the Glass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But
is Fersen on the right road? Northeastward, to the Barrier
of Saint Martin and Metz Highway, thither were we bound;
and lo, he drives right Northward! The royal Individual,
in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; but right or
wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant,
through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out
of mud, or the Longhaired Kings went in Bullock-carts, was
there such a drive. Mortals on each hand of you, close by,
stretched out horizontal, dormant; and we alive and quaking!
Crack, crack, through the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin,—these
windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau’s. Towards
the Barrier not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost
North! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands
what he is about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights
for one moment at Madame Sullivan’s: ‘Did Count Fersen’s
Coachman get the Baroness de Korff’s new Berline?’—‘Gone
with it an hour-and-half ago’ grumbles responsive but drowsy
porter. ‘_C’est bien._’ Yes, it is well;—though had but
such hour-and-half been lost, it were still better. Forth
therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then
Eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord
can do!
[Illustration: _The Lord Chancellor of Ireland’s Coach_
(_Now in Edinburgh_)]
“Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping
Paris is now all on the right-hand of him; silent except for
some snoring hum: and now he is Eastward as far as the Barrier
de Saint-Martin; looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff’s
Berline. This Heaven’s Berline he at length does descry, drawn
up with its six Horses, his own German Coachman waiting on the
box.... The august Glass-Coach fare, six Insides, hastily
packs itself into the new Berline; two Bodyguard Couriers
behind. The Glass-coach itself is turned adrift, its head
towards the City; to wander whither it lists,—and be found
next morning in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with
its brave new hammer-cloths; flourishing his whip; he bolts
forward towards Bondy. There a third and final Bodyguard
Courier of ours ought surely to be, with post-horses already
ordered. There likewise ought that purchased Chaise, with the
two waiting-maids and their band-boxes, to be; whom also her
Majesty could not travel without....
“Once more by Heaven’s blessing, it is all well. Here is the
sleeping Hamlet of Bondy; Chaise with Waiting-women; horse all
ready, and postilions with their churn-boots, impatient in the
dewy dawn. Brief harnessing done, the postilions with their
churn-boots vault into the saddles; brandish circularly their
little noisy whips....
“But scouts, all this while, and aides-de-camp, have flown
forth faster than the leathern Diligences....”
The grand new Berline has been seen in the Wood of Bondy.
“Miserable new Berline!” apostrophises Carlyle. “Why could not Royalty
go in some old Berline similar to that of other men? Flying for life,
one does not stickle about his vehicle. Monsieur, in a commonplace
travelling-carriage, is off Northwards; Madame, his Princess, in
another, with variation of route; they cross one another while changing
horses, without look of recognition; and reach Flanders, no man
questioning them....
“All runs along, unmolested, speedy, except only the new Berline. Huge
leathern vehicle:—huge Argosy, let us say, or Acapulco-ship; with its
heavy stern-boat of Chaise-and-pair; with its three yellow Pilot-boats
of mounted Bodyguard Couriers, rocking aimless round it and ahead of
it, to bewilder, not to guide! It lumbers along lurchingly with stress,
at a snail’s pace; noted of all the world.”
It has indeed been seen, and soldiers rush after it, and the huge
Berline is brought back to Paris in what was surely the most terrible
procession ever witnessed....
The Korff Berline was probably not built so high as some of the English
posting chariots of the time. The perch of these was often more than
four feet from the ground. According to Felton you could buy a plain
post-chaise for £93, or a neat town chariot for £91. Or you might have
a landaulet, a demi-landau, or a sulky, which at this time was “a
light carriage built exactly in the form of a post-chaise, chariot, or
demi-landau,” and like the vis-à-vis was “contracted on the seat, so
that only one person can sit thereon, and is called a sulky from the
proprietor’s desire of riding alone.” The landaulet was to the landau
as the chariot was to the coach. It was simply a chariot made to open.
The hood was of “greasy harness leather, disagreeable to the touch or
smell, and continually needing oil and blacking” rubbed into it to keep
it supple and black.
Then there was the phaeton, which had lost none of its popularity, and
was built as lofty as ever.
“The handsomest mixture of danger with dignity,” wrote Leigh
Hunt, “in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton with
its yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with respect
in our childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for its
name, and partly for the show it makes in the prints to novels
of the period. The most gallant figure which modern driving
ever cut was in the person of a late Duke of Hamilton; of whom
we have read or heard somewhere, that he used to dash round
the streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his hounds
barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration
of the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to witness
nothing higher than a lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a
mule.”
But far more conspicuous a figure than this Duke of Hamilton was
Colonel (Tommy) Onslow, afterwards Lord Cranley, of whom there is a
caricature by Gillray, with the following once famous lines:—
“What can little T. O. do?
Why drive a phaeton and two.
Can little T. O. do no more?
Yes, drive a phaeton and four!”
The Colonel, however, was surpassed, as we have seen, by Sir John Lade,
who drove six greys. George IV, when Prince of Wales, was satisfied
with a pair, but his horses were “caparisoned with blue harness
stitched with red,” their manes “being plaited with scarlet ribbons,
while they wore plumes of feathers on their heads.”
The structure of these phaetons differed. Gillray’s picture shows the
body hung midway between the two axles, though he may not have troubled
to be exact in this respect. The commonest form was the _perch-high
phaeton_, in which the body was hung directly over the front axle,
the hind wheels being much larger than those in front, and the bottom
of the body being five feet from the ground. Others were less lofty.
In the _one-horse phaeton_ the body was hung over the back axle with
“grasshopper” springs, and “was joined to the forecarriage, which was
without springs, by wooden stays”—a very different carriage. This in
time led to the _pony phaeton_ used by George IV in 1824. Here all
idea of great height had been abandoned so as to allow His Majesty to
enter his carriage without the fatigue of climbing several steps. Queen
Victoria’s pony phaeton was a similar vehicle, and indeed it was from
such a carriage that the _victoria_ was evolved at a rather later date.
“What connexion there could be,” wrote Bridges Adams some
forty years later in a passage not altogether devoid of
epithets, “between this vehicle and the fabled car of the
Sun-God, to obtain for it such a title, it is difficult to
conceive.... The vehicle looked like a mechanical illustration
of the play of _Much Ado about Nothing_. It was a contrivance
to make an enormously high and dangerous seat for two
persons, inconvenient to drive from, and at the same time
to consume as much material and mix as many unsightly and
inharmonious lines as possible. The framework of the carriage
was constructed with two iron perches, the outline of which
was hideously ugly; but the camel-like hump had at least the
mechanical advantage of permitting a higher fore wheel than
could otherwise be used. The shape of the body was as though
the rudest possible form capable of affording a seat had been
put together. An ungraceful form of upright pillar or standard
was first selected, into which was framed a horizontal ugly
curve for a seat, connected at the top by an ungainly-looking
elbow, and a formal serpentine curve behind, from which was
projected like an excrescence an ugly leathern box called a
sword-case. The front of the upright pillar was continued into
a most formal curve, and from its point rose an ungraceful
bracket, to support a footboard, on the extreme edge of which
was coiled an ugly piece of leather called an apron. The
construction of the body was such that it could not possibly
hold together by the strength of its own framing; and to
remedy this, a curved iron stay was introduced in the worst
possible taste.... The fore springs rather resembled the
flourishing strokes made by a schoolmaster, when heading a
copy-book or Christmas piece, than any legitimate mechanical
contrivance; and the motion must have been detestable,
rendering the act of driving difficult, and lessening the
power of the drivers over their horses. The servant’s seat
behind”—not always present—“placed on curved blocks without
any springs, completed this extraordinary-looking vehicle. To
sit on such a seat, when the horses were going at much speed,
would require as much skill as is evinced by a rope-dancer at
the theatre.”
Which shows that in 1837, at any rate, people’s ideas had undergone a
considerable change with regard to a really fashionable equipage.
The only other four-wheeled vehicle I need mention here was the
_sociable_ which, according to Felton, was “merely a phaeton with a
double or treble body.” It was made with or without doors, and with or
without a driving seat. A good example of this carriage is shown in
Gillray’s print _The Middlesex Election of 1804_.
Coming to the two-wheeled vehicles, the chief of these were the
_curricle_, the _gig_ or _chaise_, and the _whiskey_. As a general
rule it may be taken that when a gig had two horses it was called
a curricle, and when there was only one, a chaise. In the Prince
Regent’s time the curricle was “the most stylish of all conveyances.”
In shape nearly all these gigs were identical, though one reads that
the notorious “Romeo” Coates drove in one whose body was shaped like
a shell.[44] They were of various heights, a particularly lofty one
being known in Ireland as the _suicide gig_. The _caned whiskey_ was
a gig whose body, “fixed upon the shafts—which again were connected
with the long horizontal springs by scroll irons,” had a movable hood.
The _Rib Chair_ was similar to the whiskey, but without springs. It
is really only possible to differentiate properly between these light
carriages and the other hybrids, so soon to appear, by means of prints
and photographs. To the non-technical mind they are almost identical
with each other.
“The prettiest of these vehicles,” Leigh Hunt writes, after
confessing that he has no ambition to drive tandem, as was
so often done, or to run into danger with a phaeton, “is the
curricle, which is also the safest. There is something worth
looking at in a pair of horses, with that sparkling pole of
steel laid across them. It is like a bar of music, comprising
their harmonious course. But to us, even gigs are but a sort
of unsuccessful gentility. The driver, to all intents and
purposes, had better be on the horse.”
I need say very little of the public carriages. There is, however, one
point in connection with the later stage-coaches which bears upon the
question that was only solved by Obadiah Elliott in 1804. On September
20, 1770, according to the _Annual Register_, there was an accident to
one of them which was growing increasingly common.
“It were greatly to be wished,” runs this account, “the stage
coaches were put under some regulations as to the number of
persons and quantity of baggage. Thirty-four persons were in
and about the Hertford Coach this day when it broke down by
one of the braces giving way.”
No wonder it broke down! It is interesting to note, however, that even
the more humane stage-coachmen, so far from objecting, as you might
imagine they would have done, to such overcrowding, actively encouraged
it and for a very odd reason. At this time springs of a kind were being
applied to the coaches, which consequently travelled with greater ease
than before, but the coaches themselves happened also to be built
very high, like all other vehicles, and nothing could convince the
silly coachmen that the easy running was not due to a heavy load being
applied to the top of a high carriage. It became necessary, therefore,
to pass legislation, which was accordingly done in 1785 and again in
1790, restricting the number of passengers allowed.
At this time, too, Mr. John Palmer’s first diligence, or mail-coach,
had appeared as a quick and cheap method of carrying letters, and
these mail-coaches very rapidly took the fancy of passengers. Palmer,
however, was a man with great powers of organisation, and before the
new century had dawned, had his coaches running upon every high road in
the country.[45]
“The mail coaches,” wrote a French nobleman after visiting
this country at the beginning of the new century, “afford
means of travelling with great celerity into all parts of
England. They are Berlins, firm and light, holding four
persons; they carry only letters, and do not take charge of
any luggage. They are drawn by four horses, and driven by one
coachman; they travel never less than seven to eight miles an
hour.”
One or two particular inventions may also be noted. This same nobleman,
continuing his account, says:—
“Stage Coaches are very numerous, they are kept in every
City, and even in small towns; all these carriages have small
wheels, and hold six persons, without reckoning the outside
passengers. About twenty years ago a carriage was invented
in the form of a gondola; it is long, and will hold sixteen
persons sitting face to face; the door is behind, and this
plan ought to be generally adopted, as the only means of
escaping a great danger when the horses run away. What adds to
the singularity of these carriages is, that they have eight
wheels; thus dividing equally the weight, they are less liable
to be overturned, or cut up the roads; they are, besides, very
low and easy.
“When these long coaches first appeared at Southampton, a City
much frequented in summer by rich inhabitants of London, who
go there to enjoy sea bathing, they had (as every new thing
has) a great run, so that it was nearly impossible to get a
place in them.
“One of the principal Innkeepers, jealous of this success,
set up another, and, to obtain the preference, he reduced the
fare to half-price, at that time a guinea. In order to defeat
this manœuvre, the first proprietor made a still greater
reduction, so that, at last, the receipts did not cover the
expenses. But the two rivals did not stop here; for one of
them announced that he would take nothing of gentlemen who
might honour him by choosing his Coach, but he would beg them
to accept a bottle of Port before their departure.”
[Illustration: “_English Travelling, or the First Stage from Dover_”
(_From a Drawing by Rowlandson, 1792_)]
But not even such a temptation seems to have made these long coaches a
success.
The other innovation, though properly belonging to a slightly later
date, was the patent coach invented by the Reverend William Milton. He
explained his coach in a letter to Sir John Sinclair.[46]
“Permit me, Sir, to explain, in a few words, the nature of my
invention.—In a stage-coach, an overturn is rendered much
less likely to happen, by placing as much as possible of the
heavy luggage of each journey, in a luggage-box below the body
of the carriage; the body not being higher than usual. This
brings down the centre of gravity of the total coach and load
(a point which at present, at every inequality of the road and
change of quarter, vacillates most dangerously), it brings it
down to a place of great comparative safety.
“To prevent the fatal and disastrous consequences of breaking
down, there are placed, at the sides or corners of this
luggage-box, small strong idle wheels, with their periphery
below its floor; ready, in case of a wheel coming off or
breaking, or an axle-tree failing, to catch the falling
carriage, and instantly to continue its previous velocity;
thereby preventing that sudden stop to rapid motion, which
at present constantly attends the breaking down, and which
has so frequently proved fatal to the coachman and outside
passengers.—The bottom of this luggage-box is meant to be
about twelve or thirteen inches from the ground, and the idle
wheels seven, six, or five. If at a less distance still, no
inconvenience will result; for when either of them takes over
an obstacle in the road, it instantly, and during the need,
discharges its respective active wheel from the ground, and
works in its stead.”
Several coaches were built to Mr. Milton’s specifications, but like so
many other patent coaches they were speedily forgotten.
It is only necessary to add here that about 1800 “outside passengers
were first enabled to ride on the roofs of coaches without incurring
the imminent hazard of being thrown off whenever their vigilance and
their anxious grip relaxed.” For it was then, says Mr. Harper, “that
fore and hind boots, framed to the body of the coach, became general,
thus affording foothold to the outsides. Mail coaches were not the
cause of this change, for they originally carried no passengers on the
roof. We cannot fix the exact date of this improvement,” he adds, “and
may suppose that in common with every other innovation, it was gradual,
and only introduced when new coaches became necessary on the various
routes. The immediate result was to democratise coach-travelling.”
On the other hand, it became a common practice amongst the smart youths
of the day to drive the stage-coaches themselves. So we read in a paper
of this time:—
“The education of our youth of fashion is _improving_ daily:
several of them now drive Stage Coaches to town, and open
the door of the Carriage for passengers, while the coachman
remains on the box. They _farm_ the perquisites from the
Coachman on the road, and generally pocket something into the
bargain.”
Which was, according to the writer, “a fit subject for ridicule on any
stage.”
The post-chaises were as ubiquitous as ever. The French nobleman, from
whose book I have already quoted, entered one so soon as he landed at
Dover.
[Illustration: “_French Travelling, or the First Stage from Dover_”
(_From a Drawing by Rowlandson, 1785_)]
“The Post,” he records, “is not, as on the Continent, an
establishment dependent upon the Government; individuals
undertake this business; most of the inns keep Post Chaises;
they are good Carriages with four wheels, shut close, the same
kind as we call in France _diligences de ville_. They hold
three persons in the back with ease are narrow, extremely
light; well hung, and appear the more easy, because the roads
are not paved with stone. The postilions wear a jacket with
sleeves, tight boots, and, altogether, their dress is light,
and extremely neat; and they are not only civil, but even
respectful. On your arrival at the Inn, you are shown into a
good room, where a fire is kept in winter, and tea is ready
every hour of the day. In five minutes at most, another Chaise
is ready for your departure. If we compare these customs with
those of Germany, or particularly in the North, where you must
often wait whole hours to change horses, in a dirty room,
heated by an iron stove, the smell of which is suffocating; or
even those of France, where the most part of the post-houses,
not being Inns, have no accommodation for travellers, it is
evident that the advantage is not in favour of the Continent.”
Indeed, England at this time was superior to most European countries
so far as her posting-carriages and roads were concerned. Leigh Hunt,
in expressing his delight of them, was only following in the wake of
Johnson and the others who had always enjoyed their cross-country rides.
“A post-chaise,” he says, “involves the idea of travelling
which, in company of those we love, is home in motion. The
smooth running along the road, the fresh air, the variety
of scene, the leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the
clatter through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the
hearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise waiting only
upon your own movements), even the little contradictions to
home-comfort, and the expedients upon which they set us, all
put the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty over the
road of life. If anything could grind us young again, it
would be the wheels of a post-chaise. The only monotonous
sight is the perpetual up-and-down movement of the postilion,
who, we wish exceedingly, could take a chair. His occasional
retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a box, and his
affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its exquisite
want of accommodation. But some have given the bar, lately, a
surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and flattened it a little
into something obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat.”
Prints of these post-chaises are common. Rowlandson, in particular,
loved to draw them. Gillray, too, shows the post-chaise in Scotland and
Ireland, where apparently things were not quite so easy as in England.
The Scottish post-chaise is shown breaking to pieces, and the Irish
chaise is little better than a wreck, with the body held together by a
piece of rope, with hardly a spoke left to the wheels, and a roof put
roughly together of thatched straw. The unfortunate lady inside has put
one foot through the panelling and another through the floor, which
reminds one that it was of an Irish post-chaise that the famous story
of the poor man who had to run with the carriage because the bottom had
fallen out was originally told.
It remains to consider a few particular eighteenth-century carriages of
other countries.
[Illustration: _Early American Shay_
(_From “Stage Coach and Tavern Days” [A. M. Earle]_)]
[Illustration: _English Posting Chariot—Early Nineteenth Century_
(_From a Photograph_)]
Mr. Stratton thinks that the Indians of North America had rude litters
at an early date. The Incas of Peru certainly possessed magnificently
decorated sedans or palanquins, in which they progressed through
their kingdom. It was not, however, until the seventeenth century
that wheeled carriages appeared in America. Sir Thomas Browne quotes
from an English traveller’s book, which states that by the middle of
this century there were at least twenty thousand coaches in Mexico,
and possibly this was true. But into North America carriages filtered
but slowly. There had been coaches in Boston so early as 1669, and in
Connecticut in 1685. William Penn, writing to Logan in 1700, bids his
servants have the coach ready. The calash was also known at that time,
but being “clumsy” was less popular than the French cabriolet or gig,
which had been brought over by the Huguenots, and rapidly transformed
into the well-known _one-horse shay_, which in its turn was supplanted
by the more comfortable and certainly more distinctive _buggy_.
Bennet, travelling in America in 1740, saw many carriages in Boston.
“There are several families,” he records, “in Boston that keep
a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four
horses; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the
bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble,
lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful
black breed so common in London.... The country carts and
wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six, according
to the distance, or the burden they are laden with.”
A Boston advertisement of 1743 mentions “a very handsome chariot,
fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and
painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroidered with
silver, and a silk fringe round the seat.” This was offered for sale
by John Lucas, a local coachbuilder, and had most probably been built
by him.
At this time several stage-coaches were running, and the _shay_ was
being used by even the poorer folk. A Philadelphian advertisement of
1746 speaks of “two very handsome chairs, with very good geers,” and
at this time, too, the Italian chairs and curricles were also popular.
They were generally driven tandem.
Even more distinctive than the shay, however, was the _coachee_, which
is described by Isaac Weld in his travels (1795):—
“The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the
same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the
bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof of the
carriage. There are two seats in it for passengers, who sit
in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported
by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each
side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open; and,
to guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let
down from the roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The
light wagons are in the same construction,” he adds, “and are
calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The wagon has
no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they can
over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally
for stage-coaches.”