Eek! It's Wednesday already ?!? How did that happen ?
So this week I started reading No Place for a Lady by Barbara Hodgson and got curious about conveyances. There are several names in this book for the vehicles used and I wanted to try to sort them out.
Diligence - four wheeled coach that seats six to eight passengers. The term is apparently French and the 19th-century ones came in three sizes, La petite diligence, La grande diligence and L'impériale.
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A diligence of Gothard
© Swiss National museum, Zurich
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Post-chaise - a lighter four wheeled, closed-bodied carriage that carried two to four passengers and was drawn by two or four horses. This is distinct from a chaise which is a pleasure vehicle typically with a fold-down top and which only carried one or two people. These coaches could have a driver (coachman) mounted on the vehicle or a postillion (as in this picture). A postilion rider was the driver of a coach, or post chaise, mounted on one of the horses. Postilion riders normally rode the left (or "near") horse of a pair because horses usually were trained only to be mounted from the left.
Char-à-banc - an open-topped (or with a light shade) four-wheeler with two or more rows of crosswise bench seats, plus a slightly lower rear seat for a groom, and most also had a slatted trunk for luggage. (This term carried over from horse drawn carriages into early motor coaches.)
Well - this is just the first three but I have to prep a lecture, so I will leave it here - I plan to pick this up again with some more though.
Now I haven't heard of diligence in that context.
ReplyDeleteThese are great! The photos are so helpful. I clearly should have looked up postillion long ago, because I thought that was someone riding alongside the coach on a horse.
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the great lesson. I had no idea what those words meant and would have had to look them up. Love the pictures. It must be a good book you are reading.
ReplyDeleteInteresting words and interesting modes of transportation!
ReplyDeleteLove the photos of the carriages and the names.
ReplyDeleteYep, I'm going to really need a diligence for my personal life, now that I know what they are.
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