Page 409 - les-miserables

CHAPTER V

HINDRANCES

The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still op-
erated at this period by small mail-wagons of the time of
the Empire. These mail-wagons were two-wheeled cabrio-
lets, upholstered inside with fawn-colored leather, hung on
springs, and having but two seats, one for the postboy, the
other for the traveller. The wheels were armed with those
long, offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance,
and which may still be seen on the road in Germany. The
despatch box, an immense oblong coffer, was placed behind
the vehicle and formed a part of it. This coffer was painted
black, and the cabriolet yellow.
These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays,
had something distorted and hunchbacked about them; and
when one saw them passing in the distance, and climbing
up some road to the horizon, they resembled the insects
which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with
but little corselet, drag a great train behind them. But they
travelled at a very rapid rate. The post-wagon which set out
from Arras at one o’clock every night, after the mail from
Paris had passed, arrived at M. sur M. a little before five

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