The story
The main museum of Troyes, in the Champagne country east of Paris, has lived since 1831 in the buildings of a former Benedictine abbey, Saint-Loup, handed to the city after the Revolution dissolved it. The first display opened with just seven paintings and a case of minerals.
It grew into something wider than a picture gallery. Under the abbey's roof sit fine arts, archaeology and natural history together, so a single visit runs from Egyptian and Gallo-Roman finds to French painting by Watteau, Boucher and Philippe de Champaigne, past cabinets of stuffed birds and fossils.
The vaulted old library and the former monastic rooms are part of what you walk through on the way.
