326 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



of the sixteenth centuries, the French monarchs rode 

 most commonly on horseback — the servants of the court, 

 arid the princesses, with the principal ladies, being chiefly 

 mounted on asses. Persons of the first rank often sat 

 on a horse behind their equerry, when the horse was led 

 by servants. When Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother 

 to Charles the Sixth, was assassinated, his two at- 

 tendants (ccuyers) were mounted on the same horse. 

 In the year 1534, Queen Eleanora and the princesses 

 rode on white horses at a sacred festival ; and the 

 historian Sauval informs us, that, in his time, there 

 remained several horse-blocks in Paris, which had been 

 ordered by the Parliament in 1599. Although about 

 this time there were only three coaches in Paris, yet 

 it appears that carriages were used in France as early as 

 1294, when Philip (the Fair) issued an ordinance sup- 

 pressing the use of them by the citizens' wives. Henry 

 the Fourth was assassinated in his coach ; but that he 

 had but one, appears by a letter which he wrote to a 

 friend, and which is preserved. ' I cannot wait upon 

 you to-day,' said his Majesty, ' because my wife is using 

 my coach.' From drawings preserved, however, which 

 give the figures of these carriages, it does not appear 

 that they were suspended on springs, or even by leather 

 straps, which we call braces. The coach in which Louis 

 the Fourteenth made his public entrance, was supposed to 

 be the first that was constructed on that principle. 



Travelling in a carriage, however, became unfashion- 

 able when Richard the Second's Queen, the daughter of 

 the Emperor Charles the Fourth, showed the English 



