Since the Battle of the Marne in 1914, when 600 Paris taxi drivers transported a French division to the battlefront to their own undying self-esteem,* a ride in a Paris taxi has been like playing automobile roulette with an impudent fallen archangel. Using their own countdowns, the taxi drivers scoot across intersections in advance of green lights, take Paris' wide, sweeping boulevards as private raceways for their rickety infernal machines, and command an astonishing virtuosity of verbal abuse, from the drill sergeant's expletive-staccato to the sarcastic Voltairian blow-dart aimed at the fat pedestrian who slows their way: "Are you sure that...
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