328 DRIVING. 



Shrewsbury Wonder, viz. eleven miles an hour ; the five-mile 

 stages and the quickness of the changes enabled them to do 

 this. The eight, nine, or ten mile stages of the English mails 

 which accomplished the distance in the same time could only 

 be done by the better-bred English horses ; the underbred ones 

 in France could just do the five-mile stages and could not have 

 done more. 



TRAVELLING BY DILIGENCE IN FRANCE. 



If anyone wished to know discomfort and tedium in 

 travelling this was his opportunity. There was only one place 

 to sit in, and it was the cheapest, corresponding to the third 

 class in railway travelling, and this was the cabriolet on the 

 roof. 



How can I describe a diligence to one who has never 

 travelled in or seen one ? Again I must say look at the 

 pictures of them. Of all the unwieldy lumbering heavy 

 vehicles, invented by the ingenuity of man, that was the acme 

 of everything it should not have been. It had only one merit, 

 very great solidity and strength. On the first floor, as we may 

 call it, was the coupe that held three passengers ; three windows 

 in front, two doors one at either end, with a window in each, 

 or sometimes one doorway and a dummy, close to the horses' 

 tails. Above it the perch whence the horses were driven. 

 Behind the perch the cabriolet, which was really the roof 

 covered in, the front part having a plentiful supply of hay 

 and that was the best place in which to travel. The dedans 

 held six or eight people crammed together, and the coupe was 

 so short in front there was no room for one's legs ; the luggage 

 was on the roof behind the cabriolet, under a tarpaulin. These 

 diligences were run with three horses abreast called limoniere. 

 Pick-axe as we call it, the arbalet was hardly ever used four 

 horses or five horses, two at wheel, three leaders, all driven 

 from the box. In hilly roads sometimes six horses driven 

 Mongset,' i.e. four from the box, and a postilion on the 

 leaders. Much stopping, much drinking, much swearing, and 



