Hôtel de Saint Fiacre

The Hôtel de Saint Fiacre was an inn and tavern on Rue Saint-Martin in Paris.[1] It was identified by its sign showing Saint Fiacre,[2] from the 1640s its proprietor was known to operate fiacres (carriages for hire).[3] Through this association Saint Fiacre has become the patron saint of taxi drivers.[4]

In 1645, Nicholas Sauvage, proprietor in Paris of the coaches for Amiens, decided to set up a business in which horses and carriages were to be kept in Paris and rented out. He set himself up in the Hôtel de Saint Fiacre and rented out his four-seater carriages at 10 sols an hour. Within twenty years, Sauvage's idea had developed into the first citywide public transport system "les carossses à 5 sols" ("5-sol carriages").[5] The sign of the inn was known to display an image of the saint.

References
  1. Campbell, Gordon (28 March 2013). The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome. Oxford University Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-19-164449-8.
  2. "St. Fiacre". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11 July 2014.; the narrow alley, ruelle de St-Fiacre, opening off rue St-Martin in the 6th Arrondissement, survived into the 19th century: see Dictionnaire topographique, étymologique et historique des rues de Paris, 1812: "FIACRE (cul-de-sac Saint-).
  3. Henri Sauval, Histoire et Recherches sur les Antiquités de la ville de Paris, 1724,noted in The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, 69 1867:595.
  4. Anderson, John P. (1 July 2009). Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah. Universal-Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 978-1-59942-901-4.
  5. Louis Jean Nicolas de Monmerque, Les Carrosses à cinq sols, ou les Omnibus du xv11e s1ècle. (Paris: Didot) 1828.

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