In France, King Henry IV. was assassinated in his coach by Ravaillac on May 16th, 1710. The account states that the coach was surrounded by blinds or curtains, but the king had drawn them back that the people might see him; with him in the coach were seven noblemen, that is, two persons on each seat, and two in each boot. A drawing of this coach has been preserved [[Plate 15]], by which we see the roofs and supports (somewhat resembling the outline of a Roman or Asiatic vehicle) and the curtain hanging over the doorway in front of the boot.
A coach belonging to a Duke of Saxe-Coburg is still to be seen at the castle at Coburg; in this the body is 7 ft. 6 in. long in the middle, the wheels are 4 ft. and 4 ft. 10 in. high, the roof and upper quarters are of black leather nailed on with brass nails, the heads as large as a sixpence and rounded. On either side of the doorway are iron bars to form the sides of the boot, and the doorway is guarded by a wooden cross-bar padded which drops upon two pins, and from which bar the curtain would fall over the doorway. With such a length of body we can understand how eight persons could ride in it. In prints of this period all coaches are drawn like this, with the bodies suspended on leather braces—with domed roofs and with the front wheels generally rather low—with a coachman seated upon a cross-bar or cushion suspended between the two front standard posts, and his feet upon a board projecting at the bottom of the posts over the pole.
Some coaches are depicted so wide that they may have held three persons on each seat, but the general appearance is that of Louis XIV.’s first coach [[Plate 16]].
