Already in the sixteenth century hackney carriages were driven in the streets of Paris; and any differences arising between the cocher and his passenger were at this period referred to the lieutenant of the police. The private coachmen, attached to the service of the nobility, found their position a somewhat perilous one in an age when quarrels were so frequent on the question of social precedence. If two aristocratic carriages met in some narrow street, barring each other’s way, the footmen would get down and fight for a passage. Serious wounds were sometimes inflicted, and even the master would now and then step out of his vehicle and, with drawn sword, join in the affray. The coachman, meanwhile, prouder in livery than his master in braided coat, remained motionless on his box in spite of the blows which were being dealt around. It is related that when on one occasion a party of highwaymen attacked the carriage of Benserade, poet, wit, and dramatic author, his coachman sat calmly at his post, and amused himself with whistling whilst his master was being stripped of everything. From time to time he turned towards the robbers and said, “Gentlemen, shall you soon have finished, and can I continue my journey?” The private coachman varied in those days, as he has always done, according to the position of the master or mistress whom he served; and Mercier, writing at a later period, indicates a sufficient variety of cochers of this class. “You can clearly distinguish the coachman of a courtesan,” he says, “from that of a president; the coachman of a duke from that of a financier; but, at the exit from the theatre, would you like to know where such and such a vehicle is going? Listen to the order which the master gives to the lackey, or rather which the latter transmits to the coachman. In the Marais they say ‘Au logis’; in the Isle of St Louis ‘À la maison’; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain ‘À l’hôtel’; and in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré ‘Allez!’ With the grandeur of this last word no one can fail to be impressed. At the theatre door stands a thundering personage with a voice like Stentor, who cries: ‘The carriage of Monsieur le Marquis!’ ‘The carriage of Madame la Comtesse!’ ‘The carriage of M. le Président!’ His terrible voice resounds to the very interior of the taverns where the lackeys are drinking, and of the billiard rooms where the coachmen are quarrelling and disputing. This voice quite drowns the confused sounds of men and horses. Lackeys and coachmen at this re-echoing signal abandon their pint-pots and their cues, and rush out to resume the reins and open the doors.”