294 COACHING. 



of French coaching. It is now two hundred 

 years ao^o that La Fontaine wrote the following^ 

 lines, which besan his fable " La Coche et la 



Mouche 



s> 



" Dans un chemin, montant, sablonneux, malaise, 

 Et de tous les cotes au soleil expose, 

 Six forts chevaux tiroient una coche." 



At that time public and private vehicles had 

 not yet undergone any very notable improve- 

 ments. When an inhabitant of Bordeaux or 

 Macon took his departure for Paris he made his 

 will, leaving among other things " son corps 

 a 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 coclie 

 which we in England still call coach, and the 

 driver of which has obtained the name of coacher 

 — coachman was either coclie de terre or a 

 coche d'eau, both conveying travellers and 

 goods. The coche d'Auxerre alone survived 

 in France until our days. The steam-boats 



