It's a patache, and George Sand (in The Miller of Angibault [1852]) offers a detailed account. The patache, it would appear, was a blast from the past even in the early nineteenth century.
"Madame de Blanchemont left in a simple patache, that respectable relic of our forefathers' plain tastes, becoming rarer with each passing day. The one which it was Marcelle's unhappy fate to encounter was of the purest native construction and an antiquarian would have contemplated it with respect. It was as long and low as a coffin; no springs of any sort diminished its charms. The wheels were as tall as the cowl. The cowl itself was made of a sort of wattle and daub, so that every little bump rained clods of clay down on the travelers' heads. A thin but ardent little stallion drew this rural carriage quite nimbly, and the patachon, the driver, seated himself on the car-shaft with his legs dangling down."
The patache, which seems to be a country cousin of the "springless kibitka" combined with elements of the basket-carriage, may now be added to the long list of obsolete horsedrawn carriages.
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