we plunged into the chilly night to the ultimate destination of this evening's excursion, sending our steps reverberating on the paving stones, and our long shadows mingling with those of a few other hardy souls.

Jacques's favorite crêperie was many blocks away, but I was all excited with anticipation of the crowning moment when the decadent chocolate crêpe with almond would melt away swiftly to leave me forever unsatiated. The crowded crêperie had a way to titillate you half silly with the tempting fragrance wafting in from the kitchen and from the tables near by. The wait seemed endless and excruciating. But the room was vibrant with conviviality and a high level of decibels arising from every one chattering and laughing at the same time. A scene eminently worthy of a dissertation on the sinful crêpe and good living. Seized with desperate fervor to be a part of this frenetically wonderful experience, I was tempted to cry out, "As for me, give me crêpes, or give me death!" Fortunately, that wasn't necessary. The crêpes arrived just in time. With my agony subsiding, I dug in. They took mere seconds to vanish, leaving behind an aftertaste which was delectable beyond belief. In the next sober moment, I was astounded at the variety of crêpes on the menu. They came in dozens of flavors. As if with a vengeance. Then again, I thought, if a French chef could metamorphose escargot into a delicacy, a French pastry chef can surely turn crêpes into a rhapsody divine.

Out of Troyes the following morning in the cool fall Champagne weather our car threaded its way over the gentle hills that would be covered with vineyards in due time and now had been prepared and raked smooth to present in ochre a picture-perfect vista of bucolic peace and serenity. The road was lined with champagne domains, small farms where the farmhouse could be an ancient château, an old-fashioned building, or a more modern structure. Soon we arrived at a champagne maker's domain, his wooden farmhouse perched on a hilltop overlooking his fields. He is Jacques's champagne supplier. There followed the obligatory glass of the golden bubbly beverage raised to everyone's health. An impromptu guided tour of his cellar and champagne manufacturing facility ensued during which I learned that it did not take huge vats or presses or bottling machines to turn out the delicious drink. This probably explains, at least in part, the plethora of champagnes produced in this region.

That afternoon we drove through a scenic landscape where the trees' canopies wove an unbroken cover over the roadway, and created an unusually idyllic tunnel of vegetation. Remember one of those Universal Studios whirling tunnels that thrill you half to death? Or the dark long tube that links France and England under the English Channel, and offers absolutely no clues as to where you are? No, there was scarcely any resemblance here. This tunnel is the stuff dreams are made of. If I were Claude Monet, I'd throw all etiquette and caution to the winds, jump out of the car without waiting for it to stop, set up my easel, grab my brushes and palette, and, yes, leave to posterity a canvas destined never to be forgotten. So serene, peaceful, and relaxing was the scene that you would want time to suspend its course forever, leaving you to exist forever. We were heading for Jacques's country club somewhere in this enchanted land. My sense of space and time had deserted me long ago, and I wouldn't want it to come back. Some time later in this timeless journey, voilà, there we were. The trees parted. What a country club it was! Amidst a vast expanse of conifers and meadows and solitude sprawled an eighteen-hole golf course carpeted with velvet grass under heavenly skies, interspersed with a pond or two of still water, reeds and lilies where a few solitary ducks, which had popped into the scene only God knows how and why, were quietly navigating its glassy surface; tortuous leaf-strewn foot paths; trees still green; the breeze a gentle caress; and the air invigorating. At the end of a long dirt and gravel driveway, we pulled in front of a small château, small by the standard of the Loire châteaux, but a picturesque one just the same.

After meeting some of Jacques's friends at the clubhouse bar and refreshments in the well-appointed lounge, we ventured out into the neighboring countryside to take in a few charming small towns. These ageless gems lay unperturbed, oblivious of time and its ravages because time's ravages never occurred here. They simply went somewhere else. Skeptical? Just look at the darling little houses with red roofs and gable windows, their white picket fences barely restraining the luxuriant trees and flowers that burst with life, the gravel paths that sang under your feet, and the aura of peacefulness that permeated your soul! You will agree, much against your better judgment and reason, that time had never laid its destructive hand on them. I know now why Jacques and so many of his friends are enamored of this lovely corner of the world that was so secluded and sheltered from the cares of daily life.

That evening's dinner was in the château's dining room. It featured filet of lamb, entrecôtes, and salmon smothered in house sauce at once pleasing to the eye and to the taste, which we delicately washed down with vintage bordeaux. All this abundant delight flowed inexhaustibly amid a chamber that glowed softly with elegance on its antique furniture, its porcelain vases, its sculptures, its vast wall frescoes, heraldic shields, standards, embroidered draperies, carved wooden beams, and coffered ceiling. My imagination carried me back to a past when in the very same ambiance persons whose station in life far exceeded mine had held soirées full of music, mirth, and merriment. It is here that the drama of their leisured lives could have unfolded in a chilly autumn evening, or cold winter night. It is here that an old-line aristocracy could have led an existence of ease and comfort. It is here that intrigues could have been hatched that would have marred someone's reputation or ruined someone's life.

Tonight at this moment the château was not a mere clubhouse. Now it was a castle right out of Cinderella's fairy tale where by enchantment we were the aristocracy waiting for the orchestra to strike the first notes of the masked ball. The lovely strains of a Viennese waltz soon filled the air. There were couples whirling on the dance floor gracefully and elegantly. Music, laughter, badinage, curtsies, bows and myriad pleasantries and happy faces. Suddenly out front this humble girl, this lowly maid transformed into a vision of unsurpassed beauty had just alighted from her pumpkin coach. A stunned silence descended upon the scene. The music stopped as if by magic. The revelers bedecked in their finery abandoned their pirouettes. The bewitching beauty that had come uninvited slowly walked into the astonished crowd, which parted as she was passing. Her steps in glass slippers resonated in divine melody. Her noble comportment and radiant figure betrayed a world beyond. Finally she stopped. A few feet ahead, alone, young, handsome stood Prince Charming, his demeanor regal, his arm extended, and his smile inviting. Incongruous humbug? Ah, the good old days! Then I awoke to ask, like François Villon, "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?" (But where are the snows of yesteryear?). If you're not careful that's what a château could do to you.

Tomorrow we would be heading for Reims, the site of the coronation of French royalty. But tonight Jacques was our host, whose association with Troyes went back for decades, the undisputed man of the hour, simple and unpretentious but personable and lovable as Troyes itself. From this Champagne city on the Seine we came away with an indelible impression of its charm and beauty that will be etched in our psyche forever. For its medieval heritage that had escaped the most destructive ravages of World War II, I retained an inexplicable affinity, a fascination beyond words. Why would a turn-of-the-millennium resident of space city be so captivated by a past that was termed variously the Dark Ages and the Age of Faith? There is no simple answer. The images of a distant past have the capacity to despoil themselves of their ugly and sharp edges leaving only their esthetic and nostalgic aspects, beautified by the reassuring feeling that they can no longer hurt you in the same way that the present can. That past you can now see it: in the wood frame houses whose walls defy the rectilinear pattern, and whose upper stories teeter precariously over the narrow streets that they shield from the sun; in the church steeples that pierce the skies like arrows; in the dizzying heights of a Gothic cathedral with its ogival portals and carvings; in the paving stones in the streets that seem still to echo the sounds of that bygone era. So I will say, "Ask Champagne. Ask Troyes." for they have gone through it all and endured to recount with mute eloquence their experience of these remarkable times.

To this land that survived ages of vicissitudes, to Troyes and Champagne Ardenne, to the hills and vineyards, the champagne domains, the upper Seine River, the châteaus, the church spires, the gargoyles, and Jacques and Martine, it is fitting not to say adieu or good-bye, but to say A bientôt.