NUMBER OF VEHICLES IN PARIS. 299 



the MadelaiDe to the Place de la Bas- 

 tille. 



Would that I bad 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 Fraucaises," " Pari- 

 siennes," "Beauvaises," " Orleannaises," &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, steam- 

 boats, 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 cab- 

 riolets, hackney-coaches, diligences, and omni- 

 busses — 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 ascer- 

 taining. 



At the commencement of the seventeenth 

 century there were not fifty carriages to be 

 seen ill Paris ; in the reign of Louis XIV. 



