er, were used at a very early period in France; for
there is still extant an ordinance of Philip the Fair, issued in 1294,
by which citizens' wives are prohibited from using them. It appears,
however, that about 1550 there were only three carriages at Paris,--one
belonging to the queen, another to Diana of Poitiers, and the third to
Rene de Laval, a very corpulent nobleman who was unable to ride on
horseback. The coaches used in the time of Henry IV. were not suspended
by straps (an improvement referred to the time of Louis XIV.), though
they were provided with a canopy supported by four ornamental pillars,
and with curtains of stuff or leather.

Occasional allusion is made to the use of some kinds of vehicles in
England during the middle ages. In _The Squyr of Low Degree_, a poem of
a period anterior to Chaucer, a description of a sumptuous carriage
occurs:

"To-morrow ye shall on hunting fare
And ride, my daughter, in a chare.
It shall be cover'd with velvet red,
And cloth of fine gold all about your head,
With damask white and azure blue
Well diaper'd with lilies new."

Chaucer himself describes a chare as

"With gold wrought and pierrie."

When Richard II. of England, towards the end of the 14th century, was
obliged to fly before his rebellious subjects, he and all his followers
were on horseback, while his mother alone used a carriage. The oldest
carriages used in England were known as chares, cars, chariots, caroches
and whirlicotes; but these became less fashionable when Ann, the wife of
Riehard II., showed the English ladies how gracefully she could ride on
the side-saddle, Stow, in his _Survey of London_, remarking, "so was
riding in those whirlicotes and chariots forsaken except at coronations
and such like spectacles."

There were curious sumptuary laws enacted during the 16th century in
various Italian cities against the excessive use of silk, velvet,
embroidery and gilding, on the coverings of coaches and the trappings of
horses. In 1564 Pope Pius IV. exhorted the cardinals and bishops not to
ride in coaches, according to the fashion of the times, but to leave
such things to women, and themselves ride on horseback. The use of
coaches in Germany in the 16th century was not less common than in
Italy. The current of trade, especially from the East, had for a long
time poured into those two countries towards Holland, enriching all the
cities in its progress. Macpherson, in his _Histo