Leading the Blind Read Online Free PDF

to take the diligence as far as Arras or Abbeville, then go by recently opened railway. ‘France has allowed herself to be outstripped by her neighbours, not only by England, but also by Belgium, Prussia, and Austria, in these means of extending national resources and civilisation, which the country more especially stands in need of.’ (Murray.)
    Murray describes the diligence as being a ‘huge, heavy, lofty, lumbering machine, something between an English stage and a broad-wheeled waggon.’
    It is composed of three parts or bodies joined together: 1. the front division, called Coupé , shaped like a chariot, holding 3 persons, quite distinct from the rest of the passengers, so that ladies may resort to it without inconvenience, and, by securing all 3 places to themselves, travel nearly as comfortably as in a private carriage. The fare is more expensive than in the other parts of the vehicle.
    2. Next to it comes the inside, holding 6 persons, and oppressively warm in summer.
    3. Behind this is attached the Rotonde , ‘the receptacle of dust, dirt, and bad company,’ the least desirable part of the diligence.
    The Banquette , an outside seat on the roof of the coupé, tolerably well protected from rain and cold by a hood or head, and leather apron, but somewhat difficult of access until you are accustomed to climb up into it. It affords a comfortable and roomy seat by the side of the conductor, with the advantages of fresh air and the best view of the country from its great elevation, and greater freedom from the dust than those enjoy who sit below. It is true you may sometimes meet rough and low-bred companions, for the French do not like to travel outside; and few persons of the better class resort to it, except English, and they for the most part prefer it to all others. It is not suited to females, owing to the difficulty of clambering up to it.
    What no guidebook mentions – nor the phrase manuals of the age either – is the problem of land sickness when travelling by a badly sprung coach on sometimes indifferent roads. Almost as common as seasickness, all we get in the way of chit-chat from phrase books dealing with road travel are: ‘Can I take my dogs with me by coach?’
    â€˜Are there any robbers on the road?’
    â€˜Keep away from the ditch: it is a bog full of mud. You must put on the drag.’
    â€˜If you drive well, and behave yourself civilly, I shall give you something for drink-money.’
    The coaches in France were ruled over by a conductor who was ‘paid by the administration, and expects nothing from the passengers, unless he obliges them by some extra service. He is generally an intelligent person, often an old soldier, and the traveller may pick up some information from him.’
    Though the methods of transport were far slower in the 1840s, they resembled the holiday procedures in France today, in that during the month of August ‘the diligences on all the great roads are thronged with school-boys and collegians, with their parents and masters, in consequence of the breaking up of the establishments of education in Paris, all hurrying home at once into the provinces’.
    On the way to Abbeville or Arras our traveller will learn from Murray’s Hand-Book of Travel Talk how to get himself and his impedimenta safely into the train. The diligence, said to be more roomy than an English stagecoach, and therefore less tiring, went at the rate of about six miles an hour, and even less when the roads were bad, so there was sufficient time to practise the few phrases necessary: ‘Pray, Sir, where is the railway station? Where can one get tickets? Where is the luggage-office? I hear the whistle of a train which is arriving.’
    If our traveller, after a fight for his seat, becomes bored with looking out of the window – at better scenery as the train went south – perhaps he will go back to his handbook and read the section on