far more comfortable in a solid,
immovable mass;
whereas when only
three were on a seat they banged each other perpetually, and ran much
risk of injuring their hats against the roof by the
violent jolting of
the roads. In front of the
vehicle was a
wooden bench where Pierrotin
sat, on which three travellers could perch; when there, they went, as
everybody knows, by the name of "rabbits." On certain trips Pierrotin
placed four rabbits on the bench, and sat himself at the side, on a
sort of box placed below the body of the coach as a foot-rest for the
rabbits, which was always full of straw, or of packages that feared no
damage. The body of this particular coucou was painted yellow,
embellished along the top with a band of barber's blue, on which could
be read, on the sides, in
silvery white letters, "Isle-Adam, Paris,"
and across the back, "Line to Isle-Adam."
Our descendants will be mightily
mistaken if they fancy that thirteen
persons including Pierrotin were all that this
vehicle could carry. On
great occasions it could take three more in a square compartment
covered with an awning, where the trunks, cases, and packages were
piled; but the
prudent Pierrotin only allowed his regular customers to
sit there, and even they were not allowed to get in until at some
distance beyond the "barriere." The occupants of the "hen-roost" (the
name given by conductors to this section of their
vehicles) were made
to get down outside of every village or town where there was a post of
gendarmerie; the overloading
forbidden by law, "for the safety of
passengers," being too
obvious to allow the gendarme on duty--always a
friend to Pierrotin--to avoid the necessity of reporting this flagrant
violation of the ordinances. Thus on certain Saturday nights and
Monday mornings, Pierrotin's coucou "trundled" fifteen travellers; but
on such occasions, in order to drag it along, he gave his stout old
horse, called Rougeot, a mate in the person of a little beast no
bigger than a pony, about whose merits he had much to say. This little
horse was a mare named Bichette; she ate little, she was spirited, she
was indefatigable, she was worth her weight in gold.
"My wife wouldn't give her for that fat lazybones of a Rougeot!" cried
Pierrotin, when some traveller would joke him about his epitome of a
horse.
The difference between this
vehicle and the other consisted
chiefly in
the fact that the other was on four wheels. This coach, of comical
construction, called the "four-wheel-coach," held seventeen
travellers, though it was bound not to carry more than fourteen. It
rumbled so noisily that the inhabitants of Isle-Adam frequently said,
"Here comes Pierrotin!" when he was scarcely out of the forest which
crowns the slope of the
valley. It was divided into two lobes, so to
speak: one, called the "interior," contained six passengers on two
seats; the other, a sort of cabriolet constructed in front, was called
the "coupe." This coupe was closed in with very
inconvenient and
fantastic glass sashes, a
description of which would take too much
space to allow of its being given here. The four-wheeled coach was
surmounted by a hooded "imperial," into which Pierrotin managed to
poke six passengers; this space was inclosed by leather curtains.
Pierrotin himself sat on an almost
invisible seat perched just below
the sashes of the coupe.
The master of the
establishment paid the tax which was levied upon all
public conveyances on his coucou only, which was rated to carry six
persons; and he took out a special permit each time that he drove the
four-wheeler. This may seem
extraordinary in these days, but when the
tax on
vehicles was first imposed, it was done very
timidly, and such
deceptions were easily practised by the coach proprietors, always
pleased to "faire la queue" (cheat of their dues) the government
officials, to use the argot of their
vocabulary. Gradually the greedy
Treasury became
severe; it forced all public conveyances not to roll
unless they carried two certificates,--one showing that they had been
weighed, the other that their taxes were duly paid. All things have
their salad days, even the Treasury; and in 1822 those days still
lasted. Often in summer, the "four-wheel-coach," and the coucou
journeyed together, carrying between them thirty-two passengers,
though Pierrotin was only paying a tax on six. On these specially
lucky days the convoy started from the faubourg Saint-Denis at half-
past four o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived gallantly at Isle-Adam
by ten at night. Proud of this service, which necessitated the hire of
an extra horse, Pierrotin was wont to say:--
"We went at a fine pace!"
But in order to do the twenty-seven miles in five hours with his
caravan, he was forced to omit certain stoppages along the road,--at
Saint-Brice, Moisselles, and La Cave.
The hotel du Lion d'Argent occupies a piece of land which is very deep
for its width. Though its frontage has only three or four windows on
the faubourg Saint-Denis, the building extends back through a long
court-yard, at the end of which are the stables, forming a large house
standing close against the division wall of the adjoining property.
The entrance is through a sort of passage-way beneath the floor of the
second story, in which two or three coaches had room to stand. In 1822
the offices of all the lines of coaches which started from the Lion
d'Argent were kept by the wife of the inn-keeper, who had as many
books as there were lines. She received the fares, booked the
passengers, and stowed away, good-naturedly, in her vast kitchen the
various packages and parcels to be transported. Travellers were
satisfied with this easy-going, patriarchal
system. If they arrived
too soon, they seated themselves beneath the hood of the huge kitchen
chimney, or stood within the passage-way, or crossed to the Cafe de
l'Echiquier, which forms the corner of the street so named.
In the early days of the autumn of 1822, on a Saturday morning,
Pierrotin was
standing, with his hands
thrust into his pockets through
the apertures of his
blouse, beneath the porte-cochere of the Lion
d'Argent,
whence he could see, diagonally, the kitchen of the inn, and
through the long court-yard to the stables, which were defined in
black at the end of it. Daumartin's
diligence had just started,
plunging heavily after those of the Touchards. It was past eight
o'clock. Under the
enormous porch or passage, above which could be
read on a long sign, "Hotel du Lion d'Argent," stood the stablemen and
porters of the coaching-lines watching the
lively start of the
vehicles which deceives so many travellers, making them believe that
the horses will be kept to that
vigorous gait.
"Shall I
harness up, master?" asked Pierrotin's hostler, when there
was nothing more to be seen along the road.
"It is a quarter-past eight, and I don't see any travellers," replied
Pierrotin. "Where have they poked themselves? Yes,
harness up all the
same. And there are no parcels either! Twenty good Gods! a fine day
like this, and I've only four booked! A pretty state of things for a
Saturday! It is always the same when you want money! A dog's life, and
a dog's business!"
"If you had more, where would you put them? There's nothing left but
the cabriolet," said the hostler, intending to
soothe Pierrotin.
"You forget the new coach!" cried Pierrotin.
"Have you really got it?" asked the man, laughing, and showing a set
of teeth as white and broad as almonds.
"You old good-for-nothing! It starts to-
morrow, I tell you; and I want
at least eighteen passengers for it."
"Ha, ha! a fine affair; it'll warm up the road," said the hostler.
"A coach like that which runs to Beaumont, hey? Flaming! painted red
and gold to make Touchard burst with envy! It takes three horses! I
have bought a mate for Rougeot, and Bichette will go
finely in
unicorn. Come,
harness up!" added Pierrotin, glancing out towards the
street, and stuffing the
tobacco into his clay pipe. "I see a lady and