A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann

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СКАЧАТЬ us that Charles V., because he had the gout, laid himself to sleep in an Hungarian Gutsche, one might almost conclude that the peculiarity of these carriages consisted in their being so constructed as to admit people to sleep in them. This conjecture is supported by the meaning of the word Gutsche, which formerly signified a couch or sofa186. As the writers quoted by Cornides call the Hungarian coaches sometimes (leves) light, sometimes (veloces) swift, they ought rather to be considered as a particular kind of carriages for travelling with expedition. It is, however, still more worthy of remark, that, so early as the year 1457, the ambassador of Ladislaus V., king of Hungary and Bohemia, brought with him to the queen of France, besides other presents, a carriage which excited great wonder at Paris, and which, as an old historian says, was branlant et moult riche187. Does not the first word of this expression seem to indicate that the carriage was suspended?

A peculiar kind of coach has been introduced in latter times under the name of Berlin. The name indicates the place which gave birth to the invention, as the French themselves acknowledge; though some, with very little probability, wish to derive it from the Italian188. Philip de Chiese, a native of Piedmont, and descended from the Italian family of Chiesa, was a colonel and quarter-master-general in the service of Frederic William, elector of Brandenburg, by whom he was much esteemed on account of his knowledge in architecture. Being once sent to France on his master’s business, he caused to be built, on purpose for this journey, a carriage capable of containing two persons; which, in France and everywhere else, was much approved, and called a berline. This Philip de Chiese died at Berlin in 1673189.

Coaches have given rise to a profession which in large cities affords maintenance to a great number of people, and which is attended with much convenience; I mean that of letting out coaches for hire, known under the name of fiacres, hackney-coaches190. This originated in France; for about the year 1650 one Nicholas Sauvage first thought of keeping horses and carriages ready to be let out to those who might have occasion for them. The Parisians approved of and patronised this plan; and as Sauvage lived in the street St. Martin, in a house called the hôtel St. Fiacre, the coaches, coachmen and proprietor, were called fiacres. In a little time this undertaking was improved by others, who obtained a license for their new institutions on paying a certain sum of money191. Some kept coaches ready in certain places of the streets, and let them out as long as was required, to go from one part of the city to another. These alone, at length, retained the name of fiacre, which at first was common to every kind of hired carriage without distinction. Others kept carriages at their houses, which they let out for a half or a whole day, a week, or a month: these coaches were known by the name of carosses de remise. Others kept carriages which at a certain stated time went from one quarter of the city to another, like a kind of stages, and took up such passengers as presented themselves; and in the year 1662 some persons set up carriages with four horses, for the purpose of conveying people to the different palaces at which the court might be; these were called voitures pour la suite de la cour. The proprietors often quarreled respecting the boundaries prescribed to them by their licenses; and on this account they were sometimes united into one company, and sometimes separated. The police established useful regulations, by which the safety and cleanliness of these carriages were promoted; marks were affixed to them, by which they might be known; and young persons and women of the town were forbidden to use them192, &c.

A particular kind of hackney carriage, peculiar to the Parisians, in the opinion of some does no great honour to their urbanity. I mean the brouettes, called sometimes roulettes, and by way of derision vinaigrettes. The body of these is almost like that of our sedans, but rolls upon two low wheels, and is dragged forwards by men. An attempt was made to introduce such machines under Louis XIII.; but the proprietors of the sedans prevented it, as they apprehended the ruin of their business. In the year 1669 they were however permitted, and came into common use in 1671, but were employed only by the common people. Dupin, the inventor of these brouettes, found means to contrive them so that they did not jolt so much as might have been expected; and he was able to conceal this art so well, that for a long time he was the only person who could make them193. The number of all the coaches at Paris is by some said to be fifteen thousand; the author of Tableau de Paris reckons the number of the hackney coaches to amount to eighteen hundred, and asserts that more than a hundred foot passengers lose their lives by them every year.

Coaches to be let for hire were first established at London in 1625. At that time there were only twenty, which did not stand in the streets, but at the principal inns. Ten years after, however, they were become so numerous, that king Charles I. found it necessary to issue an order for limiting their number. In the year 1637 there were in London and Westminster fifty hackney coaches, for each of which no more than twelve horses were to be kept. In the year 1652 their number had increased to two hundred; in 1654 there were three hundred, for which six hundred horses were employed; in 1694 they were limited to seven hundred, and in 1715 to eight hundred194.

      Hackney coaches were first established in Edinburgh in 1673. Their number was twenty; but as the situation of the city was unfavourable for carriages, it fell in 1752 to fourteen, and in 1778 to nine, and the number of sedans increased.

Fiacres were introduced at Warsaw, for the first time, in 1778. In Copenhagen there are a hundred hackney coaches195.

In Madrid there are from four to five thousand gentlemen’s carriages196; in Vienna three thousand, and two hundred hackney coaches.

      At Amsterdam coaches with wheels were in the year 1663 forbidden, in order to save the expensive pavement of the streets; for coaches there, even in summer, are placed upon sledges, as those at Petersburgh are in winter. The tax upon carriages in Holland has from time to time been raised, yet the number has increased; and some years ago the coach horses in the Seven United Provinces amounted to twenty-five thousand.

      When Prince Repnin made his entrance into Constantinople in 1775, he had with him eighty coaches, and two hundred livery servants.

      [Since the former edition of this work, published in 1814, public conveyances have undergone considerable changes. Stage-coaches, which in this country had arrived at such a degree of perfection, and which, till within a few years, passed through and connected almost every small town in the United Kingdom, have now nearly disappeared in consequence of the introduction of railroads. It is also rare in London to meet with a solitary hackney coach, this class of vehicles being almost entirely superseded by the lighter one-horsed cabriolets which were first introduced as public conveyances in the year 1823. The number of hackney coaches and cabriolets now plying for hire in the streets of London amounts to 2650, of which probably not more than 250 are two-horsed coaches.

      That very useful form of public conveyance, the omnibus, which is at present met with in nearly every large town in Europe, originated in Paris in 1827. In the latter part of 1831 and the beginning of 1832, omnibuses began to ply in the streets of London. Those running from Paddington to the Bank were the earliest. Carriages, however, of a similar form were used in England as Long Stages more than forty years ago, but were discontinued as they were not found profitable. They were in most request at holiday time, by schoolmasters in the neighbourhood of London; and some even of the present generation will remember their joyous pranks on journeying home in these capacious machines.

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