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Updated: May 31, 2025
Each family had its own ballad and in the town this was well understood. One knew, for example, that for Bezuquet the chemist it was:"Thou pale star whom I adore." For the gunsmith Costecalde:"Come with me to the forest glade." For the Town Clark: "If I was invisible, no one would see me." No matter for how long they had been singing them, the people of Tarascon had no desire to change them.
As the Esmeralda did not know a word of French, and Tartarin none in Arabic, the conversation died away sometimes, and the Tarasconian had plenty of leisure to do penance for the gush of language of which he had been guilty in the shop of Bezuquet the chemist or that of Costecalde the gunmaker.
Behind him marched the brave Commandant Bravida, Ladevese the Chief Judge, Costecalde the gunsmith next, and then all the sportsmen who pop at caps, preceding the hand-carts and the rag, tag, and bobtail. Before the station the station-master awaited them, an old African veteran of 1830, who shook Tartarin's hand many times with fervency.
Tartarin could have died, he thought this was a hoax: but no, all Tarascon was there, tossing their hats in the air and shouting his praises. There stood the brave Commandant Bravida, Costecalde the gunsmith, the President Ladeveze, the chemist and all the noble body of hat shooters, who pressed round their chief and carried him all the way down the steps.
The prudent Costecalde hazarded timidly, but Tartarin was already in the street, and behind him all the hat hunters fell proudly into step. When they arrived at the menagerie it was already crowded. The brave people of Tarascon, too long deprived of sensational spectacles, had descended on the place and taken it by storm.
It happened one evening at Costecalde the gunmaker's, where Tartarin was engaged in showing several sportsmen the working of the needle-gun, then in its first novelty. The door suddenly flew open, and in rushed a bewildered cap-popper, howling "A lion, a lion!" General was the alarm, stupor, uproar and tumult.
It was more than the great Tartarin could bear. Suddenly a flush of blood flew into his face. His eyes flashed. "Let's go have a look at him, commandant." "Here, here, I say! that's my gun my needle-gun you are carrying off," timidly ventured the wary Costecalde; but Tartarin had already got round the corner, with all the cap-poppers proudly lock-stepping behind him.
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