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Les Femmes Cocher / 21
Mme. Dufaut / 2
Picture (left): Mme. Dufaut. Here's another portrait of Mme. Dufaut. Ths time she looks a bit more relaxed. The larger Paris companies provided uniforms for their drivers. Vance Thompson (in The Paris Cabman) described the process that new drivers went through for readers of Outing magazine in 1903: Even after he has received his diploma from Pernette [director of a training school for cab drivers] he must stand an examination before a jury made up of representatives of the Prefecture of police and the "Three Companies." When the jury has given him a certificate of aptitude, and his parish priest – or someone else – has vouched for his morality, he may go look for a job. At last, it is to be presumed, he succeeds in entering one of the great companies. There he deposits thirty or forty dollars for a new livery – rain-cape, coat and hat in white or mouse-colored leather for the Urbaine, dark blue for the Compagnie Générale. Lastly he makes the acquaintance of his hostler and the horses, his fiacre and the washer. The driver would also have to learn to tip the hostler and the washer if he – or she – wanted a fresh horse and a clean fiacre.
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