These companies put also before the Parisian public two other classes of vehicular accommodation, the "_pataches suspendues_," small carriages with but one horse, which ran between Paris and Strasburg, Metz, Nancy, and Lyons at the price of ten sous per hour. Again there was another means of travel which originated in Paris; it was known as the "Messageries à Cheval." Travellers rode _on_ horses, which were furnished by the company, their _bagages_ being transported in advance by a "_chariot_." In fine weather this must certainly have been an agreeable and romantic mode of travel in those days; what would be thought of it to-day, when one, if he does not fly over the kilometres in a Sud--or Orient--Express, is as likely as not covering the _Route Nationale_ at sixty or more kilometres the hour in an automobile, it is doubtful to say. Finally came the famous _diligence_, which to-day, outside the "Rollo" books and the reprints of old-time travel literature, is seldom met with in print. "These immense structures," says an observant French writer, "which lost sometimes their centre of gravity, in spite of all precaution and care on the part of the driver and the guard, were, by an _Ordonnance Royale_ of the 16th of July, 1828, limited as to their dimensions, weight, and design." Each _diligence_ carried as many spare parts as does a modern automobile, and workshops and supply-depots were situated at equal distances along the routes. Hugo said that the complexity of it all represented to him "the perfect image of a nation; its constitution and its government. In the _diligence_ was to be found, as in the state, the aristocracy in the coupé, the _bourgeoisie_ in the interior, the people in _la rotonde_, and, finally, 'the artists, the thinkers, and the unclassed' in the utmost height, the _impériale_, beside the _conducteur_, who represented the law of the state. "This great _diligence_, with its body painted in staring yellow, and its five horses, carries one in a diminutive space through all the sleeping villages and hamlets of the countryside." From Paris, in 1830, the journey by _diligence_ to Toulouse--182 French leagues--took eight days; to Rouen, thirteen hours; to Lyons, _par_ Auxerre, four days, and to Calais, two and a half days. The _diligence_ was certainly an energetic mode of travel, but not without its discomforts, particularly in bad weather. Prosper Merimée gave up his winter journey overland to Madrid in 1859, and took ship at Bordeaux for Alicante in Spain, because, as he says, "all the inside places had been taken for a month ahead." The coming of the _chemin de fer_ can hardly be dealt with here. Its advent is comparatively modern history, and is familiar to all. Paris, as might naturally be supposed, was the hub from which radiated the great spokes of iron which bound the uttermost frontiers intimately with the capital.