A Start in Life | Page 4

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.