Coaching, with Anecdotes of the Road

by Lord William Pitt Lennox

It would occupy too much space to write a history of their transformations and successive improvements, and to follow step by step the aristocratic succession of the carrosse, calêche, berline, landau, dormeuse, char-à-banc, demi-fortune, vis-à-vis, coupé, not omitting the cabriolet, phaeton, boguey, tilbury, kibitka, britzska, and other vehicles of the young fashion of all times. The public vehicles have made slower progress. The diligences long continued worthy of their grandfathers the coches, and were very unworthy of their new name.

At the beginning of the present century, in which everything now moves on so rapidly, two days and a night were still required to pass from Paris to Orleans. Travellers slept on the road at Etampes or Pithiviers, a spot rendered immortal by Perlet's admirable personification in "Le Comédien d'Etampes;" hotel living, with its good fare and bad beds, being preferred to highroad living, with its obligato accompaniment of broken down cattle, rickety coaches, and highwaymen armed to the teeth. The diligences gave birth to the messageries, chaises, chaises-de-poste, and at a later period to the malle-postes, which, however, did not prevent certain provinces from enjoying a sort of progeniture of ancient coches, under the various names of voiturines, guimbardes, carrioles, and other instruments of torture, which enabled the traveller to accomplish easily, as the saying went, "twenty leagues in fifteen days."

After that the real diligences, the real messageries, attained a degree of comfort for which the public were most grateful. To frequent changes and improvement of the horses were added the comfort of the vehicle; and last, not least, the lowness of the prices. The malle-postes, destined for the more rapid conveyance of letters, and at the same time of travellers eager to get over their journey quickly—thanks to the attention of the administration—were rendered admirably adapted to the public service, the primary object of their establishment, and to the private service of those who wished for comfort in their travels.

The caisse containing the despatches, the high station occupied behind by the courrier-conducteur of the mail, the caisse reserved for travellers, the shape and size of which varied according to the seasons, and the comfortable seat for the passengers, deserved every praise. What could a traveller in those days, when steam was not in prospective existence, desire more than to travel from Paris to Bayonne, two hundred leagues, in fifty-six hours? The humbler history of the fiacre also deserves to have a place here. The carrosse gave birth to the fiacre in the seventeenth century. That was the first coach devoted to public use.

I have already said that the head-quarters of these vehicles were in Rue St. Antoine, Paris, and were called "carrosses à cinq sous," five sous being the price for the hour. The fiacres long had a bad name, and not undeservedly so. Who does not remember, even in our days, the wretched equipages that stood on the rank? Who has not had, at least once in his life, a quarrel with the drivers, often more vicious than their cattle? The cabriolets for town and country, and the coucous, were scarcely superior in any respect, as many have wofully experienced.

Times, however, have altered, and, during the last few years incredible improvements have taken place, not only in the vehicles, but also in the horses and their drivers. Transformations almost as wonderful as that of Cinderella's fairy carriage have been effected. The carriages are better constructed and suspended, and are arranged more comfortably inside. The creation, too, of one-horse coupés (broughams) has successfully provided for the wants of the public, and at the present time a vast number of new companies, under various names, have vied in skill and conferred upon the people vehicles of tasteful shapes, horses in good condition, totally unlike the rosses of former days, harness neat, drivers in uniform liveries, and above all, civil and attentive.

To complete this sketch, let me pay a parting tribute to the Parisian omnibus, that accommodating carriage which takes you up at all hours, at every moment, in the street or at your door, and carries you without any delay to any street or door you wish to alight at—sociable vehicles which, for the trifling sum of thirty centimes, convey you two leagues from the Barrière de l'Etoile to that of the Trône, and from the Madelaine to the Place de la Bastille.

Would that I had space to review all the varieties of that obliging vehicle, which, it is said, appeared at Nantes, before it invaded the streets, quays, and boulevards of the capital! Were I to enumerate the "Hirondelles," "Favorites," "Dames Françaises," "Parisiennes," "Beauvaises," "Orléannaises," &c., and point out all their graces and charms, it would lead me on to the history of locomotion by conveyance, and the celebration of steam, steamboats, railroads, trains, and their marvellous rapidity.

Let me conclude with this observation—namely, that the number of vehicles of all sorts which were wont daily to circulate in the streets of Paris exceeded sixty-one thousand; the cabriolets, hackney-coaches, diligences, and omnibusses—or, as the erudite coachman called them omnibii—amounted, out of the above number, to twenty thousand. What they are at this present moment I have no means of ascertaining.

At the commencement of the seventeenth century there were not fifty carriages to be seen in Paris; in the reign of Louis XIV. all the world possessed them, as they would have been unable to present themselves at court. No longer could they go to the Palace on horses, although the privilege was still allowed to certain Members of Parliament. This, however, ceased entirely about the middle of the reign of Louis XIV.