“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.