Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 | Page 6

"and you can make
your plans for the winter at your leisure."
LA GRANGE.
It was on a bright autumn morning that I started for the little village of
Rosay,--some two leagues from Paris, and the nearest point by
diligence to La Grange. A railroad passes almost equally near to it now,
and the French _diligence_, like its English and American counterpart,
the stage-coach, has long since been shorn of its honors. Yet it was a
pleasant mode of travelling, taking you from place to place in a way to
give you a good general idea of the country you were passing through,
and bringing you into much closer relations with your fellow-travellers
than you can form in a rail-car. There was the crowd at the door of the
post-house where you stopped to change horses, and the little troop of

wooden-shoed children that followed you up the hill, drawling out in
unison, "_Un peu de charité, s'il vous plaît_," gradually quickening
their pace as the horses began to trot, and breaking all off together and
tumbling in a heap as they scrambled for the sous that were thrown out
to them.
For a light, airy people, the French have a wonderful facility in making
clumsy-looking vehicles. To look at a _diligence_, you would say that
it was impossible to guide it through a narrow street, or turn it into a
gate. The only thing an American would think of likening it to would
be three carriages of different shapes fastened together. First came the
_Coupé_, in shape like an old-fashioned chariot, with a seat for three
persons, and glass windows in front and at the sides that gave you a full
view of everything on the road. This was the post of honor, higher in
price, and, on long journeys, always secured a day or two beforehand.
Not the least of its advantages was the amusement it afforded you in
watching the postilion and his horses,--a never-failing source of
merriment; and what to those who know how important it is, in a set of
hungry travellers, to secure a good seat at table, the important fact that
the _coupé_-door was the first door opened, and the
_coupé_-passengers received as the most distinguished personages of
the party. The _Intérieur_ came next: somewhat larger than our
common coach, with seats for six, face to face, two good windows at
the sides, and netting above for parcels of every kind and size: a
comfortable place, less exposed to jolts than the _coupé_ even, and
much to be desired, if you could but make sure of a back-corner and an
accommodating companion opposite to you. Last of all was the
_Rotonde_, with its entrance from the rear, its seats length-wise, room
for six, and compensating in part for its comparative inferiority in other
respects by leaving you free to get in and out as you chose, without
consulting the conductor. This, however, was but the first story, or the
rooms of state of this castle on wheels. On a covered dicky, directly
above the _coupé_, and thus on the very top of the whole machine, was
another row of passengers, with the conductor in front, looking down
through the dust upon the world beneath them, not very comfortable
when the sun was hot, still less comfortable of a rainy day, but just in
the place which of all others a real traveller would wish to be in at
morning or evening or of a moonlight night. The remainder of the top

was reserved for the baggage, carefully packed and covered up securely
from dust and rain.
I had taken the precaution to engage a seat in the _coupé_ the day
before I set out. Of my companions, I am sorry to say, I have not the
slightest recollection. But the road was good,--bordered, as so many
French roads are, with trees, and filled with a thousand objects full of
interest to a young traveller. There was the _roulage_: an immense cart
filled with goods of all descriptions, and drawn by four or five horses,
ranged one before another, each decked with a merry string of bells,
and generally rising in graduated proportions from the full-sized leader
to the enormous thill horse, who bore the heat and burden of the day.
Sometimes half a dozen of them would pass in a row, the drivers
walking together and whiling away the time with stories and songs.
Now and then a post-chaise would whirl by with a clattering of wheels
and cracking of whip that were generally redoubled as it came nearer to
the _diligence_, and sank again, when it was passed, into comparative
moderation both of noise and speed. There were foot travellers, too, in
abundance; and as I saw them walking along under the shade of