The Hôtel de Saint Fiacre was an inn and tavern on Rue Saint-Martin in Paris. It was identified by its sign showing Saint Fiacre, from the 1640s its proprietor was known to operate fiacres (carriages for hire). Through this association Saint Fiacre has become the patron saint of taxi drivers.
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"). The sign of the inn was known to display an image of the saint.
References
- 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.
- "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-).
- 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.
- Anderson, John P. (1 July 2009). Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah. Universal-Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 978-1-59942-901-4.
- Louis Jean Nicolas de Monmerque, Les Carrosses à cinq sols, ou les Omnibus du xv11e s1ècle. (Paris: Didot) 1828.
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