EQUIPAGES OF PARIS. 297 



coDclucteur 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 pubhc 

 use. 



I have already said that the head-quarters 

 of these vehicles were in Rue St. Antoine, 

 Paris, and were called " carrosses a 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 

 coiicous, were scarcely superior in any respect, 

 as many have wofully experienced. 



Times, however, have altered, and, during 



