In France, King Henry IV. was assassinated in his coach by Ravaillac on May 16th, 1710. The account states that the coach was surrounded by blinds or curtains, but the king had drawn them back that the people might see him; with him in the coach were seven noblemen, that is, two persons on each seat, and two in each boot. A drawing of this coach has been preserved [Plate 15], by which we see the roofs and supports (somewhat resembling the outline of a Roman or Asiatic vehicle) and the curtain hanging over the doorway in front of the boot. A coach belonging to a Duke of Saxe-Coburg is still to be seen at the castle at Coburg; in this the body is 7 ft. 6 in. long in the middle, the wheels are 4 ft. and 4 ft. 10 in. high, the roof and upper quarters are of black leather nailed on with brass nails, the heads as large as a sixpence and rounded. On either side of the doorway are iron bars to form the sides of the boot, and the doorway is guarded by a wooden cross-bar padded which drops upon two pins, and from which bar the curtain would fall over the doorway. With such a length of body we can understand how eight persons could ride in it. In prints of this period all coaches are drawn like this, with the bodies suspended on leather braces--with domed roofs and with the front wheels generally rather low--with a coachman seated upon a cross-bar or cushion suspended between the two front standard posts, and his feet upon a board projecting at the bottom of the posts over the pole. Some coaches are depicted so wide that they may have held three persons on each seat, but the general appearance is that of Louis XIV.’s first coach [Plate 16]. [Illustration: PLATE 14. COACH OF PARIS IN 1646.] [Illustration: PLATE 15. COACH IN WHICH HENRI IV WAS SHOT.] [Illustration: PLATE 16. COACH IN WHICH LOUIS XIV ENTERED PARIS IN 1654.] [Illustration: PLATE 17. COACH OF LOUIS XIV IN 1700. SECTION] [Illustration: PLATE 18. THE CORBILLARD, AN EARLY FRENCH COACH.] No trace of glass windows or complete doors seems to have existed up to 1650. But plain and rude as was the first coach of Louis XIV. it was in his reign, which lasted till 1715, that the most rapid progress was made in Coachbuilding. From the simple waggon-like skeleton body was developed by degrees a beautifully shaped, carved, and panelled piece of cabinet work [Plate 17], such as we can justly allow to be worthy the name of a coach, and this delighted our ancestors in the reign of Queen Anne. The credit of this transformation is equally due to Germany, Italy, France, and England; in each country improvements seem to have been made simultaneously.