EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES
serves: "The French vehicles for travelling appear very unpromising to an Englishman: their timbers seem to constitute a sufficient load without the passengers or the baggage, especially as the French horses are but small; and their springs, which are placed behind to diminish the shocks upon the stone pavements of their great roads, very much resemble the hammers of a fulling-mill."[1]
The same traveler remarks upon his journey from Saint-Omer to Lisle: "In the shafts of our chaise they place a horse of the cart breed, but below the size of our drawing horses, harnessed with ropes and a great wooden collar. By the sides of the shaft-horse are two ponies, on one of which the postilion rides, with boots, literally as big as two oyster-barrels, and armed with hoops of iron, to save his leg in case of accidents."[2]
So, too, Mrs. Piozzi says that at Calais the "postillions with greasy night-caps and vast jack-boots, driving your carriage harnessed with ropes, and adorned with sheep-skins, can never fail to strike an Englishman at his first visit abroad."[3]
But notwithstanding some weak spots in the system, the public transportation service in France in the eighteenth century was fairly satisfactory. Dr. Rigby, in 1789, remarks in a letter from Chantilly: "Yesterday we travelled more than ninety miles with perfect ease; the roads are most excellent; the horses are good for travelling, I really think better than the English, but they are all rough, with long manes and tails, and no trimmed or cropped ears, which I believe makes the English abuse them."[4] One could with little difficulty find a conveyance making regular trips from most places of any size and connecting with all parts of the kingdom, and one could at most posting-houses find a chaise for one's personal use. For long journeys, as, for instance, between Calais and Paris or Paris and Lyons, unless the traveler could afford his own carriage, he commonly went in the diligence,[5] "so called from its expedition." "This," says Nugent, "differs from the carosse or ordinary stage-coach in little else but in moving with greater
53
- ↑ (Jones) Journey to Paris (1776), I, 32.
- ↑ Ibid., i, 66, 67.
- ↑ Travels, i, 5.
- ↑ Letters, p. 16.
- ↑ The general bureau of diligences and stage-coaches for the entire kingdom was at Paris, in the Rue Nôtre Dame des Victoires Subordinate bureaus were to be found in all the large towns. Thierry, Almanach des Voyageurs (1785), p. 109. As for prices, "The terms on which you travel are explained in the Liste générale des Postes de France, which keeps one from being cheated." (Jones) Journey to Paris (1776), i, 33.
