ANCIENT AND MODERN VEHICLES—PRACTICAL JOKES IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE—FRENCH COACHES—DILIGENCES—THE MALLE-POSTE—CARRIAGES IN THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV.—PORTE FLAMBEAUX—QUARRELS BETWEEN RIVAL COACHMEN—AN ENGLISH STAGE-COACH IN FRANCE—CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Few of my readers will remember the old hackney-coaches, and fortunate are they who live at a period when they can be driven about the metropolis and throughout all the principal towns in hansom cabs and "four-wheelers." The old hackney-coach was usually a broken-down, rickety vehicle, that had evidently seen better days; it usually bore the arms and crest of some noble family; the lining, torn and faded, showed signs of former grandeur, as did the harness, now patched and tied together with string. The horses looked more fit to furnish a meal for a pack of hungry foxhounds than to go through their daily work. The coachman, becaped and bebooted, was a long time descending from and ascending his box, and when seated there it required a large amount of "ge-upping" and "go-alonging," with the additional aid of whipping, to get his half-starved, broken-down animals into a trot.

What a contrast to the Hansom of the present day, which, generally speaking, is clean, admirably horsed, and well driven, so much so that the driver of a well-appointed two-wheeler, like Tom Tug, in "The Waterman," "is never in want of a fare!" Would that I could say the same of the four-wheeler! There are some exceptions; but the majority savour too much of the old hackney-coach to merit a eulogium.

Practical jokes have often been played by persons representing highwaymen for the time being; a most memorable one was practised by the celebrated John Mytton, of Halston.

Upon one occasion, a neighbouring clergyman was invited to dine at the Squire's, as Mytton was called, and in the course of the evening, the conversation turned upon the knights of the road. Whether this casual topic gave the idea to the arch-hoaxer, or that the affair was premeditated, I know not, but it was shortly carried out. After a quiet rubber of whist, the Reverend gentleman's carriage was announced, and he took his departure.

He had not proceeded a hundred yards beyond the lodge-gate, when all of a sudden the carriage stopped, and a man with a black crape over his face presented a pistol, exclaiming,

"Your money or your life," his companion, equally disguised, catching hold of the horses.

Unarmed, and alone, resistance was in vain, he, therefore, gave his purse to the marauder.

"This won't do," said the man. "I must have your watch."

"Spare that," beseechingly implored the clergyman. "It is of little value to anyone but myself, and was the gift of a beloved mother."

"No time for sentiment," continued the other, "you must hand it out," at the same time cocking the pistol.

The valued gift now changed hands, and the Reverend gentleman was allowed to proceed to his home in safety.

Early the next morning he applied to a magistrate for assistance, and proceeded to Halston to inform Mytton of the disgraceful state of the country, when a man could be robbed within a few yards of his lodge.

"I'll send for the constable," said Mytton, "a reward shall be offered, and no exertion shall be wanting on my part to trace the scoundrel and get your property restored."

The clergyman was brimming over with gratitude, when the Squire continued.

"Come and dine here to-morrow, and I'll send an escort home with you. My keeper and a watcher will be more than a match for any two rascals that infest the road."

The invitation was accepted, and in the meantime every exertion was made by the magistrate to discover the offenders. During dinner, the conversation naturally turned upon the bare-faced robbery.

"I did not mind the fellows taking my money," said the victim. "Albeit I could not well afford to lose it, but what I felt deeply was the loss of my watch. I would give any sum in my power to recover it."

At that moment the second course was put on the table, for at the time I write of dÎners À la Russe were unknown, and a large dish with a cover over it was placed before the host.

"I wish," said Mytton, addressing his clerical friend, "you would kindly carve the pheasants. I sprained my wrist out hunting last week, and if I attempt the job, it will be a case of 'mangling done here.'"

The dish was removed and placed before the clergyman, and upon the cover being taken off, great was the delight and surprise of the victim to find his purse and watch occupying the place of the far-famed bird of Colchis.

An angry look at the perpetrator of this practical joke was soon transformed into a smile, for the delight of recovering the watch made him ample compensation for the anxiety of mind he had suffered.

A hoax similar in some degree was practised in France on the Baron de Bezenval.

This well-known nobleman was in 1788 on a visit at the house of M. de Bercheni, beyond La FertÉ-sous-Jouare, an estate now belonging to the family of Castellane. It was the latter end of Autumn. Some bold poachers already disturbed the sport. The wind blew violently, and strewed the ground with leaves; the mornings were misty, the nights long, gloomy, and cold; but gloom never approached the place that the Baron inhabited. The aprÈs-dÎner had been excessively merry, and all the company had gradually retired. M. de Bezenval had announced his departure, and being almost the only guest in the room, took leave of the mistress of the house.

"I hope to see you again soon," said he.

"I hope so too," replied the lady with courtesy.

He took his departure, and soon fell asleep in his post-chaise, wrapped up in thick fur. He was suddenly roused from his slumbers by a violent shaking. The postilion had been knocked off his horse, a number of armed men surrounded the vehicle, and their leader, whose face was blackened, seizing the Baron, presented a pistol to his breast.

"Sir," said the Baron, "your men do not know how to behave themselves—they should at least have given me time to draw my hunting-knife."

Without favouring him with a reply, they stripped him—his cane, rings, snuff-boxes of lapis-lazuli, and his two watches and chains decked with gems were wrested from him.

"Are you content?" cried Bezenval.

"No," replied they, "the chaise is ours, as all the rest; get out of it."

He alighted, and the brigands dispersed, one only mounting one of the horses, and driving off at a gallop.

"Valentine, what is to be done?" said the Baron to his servant.

"I really do not know," replied the latter; "perhaps the wisest step is to go back to the chÂteau."

Thither they turned, and two hours of most fatiguing walking brought them to it. The gates were open, there were no servants in the courts, and none in the ante-rooms. He entered the drawing-room, and not a soul was in it. But what did his eyes first fall upon? His two watches and their chains were hanging to the chimney-piece! Whilst he was gazing on them, immense shouts of laughter arose, and the bandits of quality crowded into the room in their several disguises. Such was the method devised to bring back the agreeable Baron de Bezenval.

Having described coaching in England, it may not be uninteresting to give a brief notice of French coaching. It is now two hundred years ago that La Fontaine wrote the following lines, which began his fable "La Coche et la Mouche:—"

At that time public and private vehicles had not yet undergone any very notable improvements. When an inhabitant of Bordeaux or MaÇon took his departure for Paris he made his will, leaving among other things "son corps À la diligence."

Eighty years previous, in the middle of the sixteenth century, private vehicles were not very numerous, if we judge by the predicament in which Henry IV., King of France and Navarre, found himself when he wrote to Sully, "Je n'ai pas pu aller vous voir hier, ma femme ayant pris ma coche." That coche which we in England still call coach, and the driver of which has obtained the name of coacher—coachman was either coche de terre or a coche d'eau, both conveying travellers and goods. The coche d'Auxerre alone survived in France until our days. The steamboats have sunk it, in despite of its heroic resistance. It was only in the first year of the seventeenth century that coches or voitures, were first ornamented, and provided with leather braces; they then assumed the generic name of carrosses, derived from char and charrette.

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.

The adoption of this general use of wheel carriages produced a great change in the habits of social life, and had much influence on the political state of the country. The state of public roads, which the necessity of travelling on horseback imposes, must immediately influence all military movements and all communication of intelligence, must triple the expense of all commercial transfers, and prevent, or render difficult, all merely social meetings, except between the nearest neighbours.

When Laporte, the valet de chambre to Anne of Austria, tells us that in the Winter of the year 1636, between Piteaux and Paris, on the route of Orleans, the road was so bad that the Queen was obliged to sleep in her carriage because neither the mules nor carts that carried her baggage could possibly arrive, we may conceive how little Winter travelling there could have been in France.

Although coaches were already known and used in Paris, they were so unlike the modern vehicles of the same name that the pleasures, engagements, and assignations of the young men were still pursued on horseback.

A printed paper is yet extant in the Royal, or rather Republican Library at Paris, announcing in all its details to the public the establishment by Government of porte-flambeaux and porte-lanternes; persons provided with them were to be posted at the Louvre, the Palais de Justice, and in other public places at Paris.

These extempore illuminations must have been very necessary in the streets of a great town still frequented by horsemen, where no aid of light was derived either from the doors of private houses or the windows of shops; the habitual darkness only made more visible from the occasional flambeaux carried before some persons of distinction by their own servants, or accompanying their coach. This establishment of porte-flambeaux, which was to take place in October, 1662, was announced with all the forms of a long preamble, and surrounded with all the exclusive privileges which could have accompanied the most important measure of internal government. It furnished a curious example of the minute details into which the hierarchy of despotic power had already entered in France. It called itself "The establishment of porte-flambeaux, or porte-lanternes, for the town and suburbs of Paris, and other towns, by letters patent of the King, approved of by Parliament, and the prices regulated by this august body."

Then follows the orders, which forbid anybody from carrying a "link," or "lantern," without an express permission from the individual who has obtained this privilege from the king, to the exclusion of all others, under pain of a thousand francs (£40) penalty. The price fixed for the hire of a porte-lanterne was three sous a quarter of an hour, for persons who went on foot; for those who went in carriages five sous.

The public are then assured that the convenience of being able to go out at night with lights will prove such a boon to all, more especially to men of business and in trade, that the streets will be more frequented, much to the discomfiture of thieves and vagabonds. To nightly depredators, the darkness of the streets must have been very favourable, as we ourselves know it is in London during a dense fog. Thus we see Boileau makes one of the torments of a town life the dread of thieves:

It will thus be seen that the roads in France, and streets in Paris, in bygone days, were as bad as those of England and London; for we find that frequent and fatal rencontres took place from disturbances in the streets.

The Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons' coaches meeting in a narrow place near the Louvre, by the bad driving of their coachmen, jostled against each other, and came to blows between their followers, who, departing in that fashion one from another, did, against the next morning call and assemble together such numbers of their followers, as that the Duke de Guise joining his brother-in-law, Prince de Conti, and the Prince de CondÉ with the Comte de Soissons, his uncle, they came out into the streets with at least three or four hundred mounted men.

In a record of that time, I find the following:—

"There do daily break forth new quarrels between the nobility in this town (Paris), who are here in greater numbers than usually have been heretofore, whereof one being between Monsieur d'Andelot and Monsieur Balagny was presently taken up; and another fell out the other day between Colonel d'Ornano and one Monsieur St. AndrÉ, who, fighting in the streets, were both hurt, and to avoid the mischief that might ensue from such meetings, the gates of the town were for a time shut up."

How long the monopoly of porte-lanternes continued a profitable concern I know not; but at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. the luxury of carriages was so universal that riding among the young men was confined entirely to the manÉge, to hunting, and to their military life. A change of dress had indeed necessitated a change in their mode of conveyance. The military costume was no longer that of the Court; their boots and cloaks had disappeared, except when with their regiments; and the knots of ribbons, the short sleeves, the long ruffles, the lace, fringe, and embroidery, and the flowing periwigs now general, were perfectly incompatible with an evening drive from the Louvre to the Marais.

I may here remark that the first English stage-coach seen in France was launched at Dieppe in the month of October, 1816. The horses being put to, Mr. Plant, of London, a coachman of about eighteen stone weight, and a real John Bull, mounted the box, and astonished the inhabitants as much by his dexterity in cracking his whip as by the bulk of his person for the burden of his horses. Away he started for St. Denis amid the various grimaces of the populace.

A company of London proprietors have obtained the permission of the authorities to run English stage-coaches between St. Denis and Paris. Three more of these vehicles were on their route for the same destination, with English coachmen and harness.

The success of the undertaking was far different from what was expected, and after a time the enterprise was abandoned, the Parisians preferring their lumbering conveyances to the well-appointed "drag."

In conclusion, I am delighted to find that the love of coaching is not extinct, that at the present time there are some admirably well-appointed teams to be daily seen at the old "White Horse Cellar," and that they are yearly on the increase. We have the Brighton, the Dorking, the Guildford, the Oxford, the Tunbridge, the Windsor, and the Watford, with cattle that would delight the eyes of a Pears, were he alive to see them.

Both the amateur and professional "dragsmen" do their work well, and during the Summer season nothing will prove more agreeable than the box-seat or an outside place on one of the above mentioned coaches. I have now reached the last stage, and shall throw aside the ribbons. I trust the journey has been a pleasant one; if so, in the phraseology of the road, I shall say, "I go no further. Please remember the Coachman."

THE END.

London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.