POSTING IN FRANCE. 321 



oftener at a pace exceeding ten miles an hour than under it. 

 Such was the English boy boy by name, weight (from eight 

 to ten stone) and appearance, but often over sixty years of age. 

 In trying to describe the French postboy and horse I 

 should fail to convey any idea to a reader who has never seen 

 them, unless the pencil can come to the assistance of the pen 

 there are many good prints of the French road as it was. To 

 anyone fond of bowling along at ten miles an hour, a journey 

 from Calais or Boulogne through Paris and Lyons to Marseilles 

 was a real pleasure. I don't say that being in such a hurry 

 that it had to be done at a stretch without stopping was a 

 pleasure, but to a gentleman with plenty of time and money it 

 was delightful. The only drawback was the pavee, or paved 

 road. I scarcely know how I can describe to a modern reader, 

 who does not remember when Piccadilly and St. James's Street 

 were paved with cubes of Aberdeen granite of from eight to ten 

 inches, or who never saw a highway in Cheshire forty years ago, 

 what a pavee was like. The high-roads were very wide, the 

 country open, no fence at the side of the road, the centre 

 convex and paved to a width sufficient to allow two of the 

 widest waggons, diligences, or carriages, to pass each other, and 

 room enough to spare besides ; on either side at least ten feet 

 of road between the pavee and the grass. In summer this was 

 not bad going, but in winter it was very deep. The horses were 

 mostly the white, high-crested, and heavy forehanded Normandy 

 horse, light in the flank, thin in the thigh, and all stallions, such 

 as you may see in the Paris omnibuses at this day, or in Rosa 

 Bonheur's picture of a French Horse Fair ; and many is the 

 good fight the writer has seen between horses when they were 

 taken out of the carriage. The ostler was generally particu- 

 larly on the Paris and Calais road a woman, who harnessed 

 and fed the animals and brought them out to be put to the 

 carriage. These women wore sabots (the wooden shoe of 

 France) with very sharp-pointed toes, and when there was a row 

 amongst these fighting devils, were quite equal to the occasion ; 

 with one vigorous kick, always applied on the same place, they 



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