[节选]A START IN LIFE

THAT WHICH WAS LACKING TO PIERROTIN'S HAPPINESS
Railroads, in a future not far distant, must force certain industries

to disappear forever, and modify several others, more especially those

relating to the different modes of transportation in use around Paris.

Therefore the persons and things which are the elements of this Scene

will soon give to it the character of an archaeological work. Our

nephews ought to be enchanted to learn the social material of an epoch

which they will call the "olden time." The picturesque "coucous" which

stood on the Place de la Concorde, encumbering the Cours-la-Reine,--

coucous which had flourished for a century, and were still numerous in

1830, scarcely exist in 1842, unless on the occasion of some

attractive suburban solemnity, like that of the Grandes Eaux of

Versailles. In 1820, the various celebrated places called the

"Environs of Paris" did not all possess a regular stage-coach service.



Nevertheless, the Touchards, father and son, had acquired a monopoly

of travel and transportation to all the populous towns within a

radius of forty-five miles; and their enterprise constituted a fine

establishment in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. In spite of their

long-standing rights, in spite, too, of their efforts, their capital,

and all the advantages of a powerful centralization, the Touchard

coaches ("messageries") found terrible competition in the coucous for

all points with a circumference of fifteen or twenty miles. The

passion of the Parisian for the country is such that local enterprise

could successfully compete with the Lesser Stage company,--Petites

Messageries, the name given to the Touchard enterprise to distinguish

it from that of the Grandes Messageries of the rue Montmartre. At the

time of which we write, the Touchard success was stimulating

speculators. For every small locality in the neighborhood of Paris

there sprang up schemes of beautiful, rapid, and commodious vehicles,

departing and arriving in Paris at fixed hours, which produced,

naturally, a fierce competition. Beaten on the long distances of

twelve to eighteen miles, the coucou came down to shorter trips, and

so lived on for several years. At last, however, it succumbed to

omnibuses, which demonstrated the possibility of carrying eighteen

persons in a vehicle drawn by two horses. To-day the coucous--if by

chance any of those birds of ponderous flight still linger in the

second-hand carriage-shops--might be made, as to its structure and

arrangement, the subject of learned researches comparable to those of

Cuvier on the animals discovered in the chalk pits of Montmartre.