He could execute commissions intelligently; he never asked as much for his little stages, and therefore obtained more custom than the Touchard coaches.

He managed to elude the necessity of a custom-house permit.

If need were, he was willing to infringe the law as to the number of passengers he might carry.

In short, he possessed the affection of the masses; and thus it happened that whenever a rival came upon the same route, if his days for running were not the same as those of the coucou, travellers would put off their journey to make it with their long-tried coachman, although his vehicle and his horses might be in a far from reassuring condition.
One of the lines which the Touchards, father and son, endeavored to monopolize, and the one most stoutly disputed (as indeed it still is), is that of Paris to Beaumont-sur-Oise,--a line extremely profitable, for three rival enterprises worked it in 1822.

In vain the Touchards lowered their price; in vain they constructed better coaches and started oftener.