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One's First and Last Impressions of Paris. Photo by V. Gribayédoff.

A top-hatted Paris cab driver taking passengers and luggage either to or from a train station. His cab is a four-seater, larger than the two-seat fiacre that abounds in Paris street scenes of the time. Although pneumatic tires and wire-spoked wheels were introduced to Paris cabs in 1896, this cab (like most of those depicted in Thompson's 1903 article) still has steel tires and wooden-spoked "artillery" wheels.

Source:
Outing magazine, vol. XLIII no. 3, December, 1903, p. 244.

Vance Thompson's Cab Drivers / 3

The Paris Cabman / 2

"The Paris Cabman" by By Vance Thompson.
Outing, vol. XLIII, no. 3 (December, 1903) pp. 241-251.
Photos by V. Gribayédoff

"Hue, Cocotte! hue!*" then the crack of the whip, and the yellow-bellied fiacre* cuts away into the streets of Paris town, the red-faced cocher, fat and unamiable on the box*. For nine travelers out of ten this is one's first and last impression of Paris. In the same way one thinks of Venice in terms of pigeons and gondolas, and of Stockholm memory summons pictures of blond girls and black swans.

"Hue, Cocotte!"

Whether you come in at the Gare du Nord, at that of St. Lazare or Orléans, 'tis all one; the first real Parisian you have to do with is the blowsy cocher in the brown houpplande* who greets you with a grin and, laying the whip over Cocotte's lean spine whirls you away into the world's city. So, too, when chance calls you otherwhere, 'tis your old friend the cocher* who speeds your parting. It is into his huge paw that you drop your last silver coins, and his"Hue, Cocotte!" and the enheartening crack of his lash are your "God speed ye." He is an institution, this rusty fellow bloated with drink and food, red from wind and weather, who flogs his livelihood out of Cocotte's dusty hide.

By day and night fifteen thousand cabs ply in the streets of Paris. A few hundred of them, club-cabs, pneumatic-tired, plumply upholstered in blue, drawn by young mercurial horses, driven by liveried coachmen, bearing neither numbers* nor plaques, make the snobbish pretense of being private carriages. Of the others, the greater part belong to the three great companies – the Compagnie Générale, with its blue-bellied cabs; the Urbaine, with cabs decorated with yellow lozenges; and Abeille, with its cabs stained dull green. In addition there are scores of small stables, whence three or four cabs are sent out. Many cabmen, too, own their own rigs. On the whole, however, the "Three Companies" are masters of the trade.

Is it a trade? Upon my word I think it is a profession, and one of the ancient and honorable. The casual rogue has no chance of making himself free of the guild. He must, in the first place, be a "college graduate," duly provided with a diploma. The most notable Coachman's College is in the rue Marcadet, yonder on the flank of the Montmartre.