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The careful penury of many years had not, indeed, enabled the old priest to travel by the quick diligences, which had often passed him on the road with a cloud of dust and the rattle of six horses. The great journey had been accomplished in the humbler vehicles plying from town to town, that ran as often as not by night in order to save the horses.
The two gentlemen agreed to walk up the mountain together, and with some trouble induced the conductor to permit them to do so. Why conductors of diligences should object to such relief to their horses the ordinary Englishman can hardly understand.
We staid there but one night & then proceeded in one of their Diligences to Rouen. These Conveyances you of course have often seen; they are not as Speedy in their motion as an English Mail Coach, or as easy as a Curricle, but we have found them very convenient, & shall not complain of our travelling accommodation if we are always fortunate enough to meet with these vehicles.
Communication with other places was only kept up by the Bagneres and Cauterets diligences, which twice a day forded the Lapaca to climb the steep causeway of the Rue Basse. The spirit of the century had not breathed on those peaceful roofs sheltering a belated population which had remained childish, enclosed within the narrow limits of strict religious discipline.
Falstaff drove one of the St. Gothard diligences for many years, and only retired when the railway was opened. Titian once made me a pair of boots at Vicenza, and not very good ones. At Modena I had my hair cut by a young man whom I perceived to be Raffaelle. The model who sat to him for his celebrated Madonnas is first lady in a confectionery establishment at Montreal.
And I remember old diligences, and old postilions in pigtails and jack-boots, who were once as alive as I am, and whose cracking whips I have heard in the midnight many and many a time. Now, where are they? Behold they have been ferried over Styx, and have passed away into limbo. I wonder what time does my boat go? Ah! Here comes the waiter bringing me my little bill.
He called our attention to every chasm, gorge and waterfall, as if we had been wholly incapable of seeing or appreciating anything without his aid. As for me, I did not feel like disputing his susceptibility. I was suffering an uneasy apprehension of an avalanche not of snow, but of trunks and boxes from the topheavy diligences ahead of us.
The tempting dividends melted away, and projects for French railways, on the principle of the State taking profits and the speculators the risk, which had excited the admiration of Cato Morrisson, first hung fire and then exploded, so that rich districts of France which, on the system of "profits to private enterprise," would have enjoyed railway conveyance ten years ago, are still left to the mercy of the slow diligences and slower waggons to this hour.
Do you not know that every public conveyance, even to the Mail Diligences, has been stopped, and that all the telegraph stations have been dismantled all to prevent the further concentration of troops in Paris by the Government?" "I did hear of this, indeed," said Beauchamp. "At dawn I was at the railway dépôt, having late last night, with extreme difficulty, procured a passport.
She determined to leave Paris; and, if possible, to make her escape from France. The master of one of the Paris diligences was brother to Francois, her footman: he was ready to assist her at all hazards, and to convey her safely to Bourdeaux, if she could disguise herself properly; and if she could obtain a pass from any friend under a feigned name.
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