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_In a corporation founded in In November 1661 on the initiative of Blaise Pascal[...]_
_The system of carrosses was approved and instituted by a judgement of the King's Counsel on 19 January 1662: signed by Louis XIV, the letters patent allowed the service to run as a monopoly. After first trials from the 26 February, five routes were progressively started from the 18 March 1662, linking multiple Historical quarters of Paris. The new service was met with a positive reception by the general public upon its inauguration._
Starting November 1661; getting it signed by Louis XIV January 1662; first trials 26 February; five routes 18 March 1662. Damn, they moved fast.
On a side note, Pascal's "Pensées" is one of my most frequent recommendations[0]. What did he not do!
- [0]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24998215
Paris in the era of Louis XIV was one of the world's most populous cities (with Beijing, London and Constantinople): it contained more than five hundred thousand residents in 22,000 residencies
An average of over 20 residents per residency?! Surely that's not right, or what's a 'residency' - a building of many apartments?
I'm aware this is probably census data that counts household staff and guests at the residency at the time, but still।
> An account published in 1665 by Lemaire estimated that there were 23,000 houses in Paris, each inhabited by an average of twenty persons
From [0] citing Alfred Fierro's 1996 _Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris_, p. 278
[0]