Governess-cart

[igenlode]

The vehicle that I've called a 'governess-cart' is the little two-wheeled pony-carriage known to Raoul as a demi-tonneau (a name akin in form to the English 'tub-cart'?)



(Click for modern photos of demi-tonneau awaiting restoration)

It seats two adults in comfort and two adults plus children at a pinch -- with Christine, Félix and Victoire accompanying Hippolyte, the driver, you can imagine things getting quite crowded, especially when Victoire gets excited :-D

Comments

[watervole]

I wonder what it's like to ride in? Bouncy or bumpy, I suspect.

[igenlode]

I gather they do normally have springs...

Apparently one of the significant 'safety' features of this style of vehicle, besides being enclosed all the way round and having an hinged door in the back of the body, is that it has a dropped 'crank' axle, so that you can have high wheels (for comfort on a rough road -- you go over the top of the holes rather than dropping down into each and every one of them) combined with a low centre of gravity. Unlike more sporting vehicles they were supposed to be very difficult to overturn!

[watervole]

You can see the springs in the photo you liked to of the one under restoration. One big spring for each wheel.

It isn't so much high wheels as big wheels (though it amounts to the same thing) that gives comfort.

The low centre of gravity is an interesting idea - I wouldn't have through of that, but it makes sense.

[watervole]

I can see the dropped axle in the pictures, but the cart appears to be supported on the springs over the wheels rather than on the axle, so it doesn't quite make sense. I must be missing something.

[igenlode]

You're right; in this example (and in the painting, I think) the bottom of the body appears to be supported on a level with the hubs of the wheels, with a big space left above the actual dropped axle. Which seems a bit pointless, really.
(Perhaps it simply lowers the weight of the wrought-iron axle itself to a safer level?)

Here's a picture of a tub-cart type vehicle where the hubs are actually in the middle of the body, from Wikipedia...

[watervole]

That's interesting. The tub is below hub level, but the dropped axle is below that, so there must be some technical reason why the body has to be well above the axle.

[igenlode]

Maybe to allow for bouncing on the springs? I'm not immediately clear whether the leaf spring set-up allows for the body to go below the level at which it starts...

[watervole]

That might be it.