Alphonse Daudet, the celebrated French novelist, was born at
Nimes on May 13, 1840, and as a youth of seventeen went to
Paris, where he began as a poet at eighteen, and at twenty-two
made his first efforts in the drama. He soon found his feet as
a contributor to the leading journals of the day and a
successful writer for the stage. He was thirty-two when he
wrote "Tartarin of Tarascon," than which no better comic tale
has been produced in modern times. Tarascon is a real town,
not far from the birthplace of Daudet, and the people of the
district have always had a reputation for "drawing the long
bow." It was to satirise this amiable weakness of his southern
compatriots that the novelist created the character of
Tartarin, but while he makes us laugh at the absurd
misadventures of the lion-hunter, it will be noticed how
ingeniously he prevents our growing out of temper with him,
how he contrives to keep a warm corner in our hearts for the
bragging, simple-minded, good-natured fellow. That is to say,
it is a work of essential humour, and the lively style in
which the story is told attracts us to it time and again with
undiminished pleasure. In two subsequent books, "Tartarin in
the Alps," and "Port Tarascon," Daudet recounted further
adventures of his delightful hero. His "Sapho" and "Kings in
Exile" have also been widely read. Daudet died on December 17,
1897.
_I.--The Mighty Hunter at Home_
I remember my first visit to Tartarin of Tarascon as clearly as if it
had been yesterday, though it is now more than a dozen years ago. When
you had passed into his back garden, you would never have fancied
yourself in France. Every tree and plant had been brought from foreign
climes; he was such a fellow for collecting the curiosities of Nature,
this wonderful Tartarin. His garden boasted, for instance, an example of
the baobab, that giant of the vegetable world, but Tartarin's specimen
was only big enough to occupy a mignonette pot. He was mightily proud of
it, all the same.
The great sight of his place, however, was the hero's private den at the
bottom of the garden. Picture to yourself a large hall gleaming from top
to bottom with firearms and weapons of all sorts: carbines, rifles,
blunderbusses, bowie-knives, revolvers, daggers, flint-arrows--in a
word, examples of the deadly weapons of all races used by man in all
parts of the world. Everything was neatly arranged, and labelled as if
it were in a public museum. "Poisoned Arrows. Please do not touch!" was
the warning on one of the cards. "Weapons loaded. Have a care!" greeted
you from another. My word, it required some pluck to move about in the
den of the great Tartarin.
There were books of travel and adventure, books about mighty hunting on
the table in the centre of the room; and seated at the table was a short
and rather fat, red-haired fellow of about forty-five, with a closely-
trimmed beard and a pair of bright eyes. He was in his shirtsleeves,
reading a book held in one hand while he gesticulated wildly with a
large pipe in the other--Tartarin! He was evidently imagining himself
the daring hero of the story.
Now you must know that the people of Tarascon were tremendously keen on
hunting, and Tartarin was the chief of the hunters. You may think this
funny when you know there was not a living thing to shoot at within
miles of Tarascon; scarcely a sparrow to attract local sportsmen. Ah,
but you don't know how ingenious they are down there.
Every Sunday morning off the huntsmen sallied with their guns and
ammunition, the hounds yelping at their heels. Each man as he left in
the morning took with him a brand new cap, and when they got well into
the country and were ready for sport, they took their caps off, threw
then high in the air, and shot at them as they fell. In the evening you
would see them returning with their riddled caps stuck on the points of
their guns, and of all these brave men Tartarin was the most admired, as
he always swung into town with the most hopeless rag of a cap at the end
of a day's sport. There's no mistake, he was a wonder!
But for all his adventurous spirit, he had a certain amount of caution.
There were really two men inside the skin of Tartarin. The one Tartarin
said to him, "Cover yourself with glory." The other said to him, "Cover
yourself with flannel." The one, imagining himself fighting Red Indians,
would call for "An axe! An axe! Somebody give me an axe!" The other,
knowing that he was cosy by his fireside, would ring the bell and say,
"Jane, my coffee."
One evening at Costecalde's, the gunsmith's, when Tartarin was
explaining some mechanism of a rifle, the door was opened and an excited
voice announced, "A lion! A lion!" The news seemed incredible, but you
can imagine the terror that seized the little group at the gunsmith's as
they asked for more news. It appeared that the lion was to be seen in a
travelling menagerie newly arrived from Beaucaire.
A lion at last, and here in Tarascon! Suddenly, when the full truth had
dawned upon Tartarin, he shouldered his gun, and, turning to Major
Bravida, "Let us go to see him!" he thundered. Following him went the
cap-hunters. Arrived at the menagerie, where many Tarasconians were
already wandering from cage to cage, Tartarin entered with his gun over
his shoulder to make inquiries about the king of beasts. His entrance
was rather a wet blanket on the other visitors, who, seeing their hero
thus armed, thought there might be danger, and were about to flee. But
the proud bearing of the great man reassured them, and Tartarin
continued his round of the booth until he faced the lion from the Atlas
Mountains.
Here he stood carefully studying the creature, who sniffed and growled
in surly temper, and then, rising, shook his mane and gave vent to a
terrible, roar, directed full at Tartarin.
Tartarin alone stood his ground, stern and immovable, in front of the
cage, and the valiant cap-hunters, somewhat reassured by his bravery,
again drew near and heard him murmur, as he gazed on the lion, "Ah, yes,
there's a hunt for you!"
Not another word did Tartarin utter that day. Yet next day nothing was
spoken about in the town but his intention to be off to Algeria to hunt
the lions of the Atlas Mountains. When asked if this were true his pride
would not let him deny it, and he pretended that it might be true. So
the notion grew, until that night at his club Tartarin announced, amid
tremendous cheering, that he was sick of cap-hunting, and meant very
soon to set forth in pursuit of the lions of the Atlas.
Now began a great struggle between the two Tartarins. While the one was
strongly in favour of the adventure, the other was strongly opposed to
leaving his snug little Baobab Villa and the safety of Tarascon. But he
had let himself in for this, and felt he would have to see it through.
So he began reading up the books of African travel, and found from these
how some of the explorers had trained themselves for the work by
enduring hunger, thirst, and other privations before they set out.
Tartarin began cutting down his food, taking very watery soup. Early in
the morning, too, he walked round the town seven or eight times, and at
nights he would stay in the garden from ten till eleven o'clock, alone
with his gun, to inure himself to night chills; while, so long as the
menagerie remained in Tarascon, a strange figure might have been seen in
the dark, prowling around the tent, listening to the growling of the
lion. This was Tartarin, accustoming himself to be calm when the king of
beasts was raging.
The feeling began to grow, however, that the hero was shirking. He
showed no haste to be off. At length, one night Major Bravida went to
Baobab Villa and said very solemnly, "Tartarin, you must go!"
It was a terrible moment for Tartarin, but he realised the solemnity of
the words, and, looking around his cosy little den with a moist eye, he
replied at length in a choking voice, "Bravida, I shall go!" Having made
this irrevocable decision, he now pushed ahead his final preparations
with some show of haste. From Bompard's he had two large trunks, one
inscribed with "Tartarin of Tarascon. Case of Arms," and he sent to
Marseilles all manner of provisions of travel, including a patent
camp-tent of the latest style.
_II.--Tartarin Sets off to Lion-Land_
Then the great day of his departure arrived. All the town was agog. The
neighbourhood of Baobab Villa was crammed with spectators. About ten
o'clock the bold hero issued forth.
"He's a Turk! He's wearing spectacles!" This was the astonished cry of
the beholders, and, sure enough, Tartarin had thought it his duty to don
Algerian costume because he was going to Algeria. He also carried two
heavy rifles, one on each shoulder, a huge hunting-knife at his waist
and a revolver in a leather case. A pair of large blue spectacles were
worn by him, for the sun in Algeria is terribly strong, you know.
At the station the doors of the waiting-room had to be closed to keep
the crowd out, while the great man took leave of his friends, making
promises to each, and jotting down notes on his tablets of the various
people to whom he would send lion-skins.
Oh, that I had the brush of an artist, that I might paint you some
pictures of Tartarin during his three days aboard the Zouave on the
voyage from Marseilles! But I have no facility with the brush, and mere
words cannot convey how he passed from the proudly heroic to the
hopelessly miserable in the course of the journey. Worst of all, while
he was groaning in his stuffy bunk, he knew that a very merry party of
passengers were enjoying themselves in the saloon. He was still in his
bunk when the ship came to her moorings at Algiers, and he got up with a
sudden jerk, under the impression that the Zouave was sinking. Seizing
his many weapons, he rushed on deck, to find it was not foundering, but
only arriving.
Soon after Tartarin had set foot on shore, following a great negro
porter, he was almost stupefied by the babel of tongues; but,
fortunately, a policeman took him in hand and had him directed, together
with his enormous collection of luggage, to the European hotel.
On arriving at his hotel, he was so fatigued that his marvellous
collection of weapons had to be taken from him, and he had to be carried
to bed, where he snored very soundly until it was striking three
o'clock. He had slept all the evening, through the night and morning,
and well into the next afternoon!
He awakened refreshed, and the first thought in his mind was, "I'm in
lion-land at last!" But the thought sent a cold shiver through him, and
he dived under the bedclothes. A moment later he determined to be up.
Exclaiming, "Now for the lions!" he jumped on the floor and began his
preparations.
His plan was to get out at once into the country, take ambush for the
night, shoot the first lion that came along, and then back to the hotel
for breakfast. So off he went, carrying not only his usual arsenal, but
the marvellous patent tent strapped to his back. He attracted no little
attention as he trudged along, and catching sight of a very fine camel,
his heart beat fast, for he thought the lions could not be far off now.
It was quite dark by the time he had got only a little way beyond the
outskirts of the town, scrambling over ditches and bramble-hedges. After
much hard work of this kind, the mighty hunter suddenly stopped,
whispering to himself, "I seem to smell a lion hereabouts." He sniffed
keenly in all directions. To his excited imagination, it seemed a likely
place for a lion; so, dropping on one knee, and laying one of his guns
in front of him, he waited.
He waited very patiently. One hour, two hours; but nothing stirred. Then
he suddenly remembered that great lion-hunters take a little young goat
with them to attract the lion by its bleating. Having forgotten to
supply himself with one, Tartarin conceived the happy idea of bleating
like a kid. He started softly, calling, "Meh, meh!" He was really afraid
that a lion might hear him, but as no lion seemed to be paying
attention, he became bolder in his "mehs," until the noise he made was
more like the bellowing of a bull.
But hush! What was that? A huge black object had for the moment loomed
up against the dark blue sky. It stooped, sniffing the ground; then
seemed to move away again, only to return suddenly. It must be the lion
at last; so, taking a steady aim, bang went the gun of Tartarin, and a
terrible howling came in response. Clearly his shot had told; the
wounded lion had made off. He would now wait for the female to appear,
as he had read in books.
But two or more hours passed, and she did not come; and the ground was
damp, and the night air cold, so the hunter thought he would camp for
the night. After much struggling, he could not get his patent tent to
open. Finally, he threw it on the ground in a rage, and lay on the top
of it. Thus he slept until the bugles in the barracks near by wakened
him in the morning. For behold, instead of finding himself out on the
Sahara, he was in the kitchen garden of some suburban Algerian!
"These people are mad," he growled to himself, "to plant their
artichokes where lions are roaming about. Surely I have been dreaming.
Lions do come here; there's proof positive."
From artichoke to artichoke, from field to field, he followed the thin
trail of blood, and came at length to a poor little donkey he had
wounded!
Tartarin's first feeling was one of vexation. There is such a difference
between a lion and an ass, and the poor little creature looked so
innocent. The great hunter knelt down and tried to stanch the donkey's
wounds, and it seemed grateful to him, for it feebly flapped its long
ears two or three times before it lay still for ever.
Suddenly a voice was heard calling, "Noiraud! Noiraud!" It was "the
female." She came in the form of an old French woman with a large red
umbrella, and it would have been better for Tartarin to have faced a
female lion.
When the unhappy man tried to explain how he had mistaken her little
donkey for a lion, she thought he was making fun of her, and belaboured
him with her umbrella. When her husband came on the scene the matter was
soon adjusted by Tartarin agreeing to pay eight pounds for the damage he
had done, the price of the donkey being really something like eight
shillings. The donkey owner was an inn-keeper, and the sight of
Tartarin's money made him quite friendly. He invited the lion-hunter to
have some food at the inn with him before he left. And as they walked
thither he was amazed to be told by the inn-keeper that he had never
seen a lion there in twenty years!
Clearly, the lions were to be looked for further south. "I'll make
tracks for the south, too," said Tartarin to himself. But he first of
all returned to his hotel in an omnibus. Think of it! But before he was
to go south on the high adventure, he loafed about the city of Algiers
for some time, going to the theatres and other places of amusement,
where he met Prince Gregory of Montenegro, with whom he made friends.
One day the captain of the Zouave came across him in the town, and
showed him a note about himself in a Tarascon newspaper. This spoke of
the uncertainty that prevailed as to the fate of the great hunter, and
wound up with these words:
"Some Negro traders state, however, that they met in the open desert a
European whose description answers to that of Tartarin, and who was
making tracks for Timbuctoo. May Heaven guard for us our hero!"
Tartarin went red and white by turns as he read this, and realised that
he was in for it. He very much wished to return to his beloved Tarascon,
but to go there without having shot some lions--one at least--was
impossible, and so it was Southward ho!
_III.--Tartarin's Adventures in the Desert_
The lion-hunter was keenly disappointed, after a very long journey in
the stage-coach, to be told that there was not a lion left in all
Algeria, though a few panthers might still be found worth shooting.
He got out at the town of Milianah, and let the coach go on, as he
thought he might as well take things easily if, after all, there were no
lions to be shot. To his amazement, however, he came across a real live
lion at the door of a café.
"What made them say there were no more lions?" he cried, astounded at
the sight. The lion lifted in its mouth a wooden bowl from the pavement,
and a passing Arab threw a copper in the bowl, at which the lion wagged
its tail. Suddenly the truth dawned on Tartarin. He was a poor, blind,
tame lion, which a couple of negroes were taking through the streets,
just like a performing dog. His blood was up at the very idea. Shouting,
"You scoundrels, to humiliate these noble beasts so!" he rushed and took
the degrading bowl from the royal jaws of the lion. This led to a
quarrel with the negroes, at the height of which Prince Gregory of
Montenegro came upon the scene.
The prince told him a most untrue story about a convent in the north of
Africa where lions were kept, to be sent out with priests to beg for
money. He also assured him that there were lots of lions in Algeria, and
that he would join him in his hunt.
Thus it was in the company of Prince Gregory, and with a following of
half a dozen negro porters, that Tartarin set off early next morning for
the Shereef Plain; but they very soon had trouble, both with the porters
and with the provisions Tartarin had brought for his great journey. The
prince suggested dismissing the negroes and buying a couple of donkeys,
but Tartarin could not bear the thought of donkeys, for a reason with
which we are acquainted. He readily agreed, however, to the purchase of
a camel, and when he was safely helped up on its hump, he sorely wished
the people of Tarascon could see him. But his pride speedily had a fall,
for he found the movement of the camel worse than that of the boat in
crossing the Mediterranean. He was afraid he might disgrace France.
Indeed, if truth must out, France was disgraced! So, for the remainder
of their expedition, which lasted nearly a month, Tartarin preferred to
walk on foot and lead the camel.
One night in the desert, Tartarin was sure he heard sounds just like
those he had studied at the back of the travelling menagerie at
Tarascon. He was positive they were in the neighbourhood of a lion at
last. He prepared to go forward and stalk the beast. The prince offered
to accompany him, but Tartarin resolutely refused. He would meet the
king of beasts alone! Entrusting his pocket-book, full of precious
documents and bank-notes, to the prince, in case he might lose it in a
tussle with the lion, he moved forward. His teeth were chattering in his
head when he lay down, trembling, to await the lion.
It must have been two hours before he was sure that the beast was moving
quite near him in the dry bed of a river. Firing two shots in the
direction whence the sound came, he got up and bolted back to where he
had left the camel and the prince--but there was only the camel there
now! The prince had waited a whole month for such a chance!
In the morning he realised that he had been robbed by a thief who
pretended to be a prince. And here he was in the heart of savage Africa
with a little pocket money only, much useless luggage, a camel, and not
a single lion-skin for all his trouble.
Sitting on one of the desert-tombs erected over pious Mohammedans, the
great man fell to weeping bitterly. But, even as he wept the bushes were
pushed aside a little in front of him, and a huge lion presented itself.
To his honour, be it said, Tartarin never moved a muscle, but, breathing
a fervent "At last!" he leapt to his feet, and, levelling his rifle,
planted two explosive bullets in the lion's head. All was over in a
moment, for he had nearly blown the king of beasts to pieces! But in
another moment he saw two tall, enraged negroes bearing down upon him.
He had seen them before at Milianah, and this was their poor blind lion!
Fortunately for Tartarin, he was not so deeply in the desert as he had
thought, but merely outside the town of Orleansville, and a policeman
now came up, attracted by the firing, and took full particulars.
The upshot of it was that he had to suffer much delay in Orleansville,
and was eventually fined one hundred pounds. How to pay this was a
problem which he solved by selling all his extensive outfit, bit by bit.
When his debts were paid, he had nothing but the lion's skin and the
camel. The former he dispatched to Major Bravida at Tarascon. Nobody
would buy the camel, and its master had to face all the journey back to
Algiers in short stages on foot.
_IV.--The Home-Coming of the Hero_
The camel showed a curious affection for him, and followed him as
faithfully as a dog. When, at the end of eight days' weary tramping, he
came at last to Algiers, he did all he could to lose the animal, and
hoped he had succeeded. He met the captain of the Zouave, who told him
that all Algiers had been laughing at the story of how he had killed the
blind lion, and he offered Tartarin a free passage home.
The Zouave was getting up steam next day as the dejected Tartarin had
just stepped into the captain's long-boat, when, lo! his faithful camel
came tearing down the quay and gazed affectionately at its friend.
Tartarin pretended not to notice it; but the animal seemed to implore
him with his eyes to be taken away. "You are the last Turk," it seemed
to say, "I am the last camel. Let us never part again, O my Tartarin!"
But the lion-hunter pretended to know nothing of this ship of the
desert.
As the boat pulled off to the Zouave, the camel jumped into the water
and swam after it, and was taken aboard. At last Tartarin had the joy of
hearing the Zouave cast anchor at Marseilles, and, having no luggage to
trouble him, he rushed off the boat at once and hastened through the
town to the railway station, hoping to get ahead of the camel.
He booked third class, and quickly hid himself in a carriage. Off went
the train. But it had not gone far when everybody was looking out of the
windows and laughing. Behind the train ran the camel--holding his own,
too!
What a humiliating home-coming! All his weapons of the chase left on
Moorish soil, not a lion with him, nothing but a silly camel!
"Tarascon! Tarascon!" shout the porters as the train slows up at the
station, and the hero gets out. He had hoped to slink home unobserved;
but, to his amazement, he is received with shouts of "Long live
Tartarin!" "Three cheers for the lion-slayer!" The people are waving
their caps in the air; it is no joke, they are serious. There is Major
Bravida, and there the more noteworthy cap-hunters, who cluster round
their chief and carry him in triumph down the stairs.
Now, all this was the result of sending home the skin of the blind lion.
But the climax was reached when, following the crowd down the stairs of
the station, limping from his long run, came the camel. Even this
Tartarin turned to good account. He reassured his fellow-citizens,
patting the camel's hump.
"This is my camel; a noble beast! It has seen me kill all my lions."
And so, linking his arm with the worthy major, he calmly wended his way
to Baobab Villa, amid the ringing cheers of the populace. On the road he
began a recital of his hunts.
"Picture to yourself," he said, "a certain evening in the open
Sahara----"
* * * * *