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What they learned was that the Menagerie Mitaine, returning from the fair at Beaucaire, had arranged to make a stop of several days at Tarascon, and had just set itself up in the Place du Chateau with a collection of snakes, seals, crocodiles, and a magnificent African lion.... An African lion at Tarascon!... such a thing had never been seen before, never in living memory.
Eustacie shrugged her shoulders, and had mischief enough in her to enjoy keeping her good father in some doubt and dread as he went halting wearily by her side along the much-decorated streets that marked the grand Gasche of Tarn and Tarascon.
The Touareg, too, in the desert, the Malay pirate, the brigand of the Abruzzi in short, "they" was warfare, travel, adventure, and glory. But, alas!! it was to no avail that the fearless Tarasconer called for and defied them; never did they come. Odsboddikins! what would they have come to do in Tarascon?
This man was Tartarin... Tartarin de Tarascon... the intrepid, great and incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon. At that time Tartarin was not the Tartarin which he is today, the great Tartarin de Tarascon who is so popular throughout the Midi of France, however, even at this epoch, he was already the king of Tarascon. Let us examine how he acquired his crown.
And among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen, from time to time, to pass across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front of a candle. * The representation of a monstrous animal solemnly drawn about in Tarascon and other French towns.
First it sniffed and uttered a rumbling growl, it stretched out its forefeet and unsheathed its claws, then it got up, raised its head, shook its mane, opened its huge maw and directed at Tartarin a most ear-splitting roar. This was greeted by a cry of terror. Tarascon, in panic, rushed for the doors. Everyone, men, women, children, the hat shooters and even the brave Commandant Bravida himself.
We also knew that it lay some miles from Arles, on the crest of the Alpilles, the craggy little mountains which, as I stood on the breezy platform of Beaucaire, formed to my eye a charming, if somewhat remote, background to Tarascon; this assurance having been given us by the landlady of the inn at Arles, of whom we hired a rather lumbering conveyance.
He had never even made the ritual journey to Marseille which every good Provencal makes when he comes of age. He might, of course, have visited Beaucaire, albeit Beaucaire is not very far from Tarascon, as one has only to cross the bridge over the Rhone.
"Does this astonish you?" he demanded, staring the little gentleman full in the face in his turn. "Oh, dear, no! it only annoys me," responded the other, very tranquilly. And the fact is, that, with his shelter-tent, revolvers, pair of guns in their cases, and hunting-knife, not to speak of his natural corpulence, Tartarin of Tarascon did take up a lot of room.
And, indeed, I no longer feel quite the same prejudices against her and the Imperialists as I brought from Bretagne. Shall I order my carriage?" "No; mine is at the door. Yours can meet you where you will, later. Allons." The Duchesse de Tarascon occupied a vast apartment in the Rue Royale, close to the Tuileries. She held a high post among the ladies who graced the brilliant court of the Empress.
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