deserve death so fully as
did our abominable vehicles. The coupe of a diligence, or better
still, the banquette, was a luxurious mode of travelling as compared
with anything that our coaches offered. There used indeed to be a
certain halo of glory round the occupant of the box of a mail-coach.
The man who had secured that seat was supposed to know something
about the world, and to be such a one that the passengers sitting
behind him would be proud to be allowed to talk to him. But the
prestige of the position was greater than the comfort. A night on
the box of a mail-coach was but a bad time, and a night inside a
mail-coach was a night in purgatory. Whereas a seat up above, on the
banquette of a diligence passing over the Alps, with room for the
feet, and support for the back, with plenty of rugs and plenty of
tobacco, used to be on the Mont Cenis, and still is on some other
mountain passes, a very comfortable mode of seeing a mountain route.
For those desirous of occupying the coupe, or the three front seats
of the body of the vehicle, it must be admitted that difficulties
frequently arose; and that such difficulties were very common at
St. Michael. There would be two or three of those enormous vehicles
preparing to start for the mountain, whereas it would appear that
twelve or fifteen passengers had come down from Paris armed with
tickets assuring them that this preferable mode of travelling should
be theirs. And then assertions would be made, somewhat recklessly,
by the officials, to the effect that all the diligence was coupe.
It would generally be the case that some middle-aged Englishman who
could not speak French would go to the wall, together with his wife.
Middle-aged Englishmen with their wives, who can't speak French, can
nevertheless be very angry, and threaten loudly, when they suppose
themselves to be ill-treated. A middle-aged Englishman, though he
can't speak a word of French, won't believe a French official who
tells him that the diligence is all coupe, when he finds himself
with his unfortunate partner in a roundabout place behind with two
priests, a dirty man who looks like a brigand, a sick maid-servant,
and three agricultural labourers. The attempt, however, was
frequently made, and thus there used to be occasionally a little
noise round the bureau at St. Michael.

On the morning of which we are speaking two Englishmen had just made
good their claim, each independently of the other, each without