Madame Decourcelle ― Paris’s first female taxi driver?

There may be some confusion about the names, their claim to fame and whether all those named where licensed horse-drawn or motor cab drivers. The first five Paris women received licenses to drive the former only by March 1907 and were photographed then in front of their horse-drawn cabs. They were: Mme. Lurgen (formerly Comptesse du Pin de la Guerinière), Mme. Dufaut (wife of a cabman), Mme. Charnier, Mme. Moser and Mme. de Courcelles. Only perhaps the latter the same one who subsequently definitely got a motor cab license, although probably not the first to get one of those.

The American Register 2nd March 1907 declared “Madame Leconge, the first licensed motor cab chauffeuse in Paris”, where and when she was photographed by the Automotor Journal “starting her Renault engine.” (Those above don’t look like Renaults; Decauville maybe?)

Gaby-Pohlen and Decourcelles/de Courcelles (who looks like one and the same in photos) both reportedly obtained licenses to drive motor taxi-cabs in spring 1908. Gaby-Pohlen, described as “enthusiastic in her new role as the latest chauffeuse in Paris” in May 1908, may well have started out before her but Mme. Decourcelles’ claim to fame was that she was the first to get “diplomas” as both a horse “cochère” and a motor “chauffeuse”, which is what “photo 2330” caption says.

However, “like no other”, Gaby-Pohlen was described as “decidedly handsome, fair-complexioned, with a pair of pretty blue eyes, and a generally engaging appearance. Her outfit consists of a beige tailor-made dress, with a long grey "cache poussière” coat, but the most original feature is her hat of soft felt, with a wide brim, such as a Western ranchman or cowboy might envy. She wears it lightly tilted to one side, too, which considerably adds to her dashing appearance when she sits at the wheel.” Describing herself a walking, shooting and fishing sports-woman who had ridden horses, camels and bicycles, she had learned to drive seven years earlier on a small Darracq and driven other cars since. She claimed: “During the last automobile salon I raced in a big car at the rate of seventy-five kilometres an hour up the steep grade of the Route de Picardie, near Versailles. My ambition is to steer a fast racing automobile.” Her appearance caused her to be flagged down by the odd imperative gendarme to whom she’d happily show her credentials, after perusal of which he would happily wave her on her way with his baton...

Sometimes it looks more simple than it in reality is, one might think. In this case it is as simple as it seems, but you have to take the trouble of buying one of these postcards (which I did), take a magnifying glass and look at the wheel hub, or in this case even the side light. To your surprise you would have read 'Ours', a make especially known for its round radiator. Ours was one of the many makes trying their luck on the potentially profitable Parisian taxi market, but in the end the winner was the make that claimed to have won the battle of the Marne in August 1914. We all surely know the name of that one!

I would venture to give a very similar version to the above story but where 'Madame Dufaut-Charnier' was in fact two people, namely Madame Clémentine Dufaut and Madame Eugénie Charnier who, along with Madame Inès Decourcelle took their horse-drawn cab apprenticeships in 1906 in Paris, and were to become in February 1907 the first women licenced to drive horse-drawn cabs. Inès Decourcelle, pictured above, then became in April 1908 the first woman in Paris to be licenced to drive both horse-drawn and motorised cabs, which was an incredible achievement at the time.
Also, there was some difficulty within the French language as to what to call these brave female pioneers entering the very masculine cocher and chauffeur professions, because cochère and chauffeuse already existed in French vocabulary but with other meanings (respectively an arched entrance into a building or courtyard and a comfortable fireside lounge chair). The initial femme-cocher was reluctantly called cochère by some, but of course was soon to disappear along with the end of the horse-drawn cab. On the other hand, a 'chauffeuse' even today is still a fireside lounge chair and not a female driver, who instead is a 'conductrice' or 'femme chauffeur' depending on context – although chauffeuse may be colloquially heard here and there from time to time.
There is a very interesting and detailed piece about the first 'cochères parisiennes' and the incredibly hard time they had being accepted by the Paris authorities and general public, available at https://doi.org/10.3917/tgs.036.0037 published by the French sociologist Juliette Rennes as part of her broader research entitled Travail, Genre et Sociétés.