Part 15

“Dust shall not stick to the hoofs of Fersen: crack! crack! 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!

“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.”

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.

“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.