At length we were seated in our coach. It was a roomy, handsome berline, holding conveniently six persons: on the outside was a covered seat or cabriolet: the place of the voiturier, conductor, or coachman was between the fore-wheels: the carriage was drawn by three horses. When three horses were proposed to me by the master voiturier, I started with amazement. "Why not four?"--"That would be too many."--"Why not two?"--"That would be too few." He gravely assured me that such was the practice, and he spoke truth. English travellers and readers of travels are, by this time, well acquainted with voitures drawn by three horses; but in 1818, I believe many of my compatriots shared my surprise at so _odd_ a number. I engaged this voiture to convey me to Avignon for eight hundred francs. For forty-eight francs a day, the coachman was to pay my expenses at the inns: the price was rather extravagant, as four of my six children might, as the master himself calculated, be rated as two grown persons: but I insisted on coffee in the morning before we should set off, my family being not yet accustomed to travel till ten or eleven o'clock in the morning without any breakfast, though such is the usual practice on the continent. Besides, this part of the agreement was revocable at my pleasure. I was also at liberty to quit my carriage at Chalons-sur-Saône, paying a proportionate share of the price. I had seen, at the master's stables, three very good horses which I engaged for my journey. The day before my departure, he told me these horses were gone in another direction, but that I should have three others equally good. As I saw no reason why he should prefer another customer to me, I assented. He supplied me with two stout horses and a very weakly one. Louis, my coachman, told me, afterwards, that his master had found an opportunity of selling the three horses I had first seen, and to make up my number had been obliged to buy one from a fiacre the very day of my departure. It is impossible to be aware of all the oblique means and motives of men of the character of this voiturier. All the defence that can be prepared against them is, to see every thing, write down every thing, and, above all, to have time at command.