[147] This prohibition was not inopportune. Swinburne wrote towards the end of the eighteenth century; "Having occasion one day for a coach to carry us about, the stable-boy of our inn offered his services, and in a quarter of an hour brought to the door a coach and four fine mules, with two postillions and a lacquey, all in flaming liveries; we found they belonged to a countess, who, like the rest of the nobility, allows her coachman to let out her equipage when she has no occasion for it; it cost us about nine shillings, which no doubt was the perquisite of the servants."
Some curious facts relating to these vehicles in older Spain are instanced by Janer. In the seventeenth century a Spanish provincial town would normally contain a couple of hundred coaches. Among such boroughs was Granada. Here, in 1615, the authorities, backed by nearly all the citizens, protested that the coaches ploughed the highway into muddy pits and channels, and gave occasion, after nightfall, to disgraceful and immoral scenes.[148] After a while the protest grew so loud that the use of coaches in this capital was totally suppressed. One of the first persons to employ a coach in Granada had been the Marquis of Mondejar; and yet, in spite of his extensive influence, this nobleman, each time he wished to drive abroad, required to sue for licence from the town authorities, and these, in making out the written permit, took care to specify the streets through which he was allowed to pass.
[148] Towns still exist in Spain where vehicles are not allowed to proceed at more than a walking-pace through any of the streets. One of such towns is Argamasilla de Alba (of _Don Quixote_ fame), where I remember to have read a notice to this effect, painted, by order of the mayor, on a house-wall of the principal thoroughfare.
Assailed by numerous pragmatics,[149] chiefly of a sumptuary tenor and repeated at spasmodic intervals until as late as 1785, the private coach became at last an undisputed adjunct to the national life of Spain. Doubtless the use by royalty of gala-coaches or _carrozas_ went far to sanction and extend their vogue. However, I will not describe these lumbering, uncouth, and over-ornamented gala-carriages (some of which were made in Spain) belonging to the Spanish Crown, but quote the following pragmatic, dated 1723, as aptly illustrative of the progress of this industry, and other industries akin to it, in the Peninsula:--