Port Tarascon : the last adventures of the illustrious Tartarin

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ALPHONSE DAUDET

PORT TARASCON

XL\)c Xast HDv>entures

OF THE

ILLUSTRIOUS TARTARIN

TRANSLATED BY

HENRY JAMES

ILLUSTRATED BY

ROSSI, MYRBACH, MONTEGUT, BIELER
AND MONTENARD

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, AIARSTON & COMPANY

Lintited
§,%. ^unstan's gonst

Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.

O^

MAY 9 1956

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The three great episodes in the career of Al-
phonse Daudet's genial and hapless hero form
together so vivid a picture and so complete a
history, are so full of reciprocal reference and
confirmation, that it is scarcely fair to fix our
attention on one of them without bearinor the
others in mind. They have this quality of the
great classic trilogies, that each of them gains
in interest by being read in the light of the oth-
ers, so that the whole work becomes, in its way,
a high example of artistic consistency. If the
reader turn back to Tartariii of Tarascon, of
which the main subject is the worthy bachelor's
passion for the pursuit of imaginary beasts — of
course he is incapable of killing a fly — he will
see how the author has vivified the conception
from the first, putting into it an intensity of life
that could only throb on, hilariously, into new
exuberances. Those readers to whom Tartar-
in's earlier adventures have not been definitely
revealed — his visit to Algeria in pursuit of the
lion of the Atlas, his wonderful appearance in
Switzerland, where he qualifies himself, by rare
I

2 TRANSLATORS PREFACE.

and grotesque achievements, for the presidency
of the Alpine Club of Tarascon, an office in
re2:ard to which the bilious Costecalde is his
competitor — such uninstructed persons had bet-
ter turn immediately to the first and second
parts of the delightful record. They will there
acquire a further insight into some of the mat-
ters tantalizingly alluded to in Port Tai'ascon
— the baobab and the camel, the lion-skins, the
poisoned arrows, the alpenstock of honor, the
critical hours passed in a damp dungeon in the
Chateau de Chillon.

We must praise, moreover, not only the evo-
cation of the sonorous and sociable little fig-
ure of Tartarin himself — broad of shoulder and
bright of eye, bald of head, short of beard, belt-
ed on a comfortable scale for all exploits — but
the bright image of the wonderfully human lit-
tle town which he has made renowned, and in
which the charming art of touching up the
truth — the poor, bare, shabby facts of things — is
represented as flourishing more than anywhere
else upon earth. A compendium of all the
droll idiosyncrasies of his birthplace, Tartarin
makes them epic and world-famous, hands them
down to a warm immortality of condonation.
Daudet has humorously described in a " defini-
tive " preface (just as he alludes to them in the

tkanslator's preface.

opening pages of Port Tarascon) some of the
consequences, personal to himself, of this acci-
dent of his having happened to point his moral
as well as adorn his tale with the little patch of
Provence that sits opposite to Beaucaire by the
Rhone. Guided in his irrepressible satiric play
by his haunting sense of the French " Midi," his
own provoking, engaging clime, it was quite at
hazard that in his quest of the characteristic he
put his hand on Tarascon. What he wanted
was some little Southern community that he
could place in comic and pathetic, at times al-
most in tragic, opposition to the colder, grayer
Northern stripe in the national temperament.
Tarascon resented at first such compromising
patronage. She shook her plump brown shoul-
ders and tried to wriggle out of custody. The
quarrel, however, has now been more than made
up, for the sensitive city, weighing the shame
against the glory, has not, in the long-run, been
perverse enough to pretend that the affair has
cost her too much. It was, in fact, in regard to
sweet old dusty Roman Nimes, his native town,
that he had permitted himself, in intention, the
worst of his irreverences. At any rate, what
most readers will say is that if the Tarascon of
fact is not like the Tarascon of art, so much the
worse for the former.

translator's preface.

It is impossible not to ask one's self whether
the author foresaw from the first the sequel and
the conclusion of Tartarin's life ; whether the
first episode was a part of a conscious plan. The
reason of this curiosity is that everything fits
and corresponds so beautifully with everything
else — the later developments are contained so
in germ in the earlier. But curiosity as to the
way exquisite things are produced in literature
is an attitude as to which the profit is mainly in
the healthy exercise of the faculty ; for the ques-
tions it presses most eagerly are the most unan-
swerable. They are not, at any rate, the ques-
tions the man of genius himself most confidently
meets. It is probable that Tartarin's full possi-
bilities glimmered before his biographer even
in the early chapters, but that they remained
vague, in their vividness, till they were attempted
— just as the lair of the lion and the land of the
glacier both attracted and eluded the prudent
Tartarin himself, till the rising growl of public
opinion put him really on his mettle. The rest
of the whole work — its general harmony and
roundness — is neatness and tact of execution.

Tartarin's word about himself, quoted from
his historian, that he is Don Quixote in the
skin of Sancho Panza, is the best summary of
his contradictions. The author's treatment of

TRANSLATORS TREFACE. 5

these contradictions is of the happiest ; he keeps
the threads of the tangle so distinct, and with so
light a hand. Whenever life is caught in the
fact with this sort of art, what shines out even
more than the freshness of the particular case
is its general correspondence with our experi-
ence. It becomes typical and suggestive and
confirmatory in all sorts of ways, and that is
how it becomes supremely interesting. The
fat little boastful bachelor by the Rhone -side,
with his poisoned arrows and his baobab, his
perfect candor and his tremendous lies, his good
intentions and his perpetual mistakes, presents
to us a kind of eternal, essential ambiguity, an
antagonism which many fallible souls spend
their time trying to simplify. What is this
ambiguity but the opposition of the idea and
the application — the beauty one would like to
compass in life and the innumerable snippets
by which that beauty is abbreviated in the busi-
ness of fitting it to our personal measure ?
There are two men in Tartarin, and there are
two men in all of us ; only, of course, to make a
fine case, M. Daudet has zigzagged the line of
their respective oddities. As he says so amus-
ingly in Tartarin of Tarascon, in his compari-
son of the very different promptings of these
inner voices, when the Don Quixote sounds the

translator's preface.

appeal, "Cover yourself with glory!" the Sancho
Panza murmurs the qualification, " Cover your-
self with flannel !" The glory is everything the
imagination regales itself with as a luxury of
reputation — the regardelle so prettily described
in the last pages of Port Tarascon ; the flannel
is everything that life demands as a tribute to
reality — a gage of self-preservation. The glory
reduced to a tangible texture too often turns
out to be mere prudent underclothing.

Tarascon was inordinately fond of glory. It
was this love of glory at bottom that dragged
it across the seas, where it so speedily became
conscious of a greater need for flannel than its
individual resources could suppl3^ Delightful
was M. Daudet's idea of illustrating the sfro-
tesque and inevitable compromise by the life
of a whole community. We have had them all
before ; they all peep out in the first book of the
series — Bezuquet and Pascalon, Bompard and
Bravida, Costecalde and Escourbanies, Made-
moiselle Tournatoire and her brother, the blood-
letting doctor. We have listened to the min-
gled nasality and sonority of their chatter, and
admired in several cases the bold brush of
their mustaches. We move in the aroma of
garlic that constitutes their social atmosphere,
and that suffuses somehow with incongruous

TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 7

picturesqueness the Gallo - Roman mementos
of their civic past. We have already, in Tartar-
in of Tarascon, seen poor Mademoiselle Tour-
natoire, at her casement, with a face like a white
horse, fixing fond eyes, as he passes, on her
heroic fellow-townsman. We have heard the
shrill of the cicadas on the " Walk Round,"
and the pipe of the little bootblacks before
Tartarin's little gate. We know everything
possible about the great man, down to the de-
tails of his personal habits and the peculiarities
of his pronunciation, and how he knotted his
bandanna before he went to bed, and where he
kept the poisoned arrows, and where he could
put his hand upon Captain Cook, and where
upon Bougainville. We have lived with him
so intimately that it makes a great difference to
us that he has at last played his part out.

The only defect of Port Tarascon is that it
leaves no more to come ; it exhausts the possi-
bilities. But the idea is vivid in it to the end,
and poetic justice is vindicated. If the drama
is over, it is the drama of the contending spir-
its. From the moment one of these spirits
wins the victory and destroys the equilibrium,
there is nothing left for Tartarin but to retire
to Beaucaire, and Beaucaire, of course, is extinc-
tion. When the Sancho Panza sees his ro-

8 translator's preface.

mantic counterpart laid utterly low — I needn't
mention where the victory lies, nor take the
edge from the reader's own perception of the
catastrophe ; it is enough to say that the thrill
of battle could only be over from the moment
such abundant and discouraging evidence was
produced of the quantity of compromise it takes
to transmute our dreams into action, our in-
spiration into works — even Sancho Panza, for all
his escape, his gain of security, weeps for the
prostrate hidalgo. Tartarin is betrayed by his
compromises ; they rise up and jeer at him and
denounce him. But he granted them in good
faith ; he was unconscious of them at the time.
Indeed, he would have perished without them
only less promptly than he perishes with them ;
they were as necessary to save him for an hour
as they were predestined to lose him forever.

For all this, it can hardly be said that a book
dissuades, however humorously and paradoxi-
cally, from action, from the deed to be done,
when it is itself a performance so accomplished,
so light and bright and irresistible, as the three
chronicles of Tartarin. Therefore the last mor-
al of all is, that however many traps life may lay
for us, tolerably firm ground, at any rate, is to
be found in perfect art.

Henry James.

INTRODUCTION.

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It was September, and it
was Provence, when the vint-
age was coming home, five or
six years ago.

From the high wagonette,
drawn by the rough horses
of the Camargue, that carried us at full speed
— Mistral the poet, my son, and myself — tow-
ards the Tarascon station and the fast train
to Lyons and Paris, the closing day struck us
as divine, as it burned itself pale ; a day suf-
fused, exhausted, and fevered ; passionate, like
the fine faces of some women there. There
was not a breath of air, in spite of our rattling

''^i/

lO PORT TARASCON.

pace. The rank rushes, with their long rib-
bony leaves, were straight and stiff by the way-
side ; and on all the country roads, snowy white
with the white of dreams, where the motionless
dust creaked beneath the wheels, passed a slow
procession of wagons laden with the black grape,
nothing but the black, followed by young men
and girls, all tall and well set up, long-legged
and dark-eyed. Clusters of black eyes and of
black grapes ; you could see nothing else in the
tubs and hods, under the slouched felt hats of
the vintagers, and the head -cloth, of which the
women kept the corners tight in their teeth.
Here and there, in the angle of a field, against
the white of the sky, rose a cross with a heavy
bunch suspended as a votive offering to each of
its arms. ''Ve — look!" dropped from Mistral,
touched and showing it, yet smiling with almost
maternal pride in the candid paganism of his
people ; after which he took up his tale again —
some scented, golden story of the Rhone-side,
such as the Goethe of Provence sows broadcast
from those ever-open hands of his, of which one
is poetry and the other reality.

Oh, miracle of words, magic concord of the
hour, the scenery, and the brave rustic legend
that the poet reeled off for us all along the nar-
row way, between the fields of mulberry and

INTRODUCTION.

II

olive and vine ! How well we felt, and how fair
and light was life ! All of a sudden my eyes
were darkened, my heart was compressed with
aneuish. " Father, how pale you are !" said my
and I had scarcelv strenQ-th to murmur.

son

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as I showed him the castle of King Rene, whose
four towers in the level distance watched me
come, " There's Tarascon !"

You see, w^e had a terrible account to settle,
the Tarasconians and I ! Clever people as they
are — like all our people there — I knew their
backs were up; they bore me a black grudge
for my jokes about their town and about their

12 " PORT TARASCON.

great man, the illustrious, the delicious Tartarin.
I had often been warned by letter, by anony-
mous threats : " If ever you come through Ta-
rascon, look out !" Others had brandished over
me the vengeance of the hero : " Tremble ; the
old lion has still his beak and claws !" A lion
with a beak — the deuce !

Graver still, I had it from a commandant of
the mounted police of the region that a bagman
from Paris, who, through a sorry identity of
name, or simply as a " lark," had signed "Al-
phonse Daudet " on the register of the inn, had
found himself assailed at the door of a cafe, and
threatened with a bath in the Rhone. Our hon-
est Tarasconians have in their blood this game
of the ducking.

"Willy-nilly, they shall take the jump from
the big window of Tarascon into the Rhone,"
is the sense of an old Proven9al catch of '93,
which is still sung there, emphasized with grew-
some comments on the drama of which King
Rene's towers were at that time witness. So,
as it was not quite to my taste to take a header
from the big window, I had always in my jour-
neys south given a wide berth to the good city.
And now, this time, an evil fate, the desire to
go and put my arm about my dear Mistral, the
impossibility of catching the express at another

INTRODUCTION,

13

point, threw me straight into the jaws of the
beaked Hon.

I might have mianaged it if there had been
only Tartarin. An encounter of man to man,
a duel with poisoned ar-
rows, under the trees of
the "Walk Round"
— the public prom-
enade that encir-
cles the place — was

not the sort of thing to frighten me. But the
wrath of a whole people — and then the Rhone,
the terrible Rhone ! Ah, I can tell you, he
didn't take up much room at that moment— the
author of the two Tartar ins. In vain Mistral
tried to reassure me. " Oh, come ! don't mind !

14 PORT TARASCON.

I'll talk to the crowd;" while my boy, a young
medical student of the Paris hospitals, took his
bistoury out of his instrument case, and pre-
pared resolutely to rip something up. All this
only deepened my gloom.

It was a strange thing, but perceptibly, as we
drew nearer to the city, there were fewer and
fewer people on the w^ays, and we met fewer of
the vintagers' carts. Soon we had nothing be-
fore us but the white, dusty road, and all around
us, in the country, the space and solitude of the
desert.

" It's very queer," said Mistral, under his
breath, rather uneasy. " You'd say it was a
Sunday."

" If it were a Sunday you'd hear the bells,"
added my son, in the same tone ; for there was
something oppressive in the silence that lay
upon city and suburb. There was nothing, not
a bell, not a cry, not even the jingle of a coun-
try cart, clear in the resonant air ; yet the first
houses of the outer town stood up at the end
of the road — -one of the oil-mills, the custom-
house, newly whitewashed.

We were getting in. And hardly had we
advanced into the long street when our stupor
was great to find it deserted, with doors and
windows closed, without a dog or a cat, a chick

INTRODUCTION. 1 5

or a child — without a creature : the smokv por-
tal of the blacksmith disfeatured of the two
wheels that it usually wore on either flank; and
the tall trellis-screen, with which the local door-
way protects itself against flies, taken in, de-
parted, like the flies themselves, like the ex-
quisite puff of garlic which, at that hour, should
have proceeded from the local kitchen.

Tarascon without the smell of orarlic ! Is
that the sort of thing you can fancy ?

Mistral and I exchanged looks of awe, and
really it was not for nothing. To expect the
howl of a delirious people, and to find the place
a Pompeii — as silent as death! Farther on,
where we could put a name on every dwelling,
on all the shops familiar to our eyes from child-
hood, this impression of the empty and the for-
saken was still more startlinsr.

Closed was Bezuquet, the druggist, on the bit
of a Square; closed likewise was Costecalde, the
armorer, and Rebuffat, the pastry-cook, " the fa-
mous place for caramels." Vanished the scutch-
eon of Notary Cambalalette, and the sign, on
painted cloth, of Marie Joseph Escourbanies,
manufacturer of the Aries sausage ; for the
Aries sausage has always been turned out at
Tarascon. I point out in passing this great
denial of historic justice.

I 6 PORT TARASCON.

But, in fine, what had become of the Taras-
conians ?

Now our wagonette rolled over the Long
Walk, in the tepid shade, where the plane-trees
interspaced their smooth white trunks, and where
never a cicada was singing: the cicadas had
flown away ! Before the house of our Tartarin,
all of whose shutters were closed — it was as
blind and dumb as its neighbors — against the
low wall of the bit of a garden, never a black-
ing-box, never a little shoeblack to call out, "A
shine, Mossoo ?"

" Perhaps there's cholera," one of us said.

At Tarascon, sure enough, on the arrival of
an epidemic the inhabitant moves out and en-
camps under canvas, at a goodish distance from
the town, until the bad air has passed by. At
this word cholera, which throws every Proven-
cal into a blue " funk," our coachman applied
the whip to his steeds, and a few minutes later
we pulled up at the steps of the station, perched
on the very top of the great viaduct which skirts
and commands the city.

Here we found life again, and human voices
and faces. The trains were up and down, in
and out, on the net-work of rails ; they drew up
with the slamming of doors, the bawlinsr of sta-
tions : " Tarascon ; stop five minutes ; change

INTRODUCTION.

17

for Nimes, Montpellier, Cette."
Mistral went straight off to the
superintendent, an old servant
who has never left his platform
for five-and-thirty years.

" Well, now, Master Picard, what's the matter?
Your Tarasconians — where are they? What
have you done with them ?"

To which the other, greatly surprised at our
surprise : " Where are they? You don't know?
2

1 8 PORT TARASCON.

Don't you read anything, then ? Yet they've
advertised it enough, their island, their Port
Tarascon. Well, yes, then, my dear fellow,
they've gone, the Tarasconians ; gone to plant
a colony ; Tartarin the illustrious at their head,
carrying off with them the symbol of the city —
the very Tarasque."

He broke off to give orders, to bustle along
the line, while at our feet, erect in the sunset,
we saw the towers, the belfries and bells, of the
forsaken city, its old ramparts gilded by the sun
to the superb tone of a " browned " pasty, and
giving exactly the idea of a woodcock pie of
which thQ crust only was left.

" And tell me, Monsieur Picard," asked Mis-
tral of the superintendent, who had come back
to us with his good smile — no more uneasy
than that at the thought of Tarascon " on the
go" — "was this emigration en masse some time
ago :

" Six months."

" And you've had no news of them.?"

" None whatever."

Cracky! as they say down there. Sometime
later we had news indeed, detailed and precise,
sufficiently so to enable me to relate to you the
exodus of this gallant little people under the
lead of its hero, and the dreadful misadventures

INTRODUCTION. 1 9

that fell upon it. Pascal has said, " We need
the agreeable and the real ; but this agreeable
should itself be taken from the true." I have
tried to conform to his doctrine. My story is
taken from the true — put together from letters
of the emigrants, from the Memorial of the
young secretary of Tartarin, and from deposi-
tions published in the a'.ithorized law reports —
so that when you come across some Tarascon-
ade more extravagant than usual, I'll be hanged
if I invented it !

BOOK FIRST.

" Franquebalme, old fellow, I'm not hap-
py about France. Our rulers are putting us
through."

Uttered one evening by Tartarin before the
fireplace of the club, with the gesture and ac-
cent that you may imagine, these memorable
words are a compendium of what was thought
and said at Tarascon-on-the-Rhone two or three
months before the exodus. The Tarasconian
in general pays little attention to politics ; in-
dolent by nature, indifferent to everything that
is not a " local interest," he holds for " the state
of things," as he calls it. All the same, for
some time past there had been a lot of things
to be said about the state of thinsfs.

"Our rulers are putting us through — the
whole thing !" said Tartarin.

PORT TARASCON.

21

In this " whole thino; " there was first of all
the prohibition of the bull-baiting.

I dare say you know the history of the Taras-
conian, a very bad Christian and a reprobate
of the worst kind,
who, having got
into Paradise by
stealing a march
on St. Peter when
his back was turned,
refused to go out
again, in spite of
the supplications of
the saintly turnkey.
What, in this case,
did the great St.
Peter do? He sent
a whole flock of an-
srels to clamor close

O

to the highest sky, with as many voices as possi-
ble : " There ! there! the cattle ! There ! there !
the cattle!" which is the call for the great game.
Hearkening to this, the ruiifian changes counte-
nance.

"You go in for bull-baiting up here, then,

great St. Peter?"

•'Bull-baiting? Rather! And a splendid kind,
old man."

22

PORT TARASCON.

" Where do you have it, then ?
it take place ?"

Where does

"Just outside there, in front of Paradise,
where there's room to turn round, you know."
At this the Tarasconian rushes out to see,

PORT TARASCON. 23

and the gates of heaven are closed upon him
forever.

If I recall this legend, as old as the benches
on the "Walk Round," it is to show you the pas-
sion of the Tarasconians for the said bull-baiting,
and the indignation created by the suppression
of their cherished sport.

After this came the order to turn out the
White Fathers and close their pretty convent
of Pamperigouste, perched on a little hill all
gray and fragrant with thyme and lavender —
it has been established there for as^es — so that
from the gates of the town you may see its bel-
fries between the pines.

The Tarasconians were very fond of their
White Fathers, so gentle and good and harm-
less, who had the secret for makinor an excellent
elixir of the fragrant herbs with which the bit
of a mountain is covered. They were also fa-
mous for their swallow tarts and their delicious
pains-poires, or potted pears, which are quinces
done up in a fine golden paste — whence the
name of Pamperigouste given to the abbey.
Every Tarasconian used to hear the chimes
of the monastery : the odorous breeze brought
them in at the dawn with the song of the lark,
and in the twilight with the melancholy cry of
the curlew.

24 PORT TARASCON.

When the official notification that they were
to leave their convent was served on the Fa-
thers, they refused to go; they shut themselves
up, determined to stay.

The gentlemen and ladies of Tarascon, you
may well believe, took up a stand for their
monks — the ladies, and all their sex, in particu-
lar, for they are very hot for religion. Urged
on by their wives, from fifteen hundred to two
thousand of the common sort — dock porters,
stevedores on the Rhone boats, those whom the
genteel people call the Rabblebabble,* and al-
ways send in first to try the water — came and
shut themselves up with the Fathers in the
pretty convent of Pamperigouste. The good
society, the gentlemen of the club, Tartarin at
their head, had it also at heart to uphold the
holy cause. There was not a minute of hesita-
tion. But people don't throw themselves into
such an enterprise without preparation of any
kind. That sort of slapdash is only for the
Rabblebabble.

Before everything it was a question of cos-
tume. So the costumes were ordered, superb
habiliments of Crusaders, long black wrappers,
with a great white cross on the chest, and

* Rafataille.

PORT TARASCON.

25

everywhere else —
before, behind, on
the shoulders —
intertwinings of
thigh - bones
braid. It took a
long time, in par-
ticular, to put
on the braid.
When ev-
erything was
ready the

convent was
already invest-
ed ; the troops
surrounded it
with a triple ring, encamped in the fields and
on the stony sides of the little hill.

The red trousers, in the thyme and lavender^

26

PORT TARASCON.

looked at a distance like a flowering of poppies.
You met on the roads continual patrols of cav-
alry— the carbine on the thigh, the scabbard
svvinsino- on the horse's flank, the revolver case
in the belt.

But this exhibition of brute force was not
the sort of thing to check the intrepid Tar-
tarin, who had resolved to get through at
the head of a handful of the Qrentlemen of the

PORT TARASCON. 2 7

club. In Indian file, flat on their stomachs,
ramping on hands and knees, with all the pre-
cautions and stratagems of the savages of Fen-
imore Cooper, they succeeded in wriggling
through the lines, in slipping between the pa-
trols, grazing the rows of sleeping tents, and
circumventing the sentinels, while they warned
each other of dangerous places by an imperfect
imitation of the cry of a bird.

Oh, courage was wanted to try such a busi-
ness on clear nights, when you see as well as by
day! It's true that it was quite in the interest
of the besiegers to let as many people as possi-
ble get into the blockaded precincts. What was
wanted was rather to starve the convent out
than to carry it by force. Accordingly, the sol-
diers were ready to look a different way when
they saw these prowling phantoms by moon-
light and starlight. More than one officer who
had taken absinthe at the club with Tartarin
recognized him at a distance, in spite of his
crusading disguise, and greeted him with a fa-
miliar gesture. Once in the place, Tartarin or-
ganized the defence. This devil of a fellow had
a natural insight into every profession. He had
read all the books on all known sieges. He
formed his Tarasconians into brio^ades of mili-
tia, commanded by the bold Bravida, and above

28

all, full of memories of Sebastopol and Plevna,
he made them throw up earth, lots of earth,
surroundino^ the devoted edifice with embank-
ments, ditches, fortifications of every kind, whose
circle narrowed itself little by little, so that the
besieged could scarcely breathe, and were im-

PORT TARASCON. 29

mured behind their defensive works — which was
just the thing for the besiegers.

The Tarasconians were none the less de-
Hghted with the turn things were taking. They
were a wonder to themselves, and their works
were a wonder ; they talked of nothing but the
glacis, the scarp, and the counterscarp, were full
of ardor and confidence, and above all, proud of
their chiefs — proud of the bold Bravida, major-
general of the place, and particularly of their
great man of war, their illustrious Tartarin, gen-
eral-in-chief of the intrenched camp, who knew
all about organizing the defence.

Transmuted into a fortress, the convent was
subjected to military discipline. So it must
always be when the state of siege is declared.
Everything was done by beat of drum and blast
of bugle. At the faintest early dawn — for the
reveille — for a quarter of an hour the tattoo
boomed out in the courts, in the corridors, and
under the arches of the cloister. They trump-
eted also from morning till night ; they sound-
ed for prayers, tara-ta, for the treasurer, tara-ta-
ta, for the Father Steward, tara-ta-ta-ta, rending
the air with short, sonorous, imperious blasts.
They bugled for the Angelus, for Matins and
Complines. It was a thing to abash the be-
sieging army, which, all abroad in the open air,

O PORT TARASCON.

made far less noise. Over against it, on the top
of the little hill, behind the bastions, the piping
and strumming, mixed with the tinkle of the
chimes, produced the bravest music, and scat-
tered to the four winds a sort of promise of
victory, of glad anthem, half warlike and half
holy.

The bother was that the besiegers, quite
quiet in their lines, without taking the least
trouble, victualled themselves easily, and held
high revel all day. The land of Provence is a
land of delights, and produces all sorts of good
things. Clear golden wines, meat-balls, and sau-
sages of Aries, exquisite melons, delicious fruits,
special sweets from Montelimar — everything
was for the Government troops, and neither
crumb nor drop made its way into the block-
aded abbey. Accordingly, on one side, the sol-
diers, who had never been on such a spree, put
on flesh so that you could see it grow, and that
their tunics were almost bursting. Simply to
look at their fine condition, and the plum.p, shin-
ing haunches of their horses, made one admire
the nursing plenty of that blessed corner of
earth. On the other side, lackaday ! the poor
Tarasconians, especially the Rabblebabble, ris-
ing early, turning in late, overdone, "ncessantly
on the jump, digging and harrowing earth night

PORT TARASCON. 3 1

and day, by the light of the sun and the light of
torches, dried up and grew lean till 'twas a pity.

The monks saw with terror that their pro-
visions were giving out. There would soon be
no more swallow tarts: such a lot as they had
got rid of since the beginning of the siege !
The potted pears were coming to an end.
Should they be able to hold out much longer.?
Every day this question was discussed on the
ramparts, scorched and cracked by the drought.

" And the cowards don't attack us," said
those of Tarascon, shaking their fists at the red
trousers that wallowed in the grass in the shad-
ow of the pines.

But the idea of attacking themselves never
occurred to them, so strongly has this brave lit-
tle race the sentiment of preservation.

Only once Escourbanies, an extremist, spoke
of trying a universal sally, with the monks in
front, to turn the mercenaries head over heels.

Tartarin shrugged his broad shoulders and
answered with a single word : " Infant !"

Then taking by the arm the boiling Es-
courbanies, he drew him to the top of the
counterscarp, and showing him with a large
gesture the cordons of troops drawn up on
the hill, the sentinels placed in all the paths :

" Yes or no, are we the besieged? Well, then!"

32

PORT TARASCON.

What was there to say to that? A mur-
mur of approbation rose around him.

" Evidently he's right It is for them to
begin, since they're the besiegers."

So it was seen once more that no one under-
stood the laws of war like Tartarin.

Nevertheless, something had to be settled.

PORT TARASCON. 33

One day the council assembled in the great
chapter-house, lighted from high casements, sur-
rounded by sculptured wood-work, and the Fa-
ther Steward read his report on the resources
of the place. All the White Fathers listened,
silent, straight upon their "mercies" — a kind
of hypocritical half-seat, which allowed them to
be seated, though appearing to stand. It was
lamentable, the Father Steward's report. What
the Tarasconians had made away with since
the beginning of the siege ! Swallow tarts, so
many hundred ; potted pears, so many thou-
sand ; and so many of this and so man)- of
that. Of all the things he enumerated, with
which they had been so well provided at the
beginning, there remained so little, so little, that
you might as well call it nothing.

Their Reverences were in consternation.
They looked at each other with long faces,
and agreed that with all these reserves, given
the attitude of the enemy, who had no wish to
go to the extreme, they might have held out
for years without wanting for anything, if only
they had been helped. The Father Steward, in
a monotonous, dismal voice, continued to read.
All of a sudden an uproar breaks in upon him.
The door of the hall bursts open. Tartarin
appears, a Tartarin excited and tragic, his

34

PORT TARASCON.

cheeks flushed, his beard bristhng over the
white cross of his dress. He salutes with his

sword the Prior, erect upon his " mercy," then
the Fathers, and gravely :

" Monsieur le Prieur, I can no longer hold

PORT TARASCON. 35

my men; they are dying of hunger; all the
cisterns are empty. The moment has come to
surrender the place or to bury ourselves in its
ruins!"

What he did not say, but what had, all the
same, quite its importance, was that for a fort-
night he had gone without his morning choco-
late. He saw it in his dreams, rich, smoking,
oily, accompanied with a glass of fresh water as
clear as crystal. Whereas at present he had
come down to the brackish water of the cisterns!

Immediately the council was on its feet, and,
in a hubbub of voices all talking at once, ex-
pressed a unanimous opinion: "Surrender the
place ! The place must be surrendered ! We
must not bury ourselves !" Brother Bataillet
alone — he was always excessive — proposed to
blow up the convent with the powder that was
left. He even offered to fire it himself. But
they refused to listen to him, and when niglit
had come, leaving the keys in the doors, monks
and militia, followed by Escourbanies, by Bra-
vida, and by Tartarin, with his handful of gen-
tlemen of the club, in short, the whole garrison
of Pamperigouste, filed out of the convent, this
time without drum or fife, and wound silently
down the hill. It was a fantastic procession in
the moonlight. The enemy's pickets let all

36

PORT TARASCON.

these good people come out as peacefully as
they had let them go in.

This memorable defence of the abbey did
the greatest honor to Tartarin : from that day
he was the illustrious vanquished of Pamperi-
gouste. But the occupation of their White
Fathers' house by the troops left a dark rancor
in the hearts of the Tarasconians.

II.

Some time after the dispersal of the monks,
Bezuquet, the druggist, was one evening enjoy-
ing the cool, the " good of the air," as they say
down there, on the bit of a Square, with his
pupil Pascalon and the reverend Brother Ba-
taillet. I must tell you that after the closing
of the convent the exiled monks had been irath-
ered in by the Tarasconian families. Each of
them had wanted his White Father; the peo-
ple of means, the shopkeepers, the respectable
middle class, all had their own ; while the poor
families clubbed together and went shares in
the maintenance of one of the holy men.

38 PORT TARASCON.

You saw a white cowl in all the shops — in
that of Costecalde, the armorer, in the midst of
the guns, the rifles, and the hunting knives, or
beside the counter of Beaumevieille, the haber-
dasher, behind the rows of silk bobbins — every-
where, in short, reared itself the same figure of
a great white bird, a sort of familiar pelican.
And the presence of the Fathers was a true
blessing in the houses. Gentle, genial, well-
bred, discreet, they were never in the way, never
took up too much room at the hearth, and yet
they maintained there an unaccustomed good-
ness and sweetness and propriety.

It was as if the people had always had the
Holy Spirit in their midst. The men forbore
to swear or to say anything the least broad ;
the women told no more fibs, or very few, and
the little ones sat up straight and quiet on their
high-chairs.

In the morning, in the evening, at prayer-
time, at the meals, for the Benedicite and for
"grace," the great white sleeves expanded like
wings over the assembled family ; and with this
perpetual blessing on their heads, the Taras-
conians could do no less than live in holiness
and virtue.

Every one was proud of his own reverend
man, and bragged about him and showed him

PORT TARASCON.

39

off. Bezuquet's drug shop had had the good
fortune to be chosen as a refuge by Brother
Bataillet.

He was all nerves, this Brother Bataillet, all

enthusiasm and ardor, genuinely endowed with
the eloquence that pleases the people, and re-
nowned for his manner of producing parables
and old tales. He was a superb monk — tall,

40 PORT TARASCON.

well set up, with a tanned skin and eyes of fire,
the head of a Spanish guerilla. Under the
long folds of his thick frieze he had really a
fine presence, though one of his shoulders was
slight]}' higher than the other, and he walked
not quite straight. But no one noticed these
triflins: defects when he came down from the
pulpit after his sermon and cleaved the crowd
with his great nose in the air, in a hurry to
get back to the vestry, and still quivering and
shaken with his own eloquence. The enthu-
siastic women, as he passed, cut off with their
scissors morsels of his white cloak ; he was
called on this account the " scalloped " Father,
and his gown was so soon beyond all use that
the convent had great trouble to keep him sup-
plied.

Well, then, Bezuquet was in front of his shop
with Pascalon, and opposite to them was Broth-
er Bataillet, sitting astride of his chair. They
were so comfortable there, in the serenity of the
blessed, that it was a pleasure to breathe ; for at
that hour for Bezuquet no customer is a cus-
tomer; it is the same as at night — the poor
sick may wriggle as they like — nothing will in-
duce the honest apothecary to put himself out.
It is not the hour. He was listening, and Pas-
calon too, to one of those beautiful stories that

PORT TARASCON. 4 I

his Reverence knew how to tell, while afar, in
the town, in the closing hum of a fine sum-
mer's day, the band of the garrison sounded
the recall.

All of a sudden the pupil sprang up, red and
excited, and without considering that he was in-
terrupting his Reverence, cried out, pointing his
finger to the other end of the bit of a Square,
and stammering according to his wont, " There
comes Monsieur Tar-tar-tarin."

We already know what a peculiar personal
admiration Pascalon entertained for the great
man of Tarascon.

Sure enough, in the sunset, at some distance,
Tartarin's well-known form was outlined.

He was not alone, for near him moved a per-
sonage in pearl-gray gloves and thoroughly care-
ful attire, who talked with him as they stopped
in the Square. Rather, perhaps, it was Tartarin
who talked, full of animation and gesticulating
for two, while his companion listened, silent,
stiff, motionless, perfectly calm.

He was a man of the North, as you could
easily see. You know a man of the North in
the South by his quiet attitude and the brev-
ity of his slow speech; just as surely as you
recognize a man of the South in the North
by his exuberance of gesture and of phrase.

42

PORT TARASCON.

The Tarasconians were in the habit of seeing
Tartarin often in company with strangers, for
nobody ever passed through the town without

'.■fir.-.

^^Hfiii

^..;_J- ■ §P&:|.rf>

-=^rtK^^

stopping to visit, as one of its curiosities, the fa-
mous hon-killer, the iUustrious Alpine cHmber,
the modern Vauban, for whom the siege of
Pamperigouste has created a fresh renown.

From this affluence of visitors had arisen for
the whole town an era of prosperity formerly
unknown.

PORT TARASCON. 43

The innkeepers made their fortunes, and yet
were not the only gainers, for the whole trade
of the place was the better; lives of the great
man were sold by the booksellers, and you saw
nothing in the shop-fronts but his portrait as a
climber, as a Crusader, in every possible form,
and in every phase of his heroic existence.
But this time it was not an ordinary visitor, a
chance tourist passing through, who accom-
panied Tartarin. It was a stranger of mark, as
you might see from his grand air and the re-
spectful manner in which the other spoke to
him.

They had crossed the Square and had come
nearer. Tartarin, with a fine flourish, indicated
his companion.

" My dear Bezuquet and your Reverence, let
me present you to M. le Due de Mons."

A duke ! — goodness gracious ! There had
never been one at Tarascon. A camel had
been seen there, a baobab,* a lion-skin, a collec-
tion of poisoned arrows and of alpenstocks of
honor; but a duke, never in the world ! Bezu-
quet had risen ; he bowed, rather embarrassed
all the same at finding himself, without having

* Tartarin's extraordinary plant, commemorated in the
former histories of his life.

44

PORT TARASCON.

been notified in advance, in the presence of so
great a personage. He panted:

" Monsieur le Due — Monsieur le Due — "

Tartarin inter-

rupted.

in, gentlemen

Let us go

We

have to talk of ^rave
matters."

He passed first,
rounding his back
with a mysterious
air, and they went
into the little con-
sultino-.room of the
pharmacy, whose
glass front, looking
out on the Square,
served as a show-
case for jars of em-
bryos, preserved
tape -worms, and lit-
tle bundles of cam-
phor cigarettes.
The door closed
upon them as if they had been conspirators.
Pascalon remained alone in the shop. Bezu-
quet, before disappearing, had told him what
to say to any one who should call, and not

PORT TARASCON.

45

to allow such people, under any pretext, to
come near the consulting-room. The pupil,
greatly mystified, began to arrange on the

'■ i

i4iii||i

shelves the boxes of jujube, the bottles of ^/r;/-
pns gttmmi, and other products of the labora-
tory.

The sound of voices reached him at mo-
ments, and he distinguished especially the ring-
ins voice of Tartarin. Then he went nearer
the door, trying to catch some snatches of

46 PORT TARASCON.

talk. He heard nothing but some strange
words: "Polynesia — earthly paradise — sugar-
cane— distilleries — free colony." Then an em-
phatic outbreak from Brother Bataillet : " Bra-
vo ! I'm in it." As for the man of the North,
confound him ! he talked so low — no fire nor
flame in Jiijn — that one heard nothing.

It was no use for Pascalon to flatten his ear
against the key-hole. All of a sudden the door
burst open, smitten, maun niilitari, by the lusty
fist of Brother Bataillet, and the pupil rolled
over to the other end of the pharmacy. But
the others were so excited that nobody paid at-
tention to the incident.

Tartarin, erect on the threshold, the fire of
enthusiasm in his glance, his forefinger lifted to
the bundles of poppy-heads drying on the ceil-
ing of the shop, with the gesture of an arch-
angel brandishing the great sword, exclaimed,
from the depth of his lungs and with the tone
of one inspired :

" God wills it, your Grace. Our work will be
great !"

There was a confusion of out-stretched hands
seeking each other, mixing with each other,
grasping each other, energetic grips intended
to seal forever irrevocable pledges. Still glow-
ing with this supreme expansion, Tartarin, erect

PORT TARASCON. 47,

and taller than ever, quitted the pharmacy with
the Due de Mons.

They continued their circuit of the town,
and traversed the bit of a Square, directing
their steps towards the residence of Costecalde,
the armorer.

Two days later The Forum and The Piper
of Tarascon were full of articles and advertise-
ments on the subject of a colossal enterprise.
The heading bore in big letters, " Free Colony
of Port Tarascon." Then came stupefying an-
nouncements : " For sale, lands at five francs
the acre, bringing in several millions of francs
a year. Fortune rapid and assured. Colonists
wanted."

Exceptional favors were specified for the in-
habitants of Tarascon and the country about.
Further appeared an historic sketch of the isl-
and on which the projected colony was to set-
tle— an island purchased from the King, Na-
gonko, by the Due de Mons in the course of
his travels. There was also an allusion to cer-
tain neighboring islands which might be ac-
quired later, to extend the establishment ; but
the main insistence was on the principal island
— a real promised land, a land of Canaan.

A climate paradisiacal, the temperature of
Oceanica, very moderate in spite of its proximi-

48 PORT TARASCON.

ty to the equator, varying only from one to two
degrees, between 25 and 28; the country ex-
tremely fertile, extremely wooded and admira-
bly watered, rising rapidly from the sea, which
permitted every one to choose the altitude best
suited to his temperament. The abundance of
springs and watercourses was a guarantee of
the establishment on the most reasonable terms
of all industries requiring any kind of motive
power, and the natural irrigation of the country
placed every species of colonial product on a
footing, as it were, of exceptional profusion. In
fine, provisions abounded, delicious fruits on
every tree, game of every kind in the woods
and fields, with innumerable fish in the waters.
From the point of view of commerce and navi-
gation, a splendid roadstead could contain a
whole fleet — a harbor of perfect safety, shut in
by breakwaters, with an inner basin and a spe-
cial one for repairs. Oua3's, landing-stages, a
light -house, a semaphore, steam -cranes — noth-
ing would be wanting.

The work had already been begun by coolies
and Australian aborigines, under the direction
and on the plans of highly skilled engineers,
and of the most distinguished architects. The
settlers would find comfortable habitations on
their arrival, and even, by ingenious arrange-

PORT TARASCON. 49

ments, with fifty francs more, the houses would
be fitted up according to their wants.

You may fancy whether the famous Taras-
conian imagination began to work over the
perusal of all these wonders. In every family
they drew up plans. Every one knocked up a
house according to his taste — one dreaming of
green shutters, another of a pretty porch ; this
one having a fancy for brick, and that one for
rough stone.

They designed, they tried different things,
adding one touch to another— a pigeon-house
would be graceful, a weathercock wouldn't look
bad.

" Oh, papa, a veranda !"

" Hang it, then ; a veranda, my dears !"

For all, it was going to cost! At the same
time that these good folk treated themselves so
freely to anything they fancied in the way of
a pretty cottage, the articles of The Forum and
The Piper were reproduced in all the Southern
papers ; town and country were deluged with
circulars exhibiting little vignettes framed in
the palm, the cocoa-nut, the banana, and other
outlandish vegetation ; the whole province was
handed over to a frantic propaganda.

On the dusty roads of the neighborhood Tar-
tarin's gig kept passing at a swinging trot.

50 PORT TARASCON.

Tartarin in person and Brother Bataillet, placed
in front, sat as close together as possible, to
make a rampart of their bodies for the Due de
Mons, enveloped in a green veil and devoured
by mosquitoes, which assailed him with rage on
all sides in buzzing battalions, in spite of Tar-
tarin and the Brother, in spite of the veil, in
spite of the great whacks his Grace dealt him-
self. Gorged with the blood of the man of
the North, they continued to apply an unre-
lenting sting to surfaces already completely dis-
tended.

For a man of the North was what he was,
this fine gentleman ! He was never guilty of
a gesture, scarcely of a word, much less of an
exaggeration. Add to this his coolness — he
never got " started," but saw things as they are,
and as he himself was. You could feel safe
with him, and fear no lies. And then a duke !
On the bits of Squares half shadowed with
plane-trees and smeared over with great sun
spots, in the brown old villages, in the wine-
shops eaten up with flies, in the dancing-rooms,
and everywhere else, addresses and sermons
and lectures went on. The duke, in terms
clear and concise, as simple as the naked truth,
set forth the delights of Port Tarascon ; the elo-
quence of the monk preached emigration as a

PORT TARASCON.

51

crusade ; Tartarin, as dusty with his wayfaring
as at a battle's close, tossed off a few nervous
words, all feeling — words that rolled and swelled
— " Victory, conquest, new country." The en-
ergy of his gesture seemed to hurl away over
every one's head. Or else there were gather-
ings for discussion, like electoral caucuses, where
everything went on by question and answer.

" Are there any venomous animals .?"

" Not one. Not a serpent. Not even a mos-
quito. And in the way of wild beasts, nothing
at all."

" But they say that in those parts — far Ocean-
ica — there are anthropophagi."

" Never in the world ! They are all vegeta-

rians."

" Is it true that the savages go quite naked.?"
" That perhaps may be a little true ; but not
all ; and, at any rate, we'll clothe them."

Articles, advertisements, lectures, everything
was wildly successful ; the shares were taken
up by the hundred and the thousand, the immi-
grants flowed in, and not only from Tarascon,
but from all the South. They came over even
from Beaucaire. But there the line had to
be drawn. Tarascon thought them very bold,
these intruders of Beaucaire. For centuries
there has existed between the two towns a ri-

52 PORT TARASCON.

valry, a muffled animosit}', which, fed by in-
numerable a2:o:ravations on one side and the
other, by jokes at each other's expense, to say
nothing of expressions of contempt, threatens
never to die out.

Separated by the whole breadth of the Rhone,
the two cities regard each other across the riv-
er as irreconcilable enemies. The bridge that
has been thrown between them has not brou2:ht
them any nearer. This bridge is never crossed ;
in the first place, because it's very dangerous.
The people of Beaucaire no more go to Ta-
rascon than those of Tarascon go to Beau-
caire.

If you seek to discover the grounds of this
inexplicable aversion, they answer you on one
side and the other with phrases that explain
nothing. " Oh, you know, we know all about
them, the Tarascon folk," say the Beaucairenes.

"All the same, we know what they're worth,
our neighbors at Beaucaire," say the Tarasco-
nians.

Accordingly, there were to be no Beau-
cairenes in the settlement of Port Tarascon.
First of all, as was quite right, the Tarasco-
nians ; afterwards, if any room was left — why,
they would see.

But if settlers were not accepted outside of

PORT TARASCON. 53

Tarascon and its cincture, money was accepted
from all the world ; shareholders were welcome
from anywhere and everywhere; the famous
acres at five francs (bringing in several thou-
sand francs per annum) were disposed of in
batches. Accepted too were the gifts in kind
which many persons enthusiastic for the work
sent in to meet the requirements of the colony.
The Forum published the lists, and in these
lists might have been found the most extraordi-
nary objects.

" A box of little beads.

" A set of numbers of The Forum.

" M. Becoulet, forty-five nets, in chenille and
beads, for the Indian women.

" Madame Dourladoure, six pocket-handker-
chiefs and six knives for the parsonage.

" An embroidered banner for the Orpheon.

" Anduze, of Maquelonne, a stuffed flamingo.

" Six dozen dog-collars.

" A braided jacket. .

" A pious lady of Marseilles, a priest's vest-
ment, a trimming for the incense bearer, and a
canopy for the pyx.

" A collection of coleoptera under glass."

And regularly, in each list, was mentioned
an offering: from Mademoiselle Tournatoire :
"A complete suit to clothe a savage." Such

54 PORT TARASCON.

was the constant preoccupation of this good
old maid. All these queer, fantastic contribu-
tions, in which the Southern imagination dis-
played its high, unconscious comicality, made
their way by the boxful to the docks, the great
receiving houses of the Free and Independent
Colony established at Marseilles. The Due de
Mons had fixed there his centre of operations.

From his offices, sumptuously fitted up in
splendid apartments, he brewed the business
on a great scale, got up companies for distilling
from the sugar-cane or for working the " tre-
pang," a species of moUusk of which the Chi-
nese are very fond, and for which, said the pro-
spectus, they will pay any price. Ever}^ day,
with the indefatigable nobleman, saw the bud-
ding of some new idea, the dawn of some great
job, which the same evening found quite set on
its feet.

In the intervals he organized a committee of
shareholders under the chairmanship of the
Greek banker Kagaraspaki, and deposited their
funds with the Ottoman bankers Pamenyai ben
Kaga, an extraordinarily safe house, conspicu-
ous for its prudence in whatever it took up.

Tartarin now passed his life — a feverish life
— in travelling from Tarascon to Marseilles,
and from Marseilles to Tarascon. He kept

PORT TARASCON.

55

the enthusiasm of his fellow-citizens up to the
mark, pushed on the local propaganda, and
then suddenly dashed off by express to be pres-
ent at some board, some meeting of stockhold-
ers. Every day his admiration for the duke
increased.

He, dear fellow, always on the gush, and in»
stinctively mistrustful, per-
haps, of himself, held up as
an example to every one
the dukes coolness and
the duke's
judgment.

"No dan-
ger of ex-
aggeration
with him.
He produces
none of those decep-
tive atmosjjheric ef-
fects that Daudet is
fond of charging us with."

On the other hand, the duke showed himself
little, and talked even less than in the bcgin-
nino;. The man of the North effaced himself
before the man of the South, put him always
in the foreground, and left to his inexhaustible
loquacity the care of all explanations, of all

56 PORT TARASCON.

promises, of all pledges. He contented him-
self with sa3'ing :

" Mr. Tartarin alone knows my whole
thought."

And you may judge whether INIr. Tartarin
was proud 1

PORT TARASCON. 57

III.

One morning Tarascon woke up with this
telegram pasted on all the street corners :

"The Faraiidole, a great sailing-ship of
twelve hundred tons, has just left Marseilles at
dawn, carrying in her bosom, with the fortunes
of a whole people, an assortment of goods for
the savages, and a cargo of agricultural imple-
ments. Eight hundred emigrants on board, all
Tarasconians, among whom are Bompard, Pro-
visional Governor of the Colony; Bezuquet,
chemist -physician; the Reverend Father Ve-
zole; and Notary Cambalalette, Assessor of
Taxes. I myself have seen them out into the
open. Everything well. The duke radiant.
Print this. Tartarin of Tarascon."

This telegram, posted up all over the town
by the care of Pascalon, to whom it was ad-
dressed, filled the place with jubilation. The

58

PORT TARASCON.

streets had put on their hoHday look, all the
world was out-of-doors, every one wishing to
read the blessed despatch ; and knots of people
stopped before each placard, the words of which
were repeated from mouth to mouth : " Eight

hundred emigrants — Tartarin seen them out
into the open — the duke radiant." There was
not a sinorle Tarasconian who was not as ra-
diant as the duke.

It was the second batch of emigrants that
Tartarin, invested by the Due de Mons with

PORT TARASCON.

59

the fine title and the important functions of
Governor of the Free and Independent Col-
ony of Port Tarascon,
had forwarded in this
manner to Marseilles on
its way to the

^lU. +(S -'

/if"''' I

> ^

promised land. A
month before he had
also seen out into the
open the first batch, borne
off by the steamer Lticifcr, and ^

this first shipment had been ef-
fected under as happy auspices as the second

SS)

6o PORT TARASCON.

The same telegram, the same enthusiasm, the
same radiance of the duke. But the Lucifer^
which had sailed a month ago, had not yet
passed the entrance of the Suez Canal. Ar-
rested there by an accident — the breakage of
her horizontal shaft — this rather shaky old
steamer, a second-hand purchase, had to wait
to be helped and rescued by the Farandoie be-
fore she could continue her journey.

This accident, nevertheless, which might have
seemed of bad omen, had not in the least chilled,
on the part of the Tarasconians, the desire to
try their hand at founding a new State. It is
true that on this first vessel only the Rabblebab-
ble had been shipped — the people of the com-
moner sort, you know — those that are always
sent on first. The broken shaft, the forced
stop, the delay in the voyage, had therefore not
had the same importance as if the distressed
ship had carried the Tarasconians of mark.

On the Farandoie, also, there had been a fur-
ther instalment of the Rabblebabble, accompa-
nied by a few of the wilder spirits, like Notary
Cambalalette, Assessor of Taxes of the colony.
The good druggist Bezuquet, a man of peace,
in spite of his formidable mustaches, fond of his
little comforts, afraid of the heat and the cold,
little inclined to distant and dangerous advent-

PORT TARASCON. 6 I

ures, had resisted long before consenting to be
despatched.

Under Tartarin's pressure, to all his argu-
ments — " Bezuquet, we owe ourselves to the
work ; it is for 7ls to set the example " — he had
at first answered only by dubious head-shakes.
It cost him too much to leave the snug shell of
his pharmacy and exchange for the pitching
and rolling of a cabin his sound naps in the
little consulting-room with the tape-worms. To
overcome his resistance nothing less had been
required than the diploma of a full physician.

Bezuquet had coveted all his life this blessed
scroll, which the Governor of Port Tarascon
now conferred upon him by private authority.

The Governor, indeed, conferred, by the same
authority, many other parchments and patents
and commissions, appointing directors, sub -di-
rectors, secretaries, commissaries, grandees of
the first class and the second class, all of which
permitted him to gratify the taste of his com-
patriots for everything in the way of honors,
distinctions, costumes, and braids.

With Father Vezole, who had taken the same
ship as Cambalalette and Bezuquet, there had
not been the least difficulty. He was such
a thorough good soul Father Vezole, always
ready for anything and pleased with everything,

62 PORT TARASCON.

saying "God be praised!" to everything that
happened : " God be praised !" when he had had
to leave the convent ; " God be praised !" when
they had thrust him on shipboard along with
the fortunes of a people, the assortment of
goods for the savages and the Rabblebabble,
with instructions to say mass on Sundays, to
receive the confessions of the emigrants, to at-
tend the last moments of those about to die,
and to baptize any little settlers who might
come into the world.

As for the members of the nobility and of
the upper middle class, before paying with their
persons they had paid with their pocket-books,
as subscribers, which was very handsome to
begin with. For the rest, there was no hurry ;
while they showed plenty of ardor and faith,
they were not sorry to leave those who had
preceded them time to send back news of their
arrival at Port Tarascon, so that the state of
affairs might be fully known.

You may easily conceive that Tartarin, in his
quality of Governor, organizer, representative
of the idea of the Due de iNIons, was able to
leave France only with the last batch. While
he waited for the day so impatiently desired, on
which he should set foot on the vessel that was
to carry him beyond the seas at the head of the

PORT TARASCON. 63

best society of Tarascon, he displayed the ener-
gy and activity which we have been free to ad-
mire in all his undertakings. He seemed to
have a fiery flame in his body.

Perpetually on the rush, from Tarascon to
Marseilles and from Marseilles to Tarascon, as
difficult to catch as a meteor impelled by an
invincible force, he appeared in either of these
cities only to leave it instantly for the other.

" You are tiring yourself out, mum-mum-mas-
ter," stammered Pascalon, on the evenings on
which the great man came to the pharmacy
with a steaming brow and a rounded back.

But Tartarin straightened himself to his
height. " I'll rest out there. No, Pascalon, to
our work !"

The pupil had been in full charge of the
shop ever since Bezuquet's departure, but he
superadded to this responsibility functions
much more important.

To push on the propaganda so well started,
Tartarin had established a journal, The Port
Tarascon Gazette, and named Pascalon editor-
in-chief.

In this character the youth carried on the
paper quite alone, from the first to the last line,
under the instructions and the superior direc-
tion of the Governor.

64 PORT TARASCON.

It is true that this combination was slightly
injurious to the interests of the pharmacy : the
articles to write, the proofs to correct, the rush-
ing round to the printer's, left the good drug-
gist's representative but little time to occupy
himself conscientiously with laboratory work.
But the paper before everything !

The Gazette treated the public of the me-
tropolis every morning to the latest news of
the settlement ; it contained articles on its re-
sources, its beauties, its magnificent future, and
also published small items, miscellanies, and
various kinds of tales.

There w^as something for every taste.

There were accounts of exploring parties in
the islands, conquests, fights against the sav-
ages, for bold and adventurous spirits. To the
country gentlemen were offered stories of the
pursuit of game in the forest, and others, equal-
ly astonishing, of that of fish in rivers extraor-
dinarily stocked, together with a description of
the methods and the tackle of the natives of
the country. Persons of a more peaceful habit
— shopkeepers, good sedentary citizens — w-ere
delighted to read about some fresh luncheon
on the grass, on the edge of a tumbling brook,
in the shadow of the great outlandish trees :
they could fancy they were already there ; they

PORT TARASCON. 65

could feel the juice of luscious fruits -man-
goes, pineapples, and bananas — trickle between
their teeth. ' And no flies !" said the newspa-
per ; which added a charm the more, flies be-
ing, as is well known, the scourge of all picnics
and excursions on Tarascon soil.

The Gazette even published a novel — " The
Maid of Tarascon " — about the daughter of a
colonist abducted by the son of a Papuan king
who had fallen in love with her; and the ups
and downs and ins and outs of this love drama
opened boundless horizons to the imagination
of young persons.

The financial department was devoted to
quotations from the colonial markets, to adver-
tisements of the issue of allotments of land, or
of shares in refineries or distilleries, as well as
to the publication of subscribers' names and of
the lists of contributions in kind, which contin-
ued to flow in. The preoccupation of the
good lady who wished to clothe a savage kept
constantly turning up. It was the dream of
her life — perhaps a religious vow.

To meet the demand for such frequent ship-
ments of a complete suit for a savage, she must
have set up regular workshops under her roof.

But this innocent spinster was not the only
one to become conscious of the fermentation

5

66 PORT TARASCON.

of strange conjectures, thanks to such an explo-
sion of the colonizing spirit, of the idea of ex-
patriation on behalf of countries so far away
and so little known.

One day Tartarin had remained quietly at
home in his little house, his feet in his slippers
and his person snugly enveloped in his dress-
ing-gown ; not unoccupied, however, for near
him, on the table, were scattered books and pa-
pers. He had there at hand the accounts of
the explorations of Bougainville and Dumont
d'Urville, works on colonization, and hand-books
on different kinds of tillage. In the stillness
of his study, amid his poisoned arrows, with the
shadow of the baobab trembling delicately on
the blinds, he "got up" the subject of his set-
tlement and stuffed his memory with informa-
tion extracted from books. Between whiles he
sou2:ht relief from these researches in si^ninor
some patent, in appointing a Grandee of the
first class, or in creating some new public func-
tion. And this was not the least arduous part
of his task, given the delirious ambition of his
fellow-citizens and the impossibility of satisfy-
ing them all.

While he was thus occupied, rounding his
eyes and blowing into his cheeks, it was an-
nounced to him that a lady, dressed in black,

PORT TARASCON.

67

veiled, and refusing to give her name, requested
to speak to him. She had not even been will-
ing to come in and wait in the garden. Tar-
tarin rushed out to her just as he was — in
his slippers and
dressing-gown.
The day was
drawing to a
close, objects
were growing
already indis-
tinct in the
twilight; but
in spite of
her thick
veil, simply b}^
the fire of the
two eyes that
glowed be
neath the tis-
sue, Tartarin
recognized his visitor
as soon as he was near
her.

" Madame Escourba-

•V ,1,

nies !

" Monsieur Tartarin, you see before you a
most unhappy woman !"

o

68 PORT TARASCON.

Her voice trembled ; it was full of tears.

The good fellow was quite moved by it. He

took the hand of Madame Escourbanies and,
with a paternal accent :

" My poor Evelina, what's the matter ? Tell

I"
me !

Tartarin called almost all the ladies in town
by their baptismal names. He had seen them
as little girls ; as a municipal officer he had
been present when they were civilly married ;
he was their confidant, their friend, almost their
uncle.

He had taken Evelina's arm, and they strolled
together round the little tank with the gold-
fish. Then she told him her trouble, her con-
jugal anxieties.

From the beginning of the talk about the
settlement her husband had tried to worry her.
On every pretext he broke out:

"You'll see — you'll see when once we are
over there in Polygamilia !"

She, poor thing, very jealous, but also very
simple and even a little silly, had taken his
teasing quite seriously,

" Is this true, Monsieur Tartarin } Is it true
that in that dreadful country men may marry
several times .?"

He reassured her as best he could. " No, in-

PORT TARASCON. 69

deed, my dear Evelina; you are quite wrong.
All the savages in that quarter are monoga-
mous. Their morals are perfectly correct. Be-
sides, under the direction of our White Fathers,
there's nothing to fear in that line."

"And yet the very name of the country — this
Polygamilia."

Then only he understood the joke that her
great trifler of a husband had tried to make,
and he burst into a loud laugh. "He is mak-
ing fun of you, my dear. The name of the
country is not Polygamilia, but Polynesia, which
doesn't even sound much like it. It means a
great lot of islands."

He went on some time longer, walking her
about the little garden, soothing down her jeal-
ousy, explaining her husband's bad pun, which
at first she had some difficulty in understand-
ing, and comforting her so kindly and complete-
ly that she ended by laughing with him over
her blunder.

Meanwhile the weeks went by, and still no
letters arrived from the actual settlers ; noth-
ing arrived but telegrams — telegrams forward-
ed by the duke from Marseilles. They were
very laconic, dashed off hurriedly from Aden,
from Sydney, from the different places where
the Farandole had put in. After all, there was

70 PORT TARASCON.

no such great ground for surprise, so notorious
and so insurmountable is the indolence of the
Tarasconian.

Why should they have written ? Telegrams
were quite sufficient. Those that were received
and regularly published in the Gazette brought
nothing but good news — a delightful voyage, a
sea of oil, every one perfectly well.

Nothing more than this was needed to keep
up the general zeal.

At last one day at the very top of the Ga-
zette, appeared the following " cable," forwarded
like the rest from Marseilles :

" Arrived Port Tarascon. — Triumphal Entry.
— Friendship struck up with Natives coming to
meet us on Pier. — Tarasconian Flag floats over
Town-hall. — Te Deiim sung in Metropolitan
Church. — Everything ready ; come quick !"

There came next a dithyrambic article, dic-
tated by Tartarin, on the occupation of the new
father -land, the foundation of the young city,
the visible protection of God, the flag of civili-
zation planted in virgin soil, the future open
to all.

No more was wanted to overcome the very
last hesitations. A new issue of shares at a
hundred francs an acre was rapidly taken up.
The bourgeoisie, the clergy, the nobility — the

PORT TARASCON. 7 I

whole place wished to start instantly; the
thing became a monomania, a fever, so that
even the grumblers like Costecalde, those who
up to this time had been lukewarm and even
had affected doubts, were now most crazy to
get off.

The preparations were pushed forward on all
sides. The nailing of boxes went on in the
very streets, littered with straw and hay. The
bang of the hammer was heard from morning
till night. Men worked in their shirt -sleeves,
all in good -humor, singing and whistling, and
tools were borrowed and lent from hand to
hand, while the liveliest remarks were ex-
changed. The women packed up their finery,
the Fathers their ciboria, the little ones their
little toys. The vessel chartered for the gen-
teel portion of Tarascon had been christened
the Tootoop7impum, the popular name of the
Tarasconian tambourine, the national musical
instrument that presides at the dances and the
reels. It was a large iron steamer, commanded
by Captain Scrapouchinat, of Toulon, a seaman
of wide experience. They were all to go on
board at Tarascon itself.

The waters of the Rhone were fair, and as
the ship had not a great draught, it had been
possible to bring it up the river as far as the

[LIBRARY

r

72

PORT TARASCON.

town and moor it at the quay. The lading and
stowino: took a whole month.

While the sailors were arranging the innu-
merable boxes in the hold, the future passengers
settled themselves in advance in their cabins.

And it was a pleasure to see with what jollity,
what delightful good -humor, all this went on.
Every one was pleased, and only wanted to ren-
der service to every one else.

" This place suits you better ? Don't men-
tion it !"

" This cabin pleases you more.? Make your-
self comfortable !"

And so with everything. The Tarasconian

PORT TARASCON. 'J 2,

nobility, usually so sniffy, the Aigueboulides,
the Escudelles, people who usually looked
down at one from the bridge of their great
noses, now fraternized with their social infe-
riors.

In the midst of the hurly-burly of going on
board, a letter was received one morning from
Father Vezole, dated from Port Tarascon. It
was the first mail that had arrived.

" God be praised, we've got here !" said the
good Father. " We're in want of a good many
little things."

There was not much enthusiasm in this let-
ter, neither were there many details about the
colony. The reverend gentleman confined him-
self to a few remarks about the King, Nagonko,
and about Likiriki, the young daughter of the
King, a charming little thing whom he had pre-
sented with a beaded net for her hair. He re-
quested further that they should send on a few
objects slightly more practical than the habitu-
al gifts of the subscribers. This was all. Not
a single word about the harbor, about the town,
about the settlement. Brother Bataillet was
furious.

" He seems to me very slack, your F'ather
Vezole," he said to Tartarin ; " but trust me to
shake him up for you when I get there."

74 PORT TARASCON.

This letter was indeed very cold, especially
coming from such a genial person ; but the
bad effect that it might have produced was
lost in the confusion of orettino^ settled on
board, in the deafening noise of the transplanta-
tion of a whole city.

The Governor — Tartarin was now called only
by this name — passed his days on the deck of
the Tootoopuinpum. With a smile on his face
and his hands behind his back, he walked up
and down amid a confusion of stranare thino;s —
bread baskets, chests of drawers, warming-pans
— which had not yet found stowage in the
hold. He gave advice in a patriarchal tone :
" You're taking too many things, my children.
You'll find everything you want over there."

Thus he had left behind him his arrows, his
baobab, and his goldfish. Of course he was
taking his arms — his American rifle, the thirty-
two shooter — and also some flannel, plenty of
flannel.

And how he looked after everything; how
he had an eye on everything, not only on
board, but also on shore, from the rehearsals of
the Orpheon to the drill of the militia on the
Long Walk ! This military organization of
the Tarasconians had survived the siege of
Pamperigouste ; it had even been carried fur-

\

PORT TARASCON. 75

ther, in view of the defence of the colony, and
the conquests that there was a good expecta-
tion of making. Tartarin was dehghted with
the martial attitude of his troops, and frequent-
ly expressed his satisfaction to them as well as
to their chief, the bold Bravida, in orders of the
day.

And yet there was a fold in the Governor's
brow.

Two days before they set sail, Barafort, a
fisherman on the Rhone, had found among the
osiers of the bank an empty bottle, hermeti-
cally corked, of which the glass was still clear
enough to permit something like a roll of pa-
per to be perceived inside. There's no fisher-
man who doesn't know that a waif of this kind
is to be handed over to the authorities ; so
Barafort had carried his treasure-trove to the
Governor, the only authority now recognized by
the Tarasconians. Here, therefore, is the strange
letter contained in the mysterious bottle :

" Tartarin^ Tarascon, E7trope :

" Appalling cataclysm at Port Tarascon. Isl-
and, city, harbor, swallowed up; sunk out of
sight. Bompard admirable as usual, and as
usual paying for his devotion with his life.
Don't come ! In Heaven's name let no one
come!"

76,

PORT TARASCON.

This letter was evidently the production of a
practical joker. How had it ever been carried
from the depths of Oceanica and cast ashore
precisely at Tarascon ? What mighty wave
could have floated it so far across the seas?
And the " paying as usual with his life," didn't
that alone betray a misleading intention? Nev-
er mind, this portent disturbed the triumph of
our friend.

PORT TARASCON. 77

IV,

You talk of the picturesque, but if you had
seen the deck of the Tootoopwnpiim that May
morning in 1881 you would have seen something
that deserved the name. All the Commissioners
and Directors were in full dress. Tournatoire,
General Commissioner of Health ; Costecalde,
General Commissioner of Agriculture; Bravida,
General-in-Chief of the Levies, and twenty oth-
ers, offered to the eye a medley of variegated
costumes, blazing with color and embroidered
with silver and gold. Many wore in addition
the mantle of Grandee of the first class — crim-
son, trimmed with gold. Amid the bedizened
throng Brother Bataillet made a white spot as
Grand Almoner of the Colony and Chaplain of
the Governor.

The military especially glittered. The great-
er number of the common soldiers having been
forwarded in the other vessels, those that re-
mained were the officers-- Bravida, Escourba-

'j8 PORT TARASCON.

nies, the whole staff, sabre in hand, revolver in
the belt, the chest well forward, the shoulders
well back, in smart hussar jackets, all shoulder-
knots and frogs. They were particularly proud
of their magnificent boots, polished till they
shone again.

With all this military toggery was mingled
the finery of the ladies, who were almost all in
bright, gay, shimmering colors, with ribbons and
scarves that floated in the air. Here and there
among the maid-servants was a specimen of the
Tarascon head-dress. Hang over all this, in
your mind, and over the ship, with its shining
brasses, its masts pointed at the sky — hang over
this a splendid sun, a real holiday sun ; give it
for horizon the broad Rhone, billowed like a
sea and brushed up by a stroke of our mistral,
and you will have an idea of the appearance of
the Tootoopumpum when about to start for Port
Tarascon.

The Due de Mons was to have been present
at the last, but he was in London at this mo-
ment, looking after a new issue of bonds. You
see, there had been a tremendous need of money
to pay for ships and crews and engineers, and
to meet the other expenses of the exodus. The
duke had announced by telegram that very
morning that he was on the point of sending

PORT TARASCON. 79

on cash. Every one admired the practical side
of the man of the North.

" He goes by book ; he looks after the sinews
of war," said the Tarasconians, merrily.

" What an example he sets us gentlemen !"
Tartarin exclaimed. And he never failed to
add, " Now don't get starrted, you know !" roll-
ing his r like the good Tarasconian he was.
In the midst of the bedizened crowd of his
subjects, as they might be called, the Governor
remained perfectly simple, only in evening dress,
with the grand Ribbon of the Order across his
chest.

As each new family arrived to embark it was
Q^reeted with acclamations. From the deck of
the Tootoopuinpum they were seen coming down
and rounding the corners ; and as the groups
came nearer and emerged upon the dock they
were recognized, they w^ere even addressed by
name :

" Ah, here come the Roquetaillades !"
" I say, Monsieur Franquebalme !"
Whereupon there were bravos and enthusias-
tic cheers. An ovation was made, among others,
for the ancient dowager Countess of Aigue-
boulide, who was almost a hundred years old, as
she was seen skipping up the plank in her little
black silk mantilla, nodding her head, carrying

So

PORT TARASCON.

in one hand her
foot - warmer and
in the other her
stuffed parrot.

Every moment
there were fewer
left behind, and
soon nobody at
all : the streets
looked wider
now, between the
closed doors of
the houses, with
the shop - fronts
all barricaded,
and the shutters
drawn and blinds
lowered on the
other windows.
When every one
was on board
there was a period
of solemn silence,
a deep momentary
return of the company on itself. Nothing was
heard but the hiss of the escaping steam. Ev-
ery one had his eyes turned to the captain, erect
upon the poop, ready to give the order to let

"DifO'J'

PORT TARASCON. 8 I

go. All of a sudden somebody cried, " I say,
the Tarasque !"

I'm sure you will have heard some mention
of this strange creature, the fabled animal that
originally gave its name to the city of Taras-
con. To recall its history in two words, this
Tarasque, in very ancient days, was nothing
less than a terrible monster, a most alarming
dragon, which laid waste the country at the
mouth of the Rhone. St. Martha, who had
come into Provence after the death of our
Lord, went forth and caught the beast in the
deep marshes, and binding its neck with a sky-
blue ribbon, brought it into the city captive,
tamed by the innocence and piety of the saint.

Ever since then, in remembrance of the great
service rendered by the holy Martha, the Taras-
conians have kept a holiday, which they cele-
brate every ten years by a procession through
the city. This procession forms the escort of
a sort of ferocious, bloody monster, made of
wood and painted pasteboard, who is a cross
between the serpent and the crocodile, and rep-
resents, in gross and ridiculous effigy, the drag-
on of ancient days. The thing is not a mere
masquerade, for the Tarasque is really held in
veneration ; she is a regular idol, inspiring a
sort of superstitious, affectionate fear. She is
6

82

PORT TARASCON.

called in the country the Old Granny. The
creature is usually stalled in a shed especially
hired for her by the town council.

So she really formed part of the city, and it
was out of the question, on such an occasion, to
leave her behind. The start was delayed, and
a lot of young men rushed off to fetch her.

PORT TARASCON.

■83

When she appeared upon the dock, dragged
by these zealous youths, every hat went off and
every eye filled. She was greeted with enthu-
siastic cries ; she was the Old Granny indeed,
the soul of the city, the Mother-land herself.

M.onlfo^'-

Far too big to be stowed away below, she
was placed far aft, solidly moored to the deck,
and there, enormous and preposterous, like a
monster in a pantomime, with her canvas belly

84 PORT TARASCON.

and her painted scales, she finished off the
quaint picturesqueness of the whole. Rearing
her head above the bulwarks, she seemed, like
the chimeras carved of old on the prows of
ships, to preside over the fortune of the voyage
and to subdue the wrath of the sea. She was
surrounded with respect ; she was occasionally-
even spoken to ; they appeared to invoke her.

Seeing this emotion, Tartarin feared that she
might excite in some hearts a regret for the for-
saken home ; so that, on a sign from him, Cap-
tain Scrapouchinat suddenly, in a formidable
voice, gave the order, " Straight away !"

This order broke the spell.

Then instantly broke out the flourish of the
trumpets and the whistle of the steam; the
water besan to boil beneath the screw, and
amid the hubbub and movement Escourbanies
rushed about, waved his arms, and shouted, " A
lot of noise ! — let's make a lot of noise !" The
shore was left behind at a bound, King Rene's
towers in the distance were more and more re-
duced, and more and more dwarfed, as if obliter-
ated suddenly by the hot, throbbing light.

Our friends, leaning over the sides of the
ship, confident, careless, and smiling, watched
all this pass from them and vanish away with-
out more emotion, now that they were accom-

PORT TARASCON.

85

'tH t

panied by the good Tarasque, than a swarm of
bees changing their hive to the sound of the
kettle-drum, or a flock of starHngs starting in a
triangle for Africa.

And truly their beloved monster protected

86 PORT TARASCON.

them. The weather was divine, the sea re-
splendent, without either gale or gust — never,
in short, was there a more auspicious voyage.

At the Suez Canal, indeed, they hung out
their tongues a little, toasted at the fire of a
burning sun, in spite of the colonial head-gear
which all had adopted in imitation of Tartarin
— a cork helmet covered with white linen and
embellished with a veil of green gauze. But if
the temperature was that of an oven, they man-
aged to bear it, having been already tolerably
well cooked and prepared for the climate by
the sun of Provence. After Port Said and
Suez, after Aden and the crossing of the Red
Sea, the Tootoopiunpnm took her course straight
through the Indian Ocean. She steamed very
fast, at a steady pace, on a smooth sea, under a
sky as white, as milky, and velvety as one of
those wonderful creamy compounds of garlic
that the emigrants consumed at every meal.

And oh, the quantity of garlic that was con-
sumed on board ! They had brought with them
a prodigious supply. The odor of it, like a
long trail, marked the track of the ship ; it
seemed as if the very breath of Provence had
followed the Tarasque across the waters. As
they went on and on, the smell of Tarascon
mingled with the smell of India.

PORT TARASCON.

87

Soon they began to skirt the islands that
emerged from the deep Hke clumps of strange
flowers. In the midst of the rank verdure flit-
ted magnificent birds, all dressed in gems. The
calm, transparent nights, lighted by a myriad

stars, were suffused with vague murmurs — mur-
murs that migrht have been the echo of the dis-
tant music of bayaderes.

They put in at the Maldives, at Ceylon, at
Singapore ; but the ladies, Madame Escourba-

88 PORT TARASCON.

nies at their head, forbade their husbands to set
foot on shore.

A fierce instinct of jealousy caused them to
dread this dangerous Indian cHme, where love
indeed seemed to float in the air. This was
felt on the very deck of the Tootoopumpttm, as
you might see in the evening from the way
the timid Pascalon leaned agamst the bulwarks,
close to Mademoiselle Clorinde des Espazettes,
a tall, handsome girl whose aristocratic charm
attracted him.

The good Tartarin smiled in his beard, and
looked another way, as soon as he saw these
young persons conversing together in the dis-
tance with their eyes bent on the sea or turned
up to the sky. This spectacle touched him in
a tender place ; he could see there, in advance,
a marriage for their landing.

Besides, from the beginning of the trip, the
Governor had shown himself exquisitely kind,
charmingly, fondly indulgent, with a particular
command of his temper.

Captain Scrapouchinat, who had proved an
awkward customer, gloomy and violent, was a
regular tyrant on his ship. Unacquainted with
laughter, he kept apart from the rest, flew into
a rage at the least word, and began to threaten,
to talk immediately of having you "shot Hke

PORT TARASCON.

89

a green monkey." Tartan n, patient and rea-
sonable, calmed the military, kept down the in-
dignation of the fiery spirits like Escourbanies.
He had a great deal of trouble, especially with

90

PORT TARASCON.

Brother Bataillet, his irrepressible chaplain, al-
ways ready for rebellion, and always saying to
him, " Only make a sign, and I'll chuck him
overboard !"

Tartarin took the other's arm, repeated his

PORT TARASCON.

91

" Now don't get started !" and called attention
to his own example. Didn't he himself, he the
Governor, submit to Scrapouchinat's whims ?

He even tried to make excuses for him;
" The man wants to be master on his own ship.
After all, he is right."

In this way Tartarin did his best to keep
peace on board ; but this was not all he did.

The mornino: hours were devoted to the
study of Papuan. It was his chaplain who offi-
ciated as teacher; in his character of retired
missionary Brother Bataillet knew this lan-
guage and many others. During the day Tar-

92 PORT TARASCON.

tarin collected his little multitude either on the
deck or in the saloon, and gave them lectures,
exhibiting his lately learned lore on the subject
of the planting of the sugar-cane and the work-
ing of the trepang.

But the great wonder was the shooting les-
sons that he gave the military ; for they would
find lots of game where they were going. It
would not be as at Tarascon, where, for lack of
this commodity, the Tarasconians had become,
as will be remembered, famous cap -shooters,
every one throwing his cap into the air to hit
it on the wing.

" You fire very well, my children ; but you
fire too fast," said Tartarin.

Their blood was too hot; that would never
do where they were going.

So he gave them excellent advice, taught
them to take their time according to the dif-
ferent kinds of game, and count methodically, as
if with a metronome.

" Three times for the quail ! One, two, three
— bang ! Hit ! For the partridge " — and flut-
tering his open hand he imitated the flight of
the bird — " for the partridge you must count
only two. One, two — bang! Pick her up,
she's dead."

So they got through the monotonous hours

PORT TARASCON. 93

of the voyage, and each turn of the screw
brought nearer to the realization of their
dreams the honest souls who had been cra-
dled all the way in fine projects for the future,
sailing in the light of their hopes, and talking
of nothing but furnishing, clearing, improving
their future estates.

Sunday was always a day of rest and a holi-
day.

Brother Bataillet said mass on the deck in
great pomp, with a full military display ; and
the bugles rang out and the drums beat the
charge at the moment the priest lifted the
Host. After mass the reverend Father deliv-
ered himself of one of those vivid parables in
which he excelled — not so much a sermon as a
kind of poetic mystery, all glowing with the
Southern faith. The story was as artless as
some legend of saints pieced together on the
windows of an old village church; but to taste
the full charm of it you must imagine the ves-
sel mopped from stem to stern, with all her
brasses shining, the ladies seated in a circle,
the Governor in his great cane chair, surround-
ed by the Commissioners in full dress, the
troops in two rows, the sailors perched in the
shrouds, and the whole congregation silent, at-
tentive, with its eyes upon the Father, who

94

PORT TARASCON.

stands erect upon the steps of the altar. The
beat of the screw keeps time to his voice, and
against the pure deep sky the smoke of the
steamer draws out in a straight thin line ; the
dolphins sport on the surface of the water ; the

sea-birds, the gull and the albatross, whirl and
cry in the wake of the ship ; and the White
Father, with his crooked shoulder, himself looks,
when he raises and shakes his wide sleeves, like
a great sea-bird flapping its wings and about to
take flight.

V.

It is again into Paradise that I shall intro-
duce you, my children, into that great ante-
chamber of royal blue where good St. Peter
makes his home, his bunch of keys in his belt,
ever ready to open his door to the souls of the
elect when any present themselves. Unhap-
pily, for years and years past, our humanity has
become so wicked that the best of us after

96 PORT TARASCON.

death have to stop in purgatory, without going
higher, so that the good saint has nothing to
do but to rub up his keys with sand-paper, and
brush away the cobwebs that are stretched
across his door hke seals of the law. Every
now and then he fancies some one is knocking.
Then he says :

" Here's some one at last : it's none too soon."

Then, when the wicket opens, there's nothing
but immensity, nothing but eternal silence, with
the planets either motionless or rolling through
space with the soft sound of a ripe orange de-
tached from the branch ; never the shadow of
one of the blessed.

Think what a humiliation for a saint so fond
of us all, and how he must bewail it day and
night ! How many he must shed of those burn-
ing, consuming tears that have ended by dig-
ging down his old cheeks two deep ruts, just
like those you may see between Tarascon and
Montmajour, on the road to the quarries !

Now, it happened once that St. Joseph, who
had come to keep him company a bit — for the
poor turnkey was weary at last of being always
alone in his forecourt — it happened once that
St. Joseph said to him, by way of consolation:

" But, when it comes to that, what difference
can it make to you whether or not those people

PORT TARASCON.

97

down there continue to come up to your wick-
et? Aren't you all right here, lulled by the
softest music and
the sweetest
scents ?"

Even while he
spoke thus there
w^as wafted from
the depths of the
seven heavens
that opened out
there, one into
another, a warm
breeze charged
with sounds and
colors and per-
fumes such as
nothing, my dear
friends, can give
you a notion of,
not even this fla-
vor of citronade
and fresh rasp-
berry which the
breath of the sea

has been blowing for the last minute into our
faces, out of that great bouquet of islands there,
pink in the breeze.
7

98 PORT TARASCON.

" Heisfh !" said s^ood St. Peter, " I've more
than my share of comfort in this paradise of
every blessing, but I wish those poor children
could be up here with me." Then, abruptly,
seized with anger: " Ah, the scoundrels ! Ah,
the idiots ! No, Joseph. Don't you see the
Lord is too kind to such wretches ? If I were
in His place, I know very well what I should
do."

" What w^ould you do, my good Peter .?"

" Oh, sure, I'd let fly a great kick at the ant-
hill, and send humanity about its business."

St. Joseph jerked up his old beard. " It
would have to be terribly strong, all the same,
any kick that would demolish the earth. It
might do the business for the Turks, the infi-
dels, the populations of Asia that are rotting
away ; but the Christian w^orld is another mat-
ter, solid and strong, put together by the Son."

" Just so," replied St, Peter. " But what
Christ has put together Christ can quite as
well destroy. I would send my Divine Son
down to the gallows-birds a second time, and
this Antichrist, w-ho would be my Christ dis-
guised, would make short work of them — re-
duce them all to pulp."

The good saint spoke in his anger, without
heeding much what he said, above all, without

PORT TARASCON.

99

suspecting that his words would be repeated to

the Divine Master; so that his surprise was

great when suddenly the Son of Man rose

before him, with

a little bundle

on his shoulder,

at the end of a

wayfarer's staff,

saying, with his

firm, sweet voice,

''Come, Peter;
I take you with
me.

From the pale-
ness of Jesus,
from the fever of
His great eyes,
which threw out
still more rays
than His halo,
Peter instantly
understood : he
was sorry he had
said too much.
What would he
not have given that this second mission of
the Son of Man upon earth should not take
place, and especially that he himself should

iOO PORT TARASCON.

not have to fisfure in it ! He turned this
way and that, quite in despair, with fidgeting
hands. " Ah, my Lord ! ah, my Lord ! And
my keys — what shall I do with them?'" It
is true that on so long a journey his heavy
bunch would be anything but comfortable.
"And my door," he went on — "who will keep
it for me.'*"

On which Jesus smiled, reading to the bot-
tom of his soul, and said : " Leave your keys in
the door, Peter. You know very well there's
no danger of any one's ever getting in."

He spoke gently, but nobody could have failed
to be conscious that there was something im-
placable in His smile and in His voice.

*******

As is told in the Holy Scriptures, the com-
ing of the Son of Man upon earth was an-
nounced by signs in the heavens ; but for a
long time past we crouching mortals had never
looked up there. Taken up with our passions,
we saw no token of the presence of the Divine
Master, nor of that of the old servant who came
with Him ; all the more that the two travellers
had brought with them a change of raiment,
and could disguise themselves every way they
wished.

None the less, in the first town they came to,

PORT TARASCON. lOI

just the night before a famous ruffian called
Sanguinarias, the author of dreadful crimes, was
to be put to death, the workmen employed in
knocking up the stakes of justice in the night
were surprised to see among them, lending a
hand in the torch -light, two companions who
had come from nobody knew where, one of
them gallant and easy, like the bastard of a
prince, with a fine forked beard and eyes like
jewels, the other already bent, with a kindly,
drowsy face, and two long scars in runnels on
his crumpled cheeks. Then in the early dawn,
when the scaffold was up, and the people and
the authorities were ranged round for the exe-
cution, the two strangers had vanished, leaving
the wdiole machinery so wondrously bewitched
that when the condemned man was stretched
upon the plank, the blade — a blade well sharp-
ened, steel of the right brand — came down twen-
ty times, one after the other, without making so
much as an impression on his skin.

You see from here the picture: the bewilder-
ment of the burgesses, the wild shudder of the
crowd, the executioner knocking his assistants
about and tearins: his sweat- moistened hair,
with Sanguinarias himself — the vagabond was,
of course, from Beaucaire, and added to all his
evil propensities a diabolical conceit — Sangui-

I02

PORT TARASCON.

narias, greatly vexed, twisting his black bull
neck this way and that in the yoke, and crying :

" Curse me ! what
in the world's the
matter with me ?
Ain't I put to-
gether like other
people ?"

Then, at the
end of the end,
you see the con-
stables obliged to
carr}^ the wretch
off by force, and
thrust him back
into his cell, while
the how^ling crowd
dances about the
demolished scaf-
fold, flaming and
crackling up to
the sky like a bon-
fire on an anniver-
sary.

From that time
forth, in that city and throughout the civilized
world, a spell was cast upon the supreme de-
crees of justice. The sword of the law refused

PORT TARASCON. IO3

to cut, and as death is the only thing that
murderers fear, soon a perfect deluge of crime
flowed over the earth ; the streets and the roads
ceased to be possible for terrified, decent peo-
ple ; and in the penitentiaries, crammed to the
roof, the cutthroats grew fat on good juicy-
meats, smashed the faces of their warders in
with their boot heels, gouged out their eyes
with the thumb, or else, simply from curiosity,
amused themselves with unscrewing the unfort-
unate creatures' heads, to see what they had
inside.

In the presence of the awful havoc caused by
the disarming of justice, it struck poor St. Peter
that every one concerned had had about enough,
so that with a heart swollen with pity, and a
good big hypocritical laugh of conciliation, he
remarked :

" The lesson has answered, Master, and I
think they'll remember. Shouldn't you say we
might go up again .? Because, let me tell
you, I'm afraid I may be wanted in a certain
place."

The Son of Man gave His pale and beautiful
smile. " Remember," He said, with a lifted fin-
ger, " what Christ put together Christ also can
destroy !"

On which Peter reflected, hanging his head,

I04

PORT TARASCON.

" I said too much, poor children — I said too

much !"

They found themselves at this time on fer-
tile slopes, at the
foot of which a
rich imperial city,
as far as the eye
could see, stretch-
ed away its domes,
its terraces, the
lace -work of its
belfries, and the
towers and spires
of cathedrals, on
which crosses of
every shape, in
marble and gold,
glittered in the
peaceful sunset.

" I hope this lot
have enough con-
vents and church-
es to "be saved!"
the good old man
went on, trying
to turn away the

wrath of the Lord. " It's pleasant to see this,

at any rate !"

PORT TARASCON. 105

But you know that what Jesus despises above
all things is the hypocritical, sumptuous wor-
ship of the Pharisees — churches where people
go to mass because it's the fashion, convents
that make syrups and chocolate — so that He
quickened His step without replying, and, the
crops being very high, nothing was seen of the
dreadful destroyer, as the pair came down, but
a little bundle of clothes swinging at the end of
a pedestrian stick.

Well, then, there lived in the city they now
entered an old, old emperor, the senior member
of the company of princes of Europe, as he was
the most powerful and the most just — the one
who kept war chained to the axles of his can-
non, and, by persuasion or force, prevented the
nations from tearing each other to pieces.

So lo;ig as he should be there, the tacit agree-
ment between dog and wolf, that the sheep
might browse unmolested, would hold ; but af-
ter that, to a certainty, you would have to stand
from under. This is why the whole world cher-
ished the life of the good emperor; there was
not a single mother who would not have been
ready to open her veins to make his blood rud-
dier and richer.

Yet, all of a sudden, this love was turned to
hate, for an infernal password went about —

io6

PORT TARASCON.

" Let's kill him. He s the good tyrant, the
most execrable of all, since he leaves us not

even the right to
rebel !"

So, beneath the
imperial palace,
undermined and
dynamited, in the
darkness of the
cellars, where the
conspirators, up to
their middles in
water, played their
game, I leave you
to guess what mys-
terious compan-
ion, with shining
eyes, urged on the
work of death,
closing all hearts
to fear and to pity,
and, when the blow
was dealt, shout-
ino: out the su-
preme hurrah.
As for the poor emperor, alas, no great trace
of him was found in the ruins — only a few
•sino-ed tufts of his beard, and a hand of justice

PORT TARASCON.

107

twisted by the flames. Unmuzzled war began
straightway to howl ; the sky grew black with
the ravens gathered together from the ends
of the earth ; the
.world settled
down, as if forev-
er, to the great
business of kill-

ing.

*

*

While the na-
tions were put-
ting an end to
each other by
their abominable
engines, while on
all quarters of the
horizon the taken
cities flamed like
torches, on the
roads blocked up
with fleeing cat-
tle, with carts
without drivers,
along the fields
lying fallow, be-
side the rivers red with blood, the vineyards
and harvests unmercifully murdered, Jesus, with

io8

PORT TARASCON.

His cheerful step, His wallet on His shoulder,
and at His heels the good saint who tried in

vain to move Him
— Jesus held His
course to a distant
country, which en-
joyed the teach-
ings of a famous
doctor of the name
of Mr. Mauve.

This Mr. Mauve,
a great healer of
men and of beasts,
directing as he
liked all the forces
of nature, had very
nearly found the
secret for prolong-
ing human life; he
had indeed just all
but put his hand
on it, when one
night, through the
clumsiness of a
new assistant,
whom he had just taken into his laboratory,
and who was never seen again, several jars filled
with subtle poisons were left uncorked, so that

PORT TARASCON. IO9

in the morning Mr. Mauve fell asphyxiated as
soon as he opened his door.

This accident scarcely led to the prolonga-
tion of human life ; quite the contrary, for the
learned gentleman had made it his business to
collect for study a host of ancient scourges, ex-
traordinary leprosies of Egypt and of the Mid-
dle Ages, of which the germs, escaping from the
retorts, spread themselves over the world and
filled it with desolation. There were showers
of toads, pestilential and ignoble, as in the days
of the Hebrews; there were fevers — yellow,
malignant, quartern, tertian, intermittent — and
plagues and typhoids, a host of lost diseases
grafted on a host of modern ones, and others,
too, that had never been seen ; so that among
the people all this took the name of Mr. Mauve's
disease.

Heaven keep you, my dear children, from any
such fearful complaint !

The bones melted like glass, the muscles
came off in shreds. People suffered so that
they ceased to groan ; the dying fell before
death into bits, and turned into a mere mess
by the road-sides, so that the scavengers had
not shovels and carts enough to pick them up.

" Bravo ! Its a good job done!" said St. Pe-
ter, in a jolly voice, through which you might

no PORT TARASCON.

have felt the tears. " So now, Master, mightn't
we go up home again ? I begin to feel a sort
of sinking."

Jesus knew very well that this sort of sinking
covered a great pity for the humans.

*******

So now, pursuing his way without answering,
and trudging across the country with his old
servant, by the glimmer of a little pink, green-
ish dawn, he suddenly heard, through the call
of the cocks and the lowing of beasts — all the
first vague sounds that greet the day — a strange
human cry, the wail of a woman, rising in great
waves, in spasms, now loud enough to rend the
sky, now sinking into a long, soft moan — the
moan that those who have heard it once can
never mistake. In the coming of the day a
creature was coming into the world. Jesus
stopped and mused. If they kept on being
born, of what use was it to destroy them ?
Looking about for the thatched cabin from
which the cry issued, he raised his white hand
in a threat.

" Pity, Master, pity for the little ones !" sobbed
poor St. Peter.

But the Lord bade him be comforted.

To this child of the breast, as to all who
should henceforth be born upon earth, he had

PORT TARASCON. I I I

made a gift of welcome. Peter was afraid to
ask him what it might be ; but I, my friends,
can tell you what it was. Jesus had given
them, the poor little lambs, the gift of experi-
ence, and it was to be a very terrible thing.

Reflect that, up to that time, when a man
died, the man s experience had died with him.
Now, in consequence of this endowment of Jesus,
there arose such a thing as experience accumu-
lated. Children were born old and sad and dis-
couraged. As soon as their eyes opened they
discovered the end of all things, and people be-
gan to see such an abominable thing as the
suicide of infants.

And yet all this was still not enough ; the
accursed race refused to be extinguished — in-
sisted on living in spite of everything.

Therefore, to finish it off sooner, Christ took
from men the taste for love ; women ceased to
be beautiful for them ; and for women, men
ceased to be lordly, intelligent, and bold. It
was the end of all delight, and also the end of
all noble sacrifice. There was no sort of joy
left for the dwellers on earth; they asked for
nothing but forgetfulness of everything; they
aspired to nothing but utter sleep. Oh, to sleep,
to stop thinking, to stop suffering !

So, you see, our poor humanity was in a very

I I 2 PORT TARASCON.

bad way, and wouldn't have much longer to go,
for the indefatigable exterminator drove on his
work still faster and faster. He kept roaming
all over the world, like a pilgrim with a wallet;
and his companion followed him, tremendous-
ly tired and bent, with the two furrows of his
tears growing deeper and deeper in his cheeks,
crying "Mercy! mercy!" when the Master let
loose in their track volcanoes and cyclones and
earthquakes.

When he had worked off the civilized races,
the pair passed into the other parts of the
globe.

Now one fine morning — it was the Feast of
the Assumption — as Jesus walked the water,
treading the waves as he is shown us in Script-
ure, he reached the middle of the isles of Oce-
anica, the very same regions of the Pacific that
we traverse at this moment.

As he came on and on there was wafted to
him on the breeze, from a clump of islands all
greenery, a sound of voices of women and chil-
dren singing the songs of Provence.

" Gracious !" cried St. Peter ; " you might
take them for the tunes of Tarascon !"

Jesus half looked round at him : " Aren't
they rather bad Christians, those Tarasco-
nians }''

PORT TARASCON.

113

"Oh, dear Master, they've got a good deal
better lately," the good saint hastened to reply,
fearing lest, at a
sign from the Di-
vine hand, the isl-
and they were ap-
proaching might
be swallowed up
in the deep. This
island, as you will
have guessed, was
none other than
Port Tarascon.
The inhabitants
were ceiebratins;
the Feast of the
Assumption with
a pompous pro-
cession around
its shores. It was
a procession, my
children, of the
good old sort, of
the days when we
really believed.

First came the penitents, all the penitents — the
blue and the black and the gray, those of every
color— preceded by little bells that minded
8

114 PORT TARASCON.

their notes of crystal and silver. After the
penitents walked the sisterhoods of women,
dressed in white, and covered with long veils,
like the saints of Paradise. Then came the
old banners, carried so high that the figures
of the saints, with their halos woven in gold in
the silken tissues, seemed to have come down
from heaven and alighted on the heads of the
crowd. The Holy Sacrament advanced with a
slow step under its canopy of red velvet, sur-
mounted with great plumes, alongside of which
little choristers carried, on the ends of long
gilded poles, big green lanterns lighted with a
little flickering flame. x'A.nd all the people of
the island followed, young and old, men and
women, all chanting and praying.

You could see the procession unroll itself, far
away, in a long line, now on the strand, now on
the sides of the hills, then over their tops, where
the great censers, perpetually swinging, left light
blue fumes in the sun. Immensely moved, St
Peter murmured, " Oh, how very lovely !"

He looked at Jesus askance, not hoping to
bend him after so many vain attempts ; but,
seeing that Christ liad stopped, erect, on the
crest of the waves, he cried once more, in a
voice of supplication, " Mercy, mercy at least
for these. Lord !"

PORT TARASCON. I I 5

The Son of INIan hesitated a moment ; then
he remembered that the elect of Port Tarascon
were alone worthy to repeople the earth. He
raised his pale sweet face, and in the stillness
of the pacified sea, with a strong voice that
filled all creation, he cried out to heaven, " Fa-
ther, Father, a respite !"

And through the clear spaces the Father
and the Son understood each other without an-
other word.

Brother Bataillet had reached this point in
his parable, and the audience, so great was their
emotion, sat still in their places, when, all of a
sudden, from the lookout of the Tootoopiunp^uii,
Captain Scrapouchinat shouted : " Our island
is in sight, your Excellency ! Port Tarascon s
in si^ht! In another hour we shall be at an-
chor !"

Then all the world jumped up, and there was
a tremendous chatter.

VI.

" What the devil is this ? Nobody down tO'
meet us !" said Tartarin, after the tumult of the
first cries of joy had subsided.

Doubtless the ship had not yet been seen
from the shore.

They must call their friends' attention. Three
cannon-shots boomed over two long islands of a

PORT TARASCON.

II''

greasy green, a rheumatic green, between which
the steamer had begun to advance.

All eyes were turned towards the nearer
shore, a narrow strip of sand only a few yards
Vv^ide, beyond which nothing was visible but cer-
tain slopes, all covered, from the summit to the
sea, with landslides of dark verdure.

1 ~ '^Kw

"N-at. ■,

When the echo of the cannon had ceased to
rumble, a great stillness settled again on these
strange, rather grewsome islands. Still no one

Il8 PORT TARASCON.

could be seen, and what was even more star-
tling than the inexplicable absence of human be-
ings was that there was not a sign of a harbor,
or a fort, or a town, or piers, or ship-yards, or
anything else.

Tartarin turned round to Scrapouchinat, who
was already giving the order to cast anchor :

" Are you quite sure, Captain ?"

The irascible seaman replied with a wicked
look. Was he quite sure ? The devil take
him! He knew his trade, perhaps ; he knew
how to sail his ship !

" Pascalon, go and fetch me the map of the
island," cried Tartarin.

He possessed, happily, a map of the settle-
ment, draw^n on a very large scale, in which
capes, gulfs, rivers, mountains, and even the very
position of the principal monuments of the city
were minutely noted.

This map was immediately spread out, and
Tartarin, surrounded by all, began to study it
and to trace the different features with his
finsrer.

It was the place indeed : here the island of
Port Tarascon ; the other island opposite ; there
the promontory, thingumbob, quite right. To
the left the coral reefs, perfectly. What was
the matter, then .? Where were they ? Where

PORT TARASCON.

119

was Port Tarascon, and where were its inhabi-
tants ?

Bashfully, stammering a little, Pascalon sug-
gested that perhaps under it all was a practical

joke of Bompard's ; he was so well known at
Tarascon for his merry ways.

Bompard possibly, but Bezuquet — a man of
all prudence, of all gravity — never ! " Besides,"

I20 PORT TARASCON,

added Tartarin, " let your ways be as merry as
they will, you can't put a town and a harbor and
a careening dock up your sleeves."

On the shore, with the telescope, they did
see something like a sort of shed, but even this
was not very plain. The coral reefs made it
impossible for the ship to go near, and at that
distance everything was muddled in the black
verdure of the vegetation.

Greatly mystified, they all stared, quite ready
to land, with their parcels in their hands. The
old dowasier of Aio-ueboulide carried her little
foot-warmer herself, and her nodding head made
her look more astonished than the others.
Amid the general stupefaction, the Governor
in person was heard to murmur, under his
breath, " It's really most extraordinary !"

But suddenly he took a stand. " Captain,
have the long-boat manned. Commandant,
sound the rally for your troops."

While the bugle was going, '' tarata-tarata-ta-
ratata !" and Bravida was getting the militia to-
gether, Tartarin, with characteristic ease of man-
ner, cheered up the ladies : " Don't be afraid.
Everything will certainly be explained."

And to the men — to those who were not to
go with him : " We shall be back in an hour.
Wait for us here. Let no one move."

PORT TARASCON.

121

No one would have moved for the vv^orld.
They all surrounded him, saying what he said,
" Yes, your Excellency, everything will be ex-
plained ; certainly it will," At this moment
Tartarin seemed to them immense.

The Governor took his place in the long-
boat, with his secretary, Pascalon, and his chap-
lain. Brother Bataillet, and with Bravida, Tour-
natoire, Escourbanies, and the militia, all armed
to the teeth with sabres, hatchets, revolvers, and
rifles, to say nothing of the famous Winchester,
the thirty-two shooter.

122 PORT TARASCON.

As they drew nearer to the silent shore,
where nothing stirred, they made out an old
landing-stage of rafters and planks, standing in
a stagnant pool, and all overgrown with moss.
It was impossible that this object should be
the breakwater on which the natives had come
to meet the passengers of the Farandole. Far-
ther on appeared a species of old shanty, its
windows closed with iron shutters painted in
red lead, which threw a bloody gleam into the
dead water. It was covered with a roof of
planks, dislocated, seamed with great crevices
which had been patched up with a tattered tar-
paulin.

As soon as they landed they visited this
shanty. The inside, like the outside, was in a
lamentable state of decay. Great slices of sky
peeped in through the roof; the flooring,
warped into a hump, was crumbling away into
powder ; enormous lizards flitted through all
the chinks ; the walls were overrun with black
beetles ; slimy toads slobbered in the corners.
Tartarin, going in first, had almost stepped on
a serpent as big as his arm.

From the remains of some partitions still
standing, they perceived that the interior had
been divided into narrow compartments, like
little bath-houses, or stalls in a stable. The

PORT TARASCON.

123

place reeked with the smell of damp and
mould, something sickly, that turned the stom-
ach. There were only two things to indicate
that it had ever
been inhabited
— a few tin box-
es lying about
the ground, fa-
miliar recepta-
cles of the well-
known preserves
of the Abbey of
Pamperigouste,
and on the
boards of one of
the cubicles a
remnant of the
words Bezu. . . .
Drug. . . . The
rest had disap-
peared, devoured
by mildew; but
one had not to be
a orreat scholar
to oruess " Bezu-
quet. Druggist."

" I see what has happened," said Tartarin.
" This side of the island proved unhealthy, and

124 PORT TARASCON.

after a fruitless attempt to settle they have
eone to establish themselves on the other side."
Then, in a voice of decision, he ordered the
commandant to make a reconnoissance at the
head of the troops. Bravida was to push up to
the top of the mountain, whence he would ex-
plore the country, and certainly see the smoke
of the roofs of the city.

" As soon as you have established communi-
cation, you will notify us by a loud volley."

As for himself, he would remain there, at
headquarters, with his secretary, his chaplain,
and a few others.

Bravida and his lieutenant, Escourbanies,
drew up their men and set off. The troops
advanced in good order, but the rising ground,
covered with a kind of sea-weedy moss, on
which their feet slipped, rendered the march so
difficult that the ranks were not slow to fall
apart. They crossed a little rivulet, on the
edge of which lingered some vestiges of a wash-
ing-place, a clothes-beater forgotten, the whole
greened over with the invading, smothering
moss that cropped up everywhere. This was
probably the famous river !

A little farther they recognized the traces of
another structure, which seemed to have been
a sort of rough citadel, also muffled in moss and

PORT TARASCON. I 25

in the exuberance of the forest — the scisfan-
tic roots that burst through the ground and
sprawled over the slopes.

What completed the disarray of the poor sol-
diers was to encounter hundreds of holes, very
near each other, treacherously covered over
with the vegetation of brambles and creepers.
Several men sank into them, with a great rat-
tle of arms and equipment, frightening away by
their fall a multitude of the same big lizards
that they had seen in the shanty. These holes
were not very deep; they were only slight ex-
cavations dug in rows. Bravida made the re-
mark that they resembled a deserted quarry.

" Or rather a deserted cemetery," Escourba-
nies replied — " a cemetery from which there has
been a flitting."

There were, in fact, traces of bones, and what
gave him this idea were certain vague sugges-
tions of crosses, formed of intertwined branches,
now leafy again, restored to nature, and looking
like stems and shoots of the wild grape.

After a painful scramble through thick un-
derbrush they at last reached the summit. There
they breathed a healthier air, freshened by the
breeze and charoed with whiffs from the sea.
Before them stretched away a great bare moor,
after which the ground gradually sank again to

126 PORT TARASCON.

the sea. It was over there that the town would
be ; and indeed one of the soldiers, pointing his
finsrer, showed them in the distance the curl of
risinor smoke. At the same time Escourbanies
broke out joyously, " Listen ! listen ! the tam-
bourines ! the national reel !"

There was no mistake about it, the vibration
of the tune of the farandole was perceptible in
the light air. Port Tarascon was coming to
meet them.

They saw them already, the people from the
town, a crowd flocking up yonder, at the top of
the ascent, the extremity of the plateau.

" Cracky !" cried Bravida, suddenly ; " you'd
say they were savages !"

At the head of the band, in front of the tam-
bourines, danced a great lean black, in a saiL
or's jersey, with blue spectacles on his npse and
brandishins^ a tomahawk.

The two bodies had now stopped, and were
watchinof each other from a distance. Sudden-
ly Bravida burst into a loud laugh : " This is
too much ! Ah, the buffoon !" And thrusting
his sabre back into its scabbard, he began to
run forward. His men called him back : " Com-
mandant ! Commandant !"

But he never listened to them ; he kept on
running. He had recognized Bompard, and

PORT TARASCON.

127

shouted, as he approached him : " That's played
out, old chap. It's too much like it — too true to
nature !"

The other continued to dance
and whirl his weapon; and
when the unhappy Bravida
perceived that he
had before him not
his friend Bom-
pard, but a veri-
table barbarian, it ..^
was too late to
dodo'e the terri- ^;
. ble head -crack-
ing blow which
smashed in his
cork helmet, dash
ed out his poor
little brains, and
stretched him stiff
upon the ground.

At the same time
burst forth a tempest of
dreadful cries, while a cloud
of arrows flew through the
air. Seeing their commandant fall, the soldiers
had instinctively and precipitately fired ; then
they had scuttled away without perceiving that

128 PORT TARASCON.

the savages had done as much on the other
side.

From below Tartarin had heard all the fir-
ing. " They've established communication," he
joyously announced.

But his joy was turned to stupor when he
saw the little army come rushing back in disor-
der, leaping through the woods, some without
hats, others without shoes, all uttering the same
appalling cry, " The savages ! the savages !"
There was a moment of unspeakable panic.
The long-boat made for the open, pulling away
like mad. The Governor ran up and down the
shore, crying, " Keep cool I oh, keep cool :' with
chattering teeth, the note of the sea-gull in dis-
tress. It only added to the universal scare.

On the narrow strip of sand the confusion of
this scramble for life lasted a few moments ; but
as no one knew in what direction to flee, they
after a little came together again, As no sav-
age showed himself, they regamed a degree of
confidence, and were able to recoQ:nize and
question each other.

"And the commandant.?"

" Dead !"

When Escourbanies had described Bravida's
fatal blunder, Tartarin exclaimed: "Unhappy
Placidius ! But, I must say," he added, " what

PORT TARASCON. I 29

an imprudence ! In an enemy's country, not to
throw out skirmishers !"

He immediately ordered sentinels to be post-
ed. The soldiers designated walked away slow-
ly, two by two, for no one wished to remain
alone, often turning their heads, and plainly de-
termined not to leave the body of the troops
too far off. Then the others gathered in coun-
cil, while Tournatoire gave his attention to the
wounds of a private who had received a pois-
oned arrow, and was swelling up from minute
to minute in the most extraordinarv fashion.

Tartarin, in council, was the first to address
his companions.

" Before everything," he wisely said, "we must
avoid the shedding of blood." And he pro-
posed to send Brother Bataillet to shake a palm-
leaf in the distance, so as to get a notion of
what was going on in the enemy's quarter.
" Your Reverence will see what the savaores
are doing, and what has become of our com-
patriots."

But Brother Bataillet loudly protested. He
was not in the least of that opinion. " Oh,
come, now — a palm-leaf ! I should greatly pre-
fer your Winchester and its thirty-two shots !"

" All right ; if his Reverence won't go, I'll go
myself," the Governor declared. " Only, my
9

130 PORT TARASCON.

dear chaplain, you must come with me, for I
don't know enough of the Papuan tongue — "

" But I assure you I don't know it either."

" The deuce you don't ! What, then, have
you been teaching me these last three months ?
All those lessons that I took from you on
the voyage — what language was that, if you
please ?"

Brother Bataillet, like the fine old Tarascon-
ian that he was, got out of it by pleading that
he knew the Papuan of the other part, but not
the Papuan of that part.

All of a sudden, during this discussion, broke
out a new alarm ; firing was heard in the direc-
tion of the sentinels, and from the depths of
the wood issued a voice which cried, in the
well-known accent of home, " Don't shoot ! — in
Heaven's name, don't shoot !"

A minute later there might have been seen
to bound from the thicket the queerest of all
creatures, hideously tattooed in vermilion and
black, so that he looked as if he were clad from
head to feet in the variegated tights of a clown.
It was none other than Chemist-physician Be-
zuquet.

" Bless us and save us — Bezuquet !"

" Why, how d'ye do, Bezuquet .?"

" How does it happen — "

PORT TARASCON.

131

., |m'.m-,.

V

'' ' ■'//■/ ;

y

;-^

" But where are the others ?"

" And the city, and the harbor, and the ship-
yard ?"

" Of the town," the druggist repHed, pointing
out the shanty before mentioned, " behold what
remains! Of the inhabitants, behold also!" And
he pointed to himself. " But before everything,
do quickly put something over me to hide the
abominations with which these villains have
covered me !"

Sure enough, all the foulest things conceivable

132 PORT TARASCON.

to the imao-ination of barbarians in delirium
had been pricked in color into his wretched
skin.

Escourbanies handed him his own mantle of
Grandee of the first class, and after the unfortu-
nate man had refreshed himself with a good
swig of brandy, he began, with the accent he
had not lost and the Tarasconian elocution :
" If you were painfully surprised this morning
to find that the city of Port Tarascon has never
existed but on the map and in your fond im-
aginations, think whether we, of the first and
second batches, when we arrived in the Faraii-
dole and the Lticifer — "

" Excuse me if I interrupt you," said Tar-
tarin, who saw the sentinels on the edge of
the wood ofivino^ sio-ns of uneasiness. " I think
it will be wiser if you tell us your story on
board. We may be surprised here by the can-
nibals."

" Not at all. Your firing has scared them
half to death. They've all rushed away; they've
quitted the island, and I've taken advantage of
it to escape."

" Never mind," insisted Tartarin ; " it's much
better that you should tell us what you have to
tell in the presence of the Grand Council. The
situation is too grave."

PORT TARASCON.

^OD

They hailed the long-boat, which from the
beginning of the flurry had remained timorous-
ly aloof, and they regained the ship, where the
rest were awaiting in anguish the result of the
reconnoissance ashore.

136 PORT TARASCON.

VII.

Grewsome indeed were the tribulations of
the first tenants of Port Tarascon as related
in the saloon of the Tootoop2impum before the
Grand Council, a body composed of the An-
cients, the Governor, the Commissioners, the
Grandees of the first and second classes, and
the captain of the ship and his staff.

On the deck the passengers, especially the
ladies, quivered with impatience and curiosity,
but they could hear nothing but the steady
hum of Bezuquet's deep bass, and the quick
outbreaks of interruption proceeding from Tar-
tarin or Brother Bataillet

In the first place, as soon as they started,
when the Farandole had scarcely got out of the
Bay of Marseilles, there had been a bad omen.
Bompard, Provisional Governor and chief of
the expedition, abruptly seized with a strange
ailment, of a contagious nature, as he declared,
had caused himself to be put ashore at the

PORT TARASCON. I 37

Chateau d'lf, handing over his gubernatorial
powers to Bezuquet. What luck that fellow
had had, too ! You might think he had guessed
everything that was in store for them. At Suez
they had found the Liicifer in too bad a state
to continue her journey, and had transferred
her cargo to the Farandole, already too full.

Lord, what they had suffered from the heat
on that blessed ship, crammed from the deck
to the hold ! If they remained above, they melt-
ed in the sun ; if they went below, they were
squeezed and smothered to death. It was so
hot that they could keep nothing on. The cab=
ins were a furnace, a perfect hell !

All this was so bad that on reaching Port
Tarascon, in spite of the disappointment of find-
ing nothing whatever — neither town, nor port,
nor pier, nor buildings of any kind — they had
felt such a need of breathing again, stretching
themselves, and getting out of each other s way,
that their disembarkation, even on a desert
strand, had seemed to them a real relief. In
the first moments it had been a delight merely
to be able to walk about. They even made
a few jokes. Notary Cambalalette, Assessor of
Taxes, who was always up to something droll,
asked what he would have to assess in a coun-
try where there was no property to hold. Later

138 PORT TARASCON.

had come their reflections on the gravity of the
situation.

" We decided then," said Bezuquet, " to send
the ship to Sydney to bring back building ma-
terials, and transmit you the despairing mes-
sage that you of course received."

The narrator was interrupted on all sides by
protestations.

"A despairing message?"

" What message ?''

" We received no message !"

Tartarin's voice rose above the others : " In
the way of a message, my dear sir, we only re-
ceived the one describing the splendid recep-
tion offered you by the indigenous population,
and the Te Deum chanted in the cathedral. Go
on ; everything will be explained."

The council repeated in chorus : " Yes, yes —
everything will be explained !"

" Go on, Ferdinand," added Tartarin, turning
again to the druggist.

" I resume," said Bezuquet. He resumed ac-
cordingly, and his story became more and more
dismal.

They had gone bravely to work. Possessing
agricultural implements, they began to clear and
plant, only the soil was so bad that nothing
came — nothing on earth would grow. The

PORT TARASCON.

139

most pertinacious were soon convinced that
there was nothing to be done. And then the
rains —

A cry from the auditory again interrupted
Bezuquet : " You say it rains ?"

" Do I say so ? Why, more than at Lyons !
Ten months of the year !"

Consternation descended. Instinctively all
eyes were turned to the port -holes, through
which they discerned a dense mist, the clouds

140 PORT TARASCON.

sticking fast to the black green, the rheumatic
green, of the hills. Every one was struck with
the melancholy of the scene.

" Go on, Ferdinand, go on," Tartarin kept
saying.

So Ferdinand w^ent on. With the perpetual
rains, the stagnant floods that covered the coun-
try, fevers and agues had lost no time in making
their appearance. The cemetery was prompt-
ly inaugurated, and pining and " sinking " were
added to disease. Even the pluckiest lost all
courage for work, so flabby they became in the
soaking climate.

They spent all their time in the big house,
feeding on preserves, and also on lizards, on ser-
pents brought over by the Papuans encamped
on the other side of the isle.

Father Vezole had undertaken to convert the
daughter of King Nagonko. An excellent man,
this Father Vezole, and full of good intentions ;
but perhaps it was not quite right of him to try
to establish this regular intercourse with the
natives. The latter, essentially crafty, had lit-
tle by little wriggled into the settlement. They
came in more and more, always on the pretext of
bringing the produce of their fishing and their
hunting. Our friends were not mistrustful of
them, and grew accustomed to their presence,

PORT TARASCON.

141

SO that the simplest pre-
cautions were neglected.

So one fine night it
befell that the Papuans
broke into the big house;
slipping like so many
devils through the door,
through the windows,
and the apertures of the
roof, the}^ got hold of all
the arms, massacred
those who attempted to
resist, and carried off all
the others to their camp.

For a month there was
an uninterrupted succes-
sion of horrible feasts.
The prisoners, each in
his turn, were clubbed to
death on the head, then roast-
ed or baked in the earth on
hot stones, like sucking pigs, and devoured by
these cannibal savages.

The cry of horror uttered by the whole coun-
cil carried dismay even up to the deck, and it
was in a still feebler voice that the Governor
said, once more, " Go on, Ferdinand,"

The poor druggist had in this way seen each

142

PORT TARASCON.

of his companions disappear, one by one. Gen-
tle Father Vezole accepted death with a smile
of resignation, with his "God be praised!" on his
lips. Notary Cambalalette, so gay, such a jolly
rascal, was sacrificed the last.

"And the monsters compelled me to eat a
bit of him, poor Cambalalette !" added Bezuquet,
shuddering still with this reminiscence.

In the silence that followed these terrible
words, the bilious Costecalde, all yellow and
grinning with rage, turned to the Governor.

" You told us, nevertheless, you wrote, and
caused to be written, that there were no an-
thropophagi !"

And as the Governor, overwhelmed, hung

PORT TARASCON. 1 43

his head and held his tongue, Bezuquet re-
phed :

" No anthropophagi ? Why, every mother's
son is one. They know no greater treat than
human flesh — especially ours, the white kind, the
very quality produced at Tarascon — to that de-
gree that after having devoured the living they
passed on to the dead. You've seen the former
cemetery } Nothing is left there — not a bone ;
they've picked and scraped and scoured, as you
scour the plates when the soup is good, or when
you sit down to some jolly garlic stew."

" But yourself, Bezuquet .?" asked a Grandee
of the first class. " How came it that you were
spared }'' '

The ex-apothecary supposed that by reason
of living among bottles and jars, of soaking in
pharmaceutic products — mint, arsenic, arnica,
and ipecac — his flesh had gradually acquired
a herbaceous flavor which probably was not to
their taste ; unless indeed, on the contrary, pre-
cisely on account of this druggy aroma, they
had been keeping him for the sweet dish — the
tidbit of the end.

When he had concluded his story they all
looked at each other a moment ; then the Mar-
quis des Espazettes inquired,

-* Very well, now, what are we going to do .'*"

144 PORT TARASCON.

" What do you mean — what are you going
to do ?" said Scrapouchinat, with his customary
snarl. " You're not in any case going to stay
here, I suppose ?"

They broke out on all sides: "Ah, no, in-
deed— most certainly not !"

" Though I've been paid only to bring you,"
the captain continued, " I'm ready to take home
those who want to go."

At this moment all the defects of his dispo-
sition were overlooked. His companions for-
got that he regarded them only as green mon-
keys, fit to be shot. They surrounded him ;
they congratulated him ; they stretched out
their hands to him. In the midst of the noise
Tartarin's voice was suddenly heard, in a tone
of high dignity :

" You will do what you like, gentlemen ; for
myself, I remain. I have my mission of Gov-
ernor. I must carry it out."

" Governor of what ? — since there's nothing
to govern !" Scrapouchinat yelled.

The others backed him up : " Yes, indeed,
the captain's right: there zs nothing to gov-
ern !"

But Tartarin rose over the tumult : " The
Due de Mons has my word, gentlemen."

" He's a swindler, your Due de Mons," said

PORT TARASCON, • I 45

Bezuquet. " I always suspected it, even before
I had the proof."

"And where is it, your proof?"

" Not in my pocket, alas !" And, with a re-
currence of modesty, the ex- apothecary drew
closer round him the mantle of Grandee of
the first class which protected his bepictured
nudity. " What is very certain is that Bom-
pard in his last moments said to me, ' Look
out for the Belgian: he's a humbug!' If he
had been able to speak he would have said
more ; but his cruel weakness left him no
strength."

Besides, what better proof could they have
than the accursed island itself, barren and pes-
tilential, which the humbug in question had
sent them to clear and populate ? What better
proof than the false despatches ?

The liveliest movement broke out in the
council ; they all talked at once, approving Be-
zuquet, and overwhelming the duke with abu-
sive epithets :

"A liar ! A swindler ! A dirty Belgian !"

Tartarin, heroic, boldly confronted them all :
" Until the contrary is proved, I reserve my
opinion upon his Grace."

" His Grace, forsooth ! Our opinion's formed:
a common thief!"
10

146 PORT TARASCON.

" He may have been imprudent, imperfectly
informed himself — "

" Don't defend him. He deserves penal ser-
vitude."

" For myself, appointed Governor of Port
Tarascon, at Port Tarascon I remain."

" Remain alone, then."

"Alone, so be it, if you all forsake me. I
will populate alone, but I will not expose my-
self to the ignominy of going home. Only
leave me the implements of tillage — "

" But since I tell you that there's nothing
to till, and that nothing will grow !" cried Be-
zuquet.

" Isn't it because you set wrongly about it,
Ferdinand ?''

Then Scrapouchinat flew into a rage, and
smote the council table with his fists. " The
man's mad ! I don't know what keeps me from
carrying him aboard by force, and from shoot-
ing him like a green monkey if he resists !"

" Try it, then — the devil take you !"

Pale w'ith anger, v\'ith a threatening gesture,
Brother Bataillet had risen erect at Tartarin's
side.

This exchano^e of violent words had raised
the tumult to its climax. In the midst of it
could be heard a cross-fire of Tarasconian

PORT TARASCON. I 47

expressions : " You're wanting in sense. You
don't talk straight. You say things that had
better not be said."

Heaven knows how it all would have ended
without the intervention of Lawyer Franque-
balme, the Commissioner of Justice.

This Franquebalme was the most fluent of
lawyers, flowering over his arguments with
many a whensoever and wheresoever, many an
"on the one hand" and "on the other hand";
so that his speeches were as built up, as ce-
mented and solid, as one of our old Roman
aqueducts. A fine old Latin sage, fed on Cice-
ronian periods, he let you always have the right
and the wrong of it, and, as he said, the why of
the wherefore.

He took advantage of the first lull to begin
a harangue, and in long, fair phrases, which he
rolled off without end, he emitted the opinion
that the passengers should be consulted, should
cast their vote on going or staying. They
should hold a plebiscitum, voting yes or no.
On the one side, those who wanted to stay
should stay, while on the other those who want-
ed to go should go. The ship would carry them
off after its carpenters had rebuilt the big house
and the citadel.

This motion of Franquebalme's made the

148 PORT TARASCON.

whole company unanimous. It was instantly
adopted, and they began to vote without delay.

A great agitation broke out on deck and in
the cabins as soon as it became known what
they were doing. Nothing was heard but lam-
entations and groans. All the poor people
had put their substance into purchases of land
— the famous cheap acres ! Were they then to
lose everything, to give up the farms and es-
tates they had paid for, their hope of settling
and flourishing.? These considerations of in-
terest urged them to vote for staying ; but, on
the other hand, a single look at the dreadful
landscape threw them into hesitation. The
sight of the ruins of the big house, of the black,
soaking greenery, behind which they imagined
the desert and the savages, the prospect of be-
ing eaten like Cambalalette — nothing in all this
was encouraging, and their desires reverted to
the sweet land of Provence, so Imprudently quit-
ted, where there were neither deserts nor can-
nibals.

The emigrants swarmed over the ship like so
many ants whose hillock has been disturbed.
The old nodding dowager roamed up and down
the deck Hke a lost soul, without letting go
either her foot-warmer or her parrot. In the
midst of the hubbub of the discussions preced-

PORT TARASCON. I 49

ing the ballot several disputes occurred, and
nothing was heard on every side but impreca-
tions against the Belgian, the dirty Belgian !
Oh, it was no longer his Grace the Duke !
The dirty Belgian ! — they said it with clinched
fists and grinding teeth.

In spite of everything, out of the thousand
Tarasconians on the ship a hundred and fifty
elected to remain with Tartarin. It must be
said that the majority were high dignitaries,
and that the Governor had promised to leave
them their positions and titles.

Then there rose fresh discussions about the
division of the food between those going and
those staying.

" You'll revictual at Sydney," said those who
were staying to those who were going.

" You'll hunt and you'll fish," replied the lat-
ter to the former. " Why in the world do you
require such a lot of preserves .?"

The Tarasque, moreover, gave rise to terri-
ble debates. Should she go back to Tarascon ?
Should she remain with the settlement }

The dispute grew very hot. Scrapouchinat
threatened several times to put Brother Batail-
let to the sword.

Lawyer Franquebalme, to maintain peace,
had to become afresh the persuasive Nestor of

150 PORT TARASCOX.

the occasion, and intervene with all his legal
lore. But he had great difficulty in soothing
down several excited spirits, secretly worked
upon as they were by the hypocritical Escour-
banies, who only sought to prolong the discord.

Shaggy and shrill, with his motto, borrowed
from the mother-land, of " Let's make a noise!"
the lieutenant of the militia was so intensely
Southern that he was black with it ; with his
tightly crinkled hair, he had not only the color
of the ace of spades, he had also the cowardice,
the desire to please, that have been known to
go with the complexion — always dancing the
hornpipe of success before the stronger, before
the captain on shipboard, surrounded with his
crew, or before Tartarin on land, in the midst
of the troops. To each of these he explained
differently the reasons that determined him to
remain at Port Tarascon, saying to Scrapouchi-
nat, " I'm staying because my wife expects to
be confined." And to Tartarin, " Nothing on
earth would induce me to make another trip
with that perfect vandal."

The Tarasque was left with the people of the
ship, in exchange for a small cannon and a long-
boat.

Tartarin had extracted provisions, arms, and
tool-chests piece by piece.

PORT TARASCON.

J51

For several days there reigned between the
ship and the shore a perpetual going and com-
ing of small boats laden with a thousand things
— guns, preserves, boxes of sardines and of the
delicate tunny, biscuits, supplies of swallow tarts,
and potted pears.

At the same time the axe rang out in the

152

PORT TARASCON.

woods, where there was a great havoc made
among the trees for the repair of the big house
and the citadel. The loud notes of the buHe
mingled with the sound of the hatchet and the
hammer. During the day the troops, under
arms, kept guard over the workers, for fear of

an attack of the savages ; during the night they
encamped on the strand, round the watch-fires
— "in order to get used to the hardships of
campaigning," said Tartarin.

When everything was ready on shore, the
ship prepared to put off. The hour of separa-
tion had arrived, but the parting was rather

PORT TARASCON.

153

cool. Those who were going were jealous of
those who remained ; which didn't prevent
them, however, from saying, with a little sneer-
ing smile, " If you get on pretty well, just drop
us a line, and we'll come back,"

On their side, in spite of their assumption of
confidence in the future, those who remained
envied those who were going.

After it had weighed anch-
or, the ship fired a sal-
vo from its guns, and the
little cannon, handled by
Brother Bataillet, replied
from the shore. Mean-
while Escourbanies
played on his clarinet
the familiar air, " A hap-
py journey, dear Dumol-
let!"

Never mind; in spite
of the irony of this fare-
well, there was a great emo-
tion at the bottom of every X -
heart, and when the Tootoo-
pump2im had rounded the promontory, when
she had finally disappeared from sight, the wa-
ters she had quitted, now empty and larger,
seemed to them all to have a woful extent.

BOOK SECOND.

I.

December 20, 188 1. — I have undertaken to
commit to this register the principal events in
our annals.

I shall have a lot of trouble, with all the work
already on my shoulders ; for, as General Com-
missioner of the different Bureaux, I look after
all the administrative papers, and then, as soon
as I have a minute to myself, dash off a few
verses in our special idiom, for fear the high
functionary in my spirit may destroy the na-
tional bard.

Never mind, I shall manage to keep every-
thing going. It will be curious some day to
follow these first steps in the career of a people.
I have spoken to nobody of the work I begin
to-day, not even to the Governor.

The first thing to be noted is the happy turn

PORT TARASCON.

155

of affairs since the Tootoopumpiim left us a
week ago. We are getting settled, and the flag
of Fort Tarascon, which bears the Tarasque
quartered on the French colors, floats from the
summit of the citadel.

It is there that the
Government is estab-
lished, by which I mean
our Tartarin, the Com-
missioners, and the Bu-
reaux. The unmarried
Commissioners, like
myself, like W. Tourna-
toire, Commissioner of
Health, and Brother Ba-
taillet, Grand Chief of *

Artillery and of the
Navy, are lodged at headquarters.
Costecalde and Escourbanies, who
are married, eat and sleep in town.
When we say " in town," we mean
the general residence, the big house
which the carpenters of the Tootoopumpiim suc-
ceeded in putting into fair condition. Around
it we have laid out a kind of boulevard, a
promenade, to which we have given the pomp-
ous name of the " Walk Round." It is quite
Tarascon over aQ:ain. We have alreadv taken

1^~

.%ii

'/ ^-

z/

156

PORT TARASCON.

the habit of it. We say: " I think I'll go Into
town this evening. Have you been into town
to-day.'' Suppose we go into town." And it
all seems quite natural.

Headquarters are separated from town by the
little river, to which we have given the name of

,i^|^5P

'"\>

1

■Aoji;

the Little Rhone. This is a sweet memento of
home.

From my office, when the window is open, I
hear the slapping and beating of the washer-
women, though it doesn't go so fast nor sound so

PORT TARASCON. I 57

sharp as their Tarasconian chatter. I see them
leaning over the bank ; I hear their songs, their
calls to each other; and this little picture, the
dialect of home, with its sharp sonorities, putting
a bit of scenery into the air, quite recalls and
revives the mother-land.

There is only one thing that makes it dis-
agreeable for me at headquarters — the con-
sciousness of the magazine. Our friends left
us a great quantity of powder, which, with the
culverin, has been deposited in the subcellar of
the citadel. There also are our general stores,
our supplies of provisions of every description —
garlic, preserves, liquids, reserves of weapons, of
instruments and tools. The whole thing is care-
fully bolted and barred, but all the same it rath-
er haunts me, especially at night, to think of our
having there under our feet such a lot of ex-
plosive and combustible matter, quite enough to
blow up the Government and the whole place.

September 2^th. — Yesterday Madame Escour-
banies was safely delivered of a fine bo}^

He is the first little citizen inscribed on our
books. Accordingly we have given him the sug-
gestive name of Miraclete. He has been bap-
tized in great pomp at St. Martha's of the Palms,
our little provisional church, constructed of bam-
boo, with a roof of big leaves.

158 PORT TARASCON.

I had the good-fortune to be godfather, and
to have for godmother Mademoiselle Clorinde
des Espazettes. She is unfortunately a little
tall for me, but so pretty ; she looked won-
derfully fresh and smart under the check-
ers of light that filtered through the trellis
of bamboo and between the gaps of the leafy
roof.

The whole city was collected ; our good Gov-
ernor pronounced a few admirable words, mov-
ing to us all, and Brother Bataillet brought the
ceremony to a close by the recital of one of his
charming tales.

The day was treated as a holiday, and work
was everywhere suspended. We made a regu-
lar fete of it. After the christening came a gen-
eral stroll on the Walk Round. All the world
was in spirits; it seemed as if the new-born
babe had brought hope and happiness to the
colony. The Government distributed a double
ration of tunny and potted pears, and in the
evening there was an extra dish on every table.
At headquarters we put a wild pig to roast,
owing the animal to the skill of the Marquis
des Espazettes, the first shot on the island after
Tartarin.

When dinner was over, as the Governor went
out to smoke, I went with him. He struck me

PORT TARASCON.

i59

J{0

as so kind and paternal, as we talked together,
that I confessed to him my affection for Made-
moiselle Clorinde. He smiled ; he was already
aware of it. He promised me to intercede, and,
full of encouraging words, spoke to me of my
fine position. It is true that to be General
Commissioner of the Bureaux at my age —

Unfortunately the marquise is a Lambesc,
very proud of her origin, and I am only a com-
moner. Of a good family, doubtless ; we have
nothing to be ashamed of; but we have always
lived as plain folk. I have also against me
my bashfulness, my slight stutter, and moreover

i6o

PORT TARASCON.

there is a little place on top where my hair is
beginning to thin. But I have a spirit and a
future.

• Oh, if it were only a question of the marquis
— deuce of a bit would he care, so long as he

l^^')

can get his sport ! It is not like his wife, with
her quarterings. Only fancy — an Espazettes !
To give you an idea of her pride, all the world,
in town, assembles in the evening in the <^en-

PORT TARASCON. l6l

eral saloon. It's very pleasant ; the ladies bring
their knitting, the men take a hand at whist.
But Madame des Espazettes is too grand for
this, and remains with her daughters in their
cubicle, though the place is so tiny that when
the ladies change their gown two of them can
never do it at once. Very well, the marquise
would rather pass her evenings there, receiv-
ing "at home," and offering camomile tea and
sickly decoctions of herbs to guests who can't
sit down, than mingle with the rest, so great is
her horror of the Rabblebabble. That will give
you an idea.

However, I have the Governor with me, and
in spite of everything this gives me hope.

September 2gth. — I have not been out for two
days, have not budged from my room or my
office.

Yesterday the Governor went down into town.
He promised me to speak of my little matter,
so as to have it to tell me about when he came
back. You may think if I waited with impa-
tience ! But when he came back he never
opened his mouth. What does this mean 1 I
can't imagine, and I didn't venture to question
him.

During breakfast he was nervous, and in con-
versation with his chaplain these words escaped
II

1 62 PORT TARASCON.

him, " If you come to that, we have too little of
the Rabblebabble."

As Madame des Espazettes de Lambesc has
always on her lips this contemptuous expression,
"the Rabblebabble," I thought that he might
have seen her, and that my request had not been
acceded to ; but I was unable to find out how
matters stood, inasmuch as the Governor im-
mediately began to talk of the report of Com-
missioner Costecalde on the subject of agri-
culture.

This report has been most dismal. It tells of
fruitless attempts of maize, of corn, of carrots,
of potatoes, of everything refusing to sprout.
There is no vegetable mould, and so much wa-
ter, with the impervious soil, that all the seed
is swamped. In a word, it is what Bezuquet
announced, only still more wretched.

I must add that the Commissioner of Agri-
culture perhaps does his best to push matters
to the worst, and present them in the saddest
light. Costecalde, in truth, is such an evil spirit !
He has always been jealous of Tartarin's glory.
I feel that he is animated with sneaking hatred
of him.

All the while lunch lasted nothing was talked
of but this report. Brother Bataillet, who never
goes the longest way round, plumped out a de-

PORT TARASCON, I 63

mand for Costecalde's dismissal; but the Gov-
ernor replied, with his high reason and his
habitual moderation, " It is requested of your
Reverence not to get started."

On leaving table we passed into Costecalde's
private room, and Tartarin went up to him,
you know, quite calm. " So, as we were saying,
Mr. Commissioner, our cultivation — "

The other, very sour, replied, without w^inc-
ing, " I have addressed my report to his Ex-
cellency."

" Come, come, really, Costecalde, your report's
a trifle severe."

Costecalde turned quite yellow. " It's just
what it has to be, and if people are not satis-
fied—"

His eyes flamed, and the insolence rang out
in his voice ; but Tartarin controlled himself on
account of the others who were present.

" Costecalde," he said, with two sparks in his
little gray eyes, " I'll have two words with you
when we're alone."

It was terrible ; the perspiration poured from
me.

September joth. — Oh, these old nobles — what
an awful crew !

It's just as I feared ; my suit has been scorn-
ed by the house of Espazettes. I'm of too

164 PORT TARASCON.

humble extraction. I'm authorized to visit there
as before, but I'm forbidden to hope.

Devil take it, what are they looking for } Is
there a noble in the settlement to whom they
can give their Clorinde } They themselves are
the only grand people. Do they want to make
her an old spinster, like Mademoiselle Tourna-
toire } Do they want to make her, I mean, a
poor wounded heart ? For, strictly, I can't com-
pare so lovely a creature to the tall Touareg,
who, for the last twenty years or more, has been
showing our Tartarin the whites of her eyes,
never taking it in that he can't possibly want
her, that he means never to marry at all, having
taken glory for his bride.

What am I to do ? What line can I take ?
Clorinde loves me enough, I'm sure, to elope
with me, and let me seal our union in some
other country. But what other country — since
we have the bad luck to be on an island ?

I could, in a manner, have understood their
repudiating me when I was only a druggist's
apprentice. But to-day I have a future. To
put it in a word, Tartarin delights in me ; he
has no children ; I may dream of almost any-
thing ! Who knows but later — It would only
be the matter of a transfer of authority. Yes,
surely, there are no aspirations forbidden me.

PORT TARASCON.

165

How many others would like to believe I
think of them ! Without going very far, lit-
tle Miss Franquebalme, a good musician — she
" learns " her sisters — is a case in which the

"%.,-

parents would be enchanted if I were to so
much as lift my finger.

Despair ! despair ! This, then, is the consum-
mation of all my dreams, of the brave illusions I
framed duriuGf those sweet talks on the deck of
the Tootoopumpum. And since we have been

1 66 PORT TARASCON.

here, what other delicious hours ! Must I re-
Hnquish joys that are great in spite of being
made of Httle things — evenings passed near her
at the window, words exchanged that seem to
be nothing and that yet say so much, the acci-
dental contact of our hands when she offers
me the cup of camomile, the decoction of
herbs ?

They are over, those happy days ! And to
finish me off, it has been raining ever since this
morning, raining without a stop, so that every-
thing is blurred and blotted out and drowned
muffled in a deadly gray veil.

Ah, Bezuquet told the truth — it does rain at
Port Tarascon ; it certainly does. The torrents
surround us on every side, cage us up behind
the fine wires of a cricket-hutch. There's no
horizon left, nothing but the rain and the rain.
It swamps the land and riddles the ocean, which
mixes with the water that falls — all the water
that rises in splash and spray.

October jd. — Yes, the Governor's allusion was
happy ; we have not quite enough of the Rabble-
babble. Rather fewer quarterings of nobility,
fewer high dignitaries, and rather more plumb-
ers and masons and slaters and thatchers and
carpenters would meet our requirements con-
siderably better.

PORT TARASCON.

167

Last night, with the continual rain, these
water-spouts that soak through everything, the
roof of the big house burst in, and the city
was inundated. The morning has been spent
in general bewilderment — complaints on com-

I 68 PORT TARASCON.

plaints, an incessant rushing to and fro between
headquarters and town.

The different bureaux shift the responsibiH-
ty from one to the other. The Department of
Agriculture says it's our business, while our
department insists that the matter falls within
the jurisdiction of the Board of Health ; this
board, meanwhile, sending the complainants to
the Navy, because it's a question of planking
and building.

In town they were all furious, up to their
knees in water, but declaring that it's all the
fault of the " state of things." From this po-
sition they refuse to budge, quite indifferent
to the conflict of jurisdiction. Meanwhile the
great gap has been growing bigger, the water
gushing in a cataract from the roof, so that
there's nothinor to be seen in the cubicles but
people squabbling under open umbrellas, and
brawling and bawling, and accusing the Govern-
ment.

Happily we have no lack of umbrellas. There
was a tremendous lot of them in our assort-
ment of goods for barter with the savages — al-
most as many as dog-collars — enormous cotton
ones of every color, which we are very glad to
have in a country of permanent rain.

Well, to finish about the inundation, a brave

PORT TARASCON.

169

girl, a servant-
maid belonging to

Mademoiselle Tournatoire, scrambled up
on the roof and nailed over it a sheet of zinc,
extracted for the purpose from the emporium.
The Governor directs me to write her a letter
of felicitation.

If I mention this incident here, it is because

lyO PORT TARASCON.

the occasion has made the weakness of our col-
ony so conspicuous.

The administration is excellent, zealous, even
complicated, thoroughly French ; but for colo-
nizing purposes we simply want hands. The
scribbled paper is out of proportion to the
strong arms.

I'm also struck with another thing, the fact
that each of our big-wigs has been intrusted
with the kind of work for which he's least suit-
ed and least prepared. Costecalde, the armorer,
for instance, who has spent his life in the midst
of pistols and rifles, the implements of the chase,
is Commissioner of Agriculture. Escourbanies
hadn't his like for the manufacture of the bless-
ed Aries sausage ; but since poor Bravida's acci-
dent he has become Commissioner of War and
head of the Levies. Brother Bataillet has taken
the Artillery and the Navy, because he knows
how to sail a boat and fire a cannon ; but, after
all, what he knows much better is to say mass
and tell us stories.

In town it is the same thing. We have there
a heap of worthy people, little rentiers, dealers in
ginghams and prints, grocers, and pastry-cooks,
who are now the owners of acres, but haven't
the least idea what to do with them, not having
the smallest notion of agricultural methods.

PORT TARASCON. I "J I

I don't see any one but his Excellency who
really knows what he's about. This extraordi-
nary man knows everything, has seen everything,
read everything, and there is something wonder-
ful in the vividness with which he conceives.
Unfortunately he can't be everywhere at once;
and then he is too kind, too unable to believe
any harm. Thus he still clings to his faith in
the Belgian, that scoundrel and swindler and
liar; he still expects to see him arrive with fresh
hands and provisions, so that every day when I
go into his room his first word is, " No ship in
sight this morning, Pascalon r'

And to think that so humane a man, so ex-
cellent a ruler, already has enemies ! Yes, he
has enemies. There are ill-disposed people in
the city. He knows it ; he smiles at it; he says
to me : " What w^ill you have, my child ? I'm
the ' state of things,' and there are always peo-
ple who are against the ' state of things.' "

October 8th. — Spent the morning in taking
the census of our little colony. This document
on the early phases of a little State which will
perhaps become a great one, has the curious
feature of having been drawn up by one of the
founders, one of those who helped to break
ground.

October loth. — Water, water, nothing but

172 PORT TARASCON.

water. In these floods of damp, this continual
drenching, one grows wofully slack, loses all
taste for anything, turns sour and ill-natured,
universally disgusted, quite as when one has
been taking bromide.

A party of the disaffected is forming in the
city, with Costecalde for chief and ringleader.
They assemble at the place they call the Cafe
Pinus, w'hich consists of two or three tables and
a couple of benches in one of the cubicles. It
appears to exist for the purpose of drinking
bottled lemonade. Pinus, in the whole colony,
is the only man who is making any money,
and he makes it by the sale of this fizzing
liquid.

These Qfatherins^s under his roof have been
kept up very late, and have filled the big house
with such a clatter of discussion that complaints
have been made in the city. The racket keeps
the children awake. Therefore the Governor
has been obliged to give orders for the closing
of the establishment — a measure that has pro-
duced a bad effect on many minds.

It so happens that another affair has contrib-
uted to the state of tension. The Marquis des
Espazettes and a few other crack shots, kept
in-doors by the dreadful rain, lately conceived
the idea of setting up targets formed of old tin

PORT TARASCON.

173

boxes, disused receptacles of sweetmeats and
tunny, of sardines and potted pears, and then
of firing at them the livelong day from the win-
dows.

Our former cap-
shooters, now that helmets
and caps are not so easy to replace, have thus
been converted into can-shooters.

In itself this is not a bad exercise, but Cos-
tecalde has succeeded in persuading the Gov-

174 PORT TARASCON.

ernor that it leads to a deplorable waste of
powder.

Out comes, therefore, a new decree, prohibit-
ing this expensive sport. The can-shooters are
furious, the aristocracy sulks. This was precise-
ly what Costecalde had foreseen. Oh, he's up
to snuff !

But, after all, what can you bring against our

poor Governor.? The d d Dutchman has

let him in, just as he has let us all in. But is it
his fault if it keeps on raining, and if the bad
weather prevents us from getting forward with
the bull-baiting ? Our national sport, you know,
was promised us from the first; but up to this
time it has been impossible to set it going.

There has been a kind of blight on this fa-
miliar pastime. Our good Tarasconians, who
had been cut off from it in France, rejoiced in
the thought of giving it a new life here. . We
brought with us expressly some cows, and a bull
of the Camargue — Old Roman — the same who
used to win such fame on our votive anniver-
saries.

On account of the rains, which have render-
ed it impossible to leave them at pasture, these
beasts have been kept in a stable ; but all of a
sudden, without any one's knowing in the least
how it haiDpened- — I shouldn't be surprised if

PORT TARASCON.

175

Costecalde had had a hand in this too — Old
Roman has got out.

Now he's roaming the forest, he has become
wild, he's no lons^er a bull — he's a buffalo.

Of course we've tried to catch him again, but
he's quite too terrible. In reality he's baiting
us, instead of our baiting him. And he's the
only wild animal in the colony !

I wonder if this, too, is Tartarin's fault ?

Ah, things are going wrong. Heaven w^atch
over our Governor !

176 PORT TARASCON.

IL

Day after day, page after page, through
strokes as fine as the gray slant of the rain,
with the desperate dead monotony of the wa-
tery, watery waste, we content ourselves with
giving the sense, though with scrupulous fideli-
ty, of our friend Pascalon's diary.

As the intercourse between the town and
headquarters continued to be characterized by
a visible tension, Tartarin, to recover a measure
of popularity, determined at last to organize
the bull-baiting; not, of course, with the assist-
ance of Old Roman, who was still ranging the
thicket, constantly wilder and more of a buffalo,
but with that of the three cows which remained.

Very attenuated, very lean, and sad to behold
were these domestic animals of our country, ac-
customed to the open air and the sun, and im-
mured ever since their arrival at Port Tarascon
in a damp, dark stable. Never mind, this was
better than nothino:.

PORT TARASCON.

177

On the sandy shore, beside the sea, the spot
forming the usual parade-ground of the militia,
a platform had been erected in advance, and a
circus enclosed by ropes, according to the cus-
tom in Provence.

Advantage was taken of a glimpse of fine
weather, a day when the sun almost shone, and

the Governor, the high dignitaries, and their la-
dies assumed their places on the platform. All
costumes were displayed — all the bespangled
mantles — and the women had extracted their
best-preserved finery from the depths of their
trunks.

Every one seemed happy, touched with the
12

178 PORT TARASCON.

intoxication of the game, down to the little
ones who ran round and round the ring, pur-
suins: each other with cries of "There! there!
the cattle !" while the higher personages settled
themselves in their rows, and the underlings
and militiamen, with their wives and daughters
and maid-servants, pressed together round the
ropes.

Forgotten at this moment was the weariness
of the long rainy days, forgotten were the griev-
ances against the Belgian — the dirty Belgian.
" There ! there ! the cattle !" this cry of the chil-
dren sufficed to rekindle the good-humor of the
mobile race who are cheered up by a sunbeam.
" There ! there ! the cattle !" Yes, at Port Ta-
rascon we could have our bull-baiting : different
enough from what it had come to be in the old
country : no one to worry the poor plain folk,
to deprive them of their favorite pleasure.

And what folly, indeed, ever to have forbidden
the bull-baiting of our gentle southern France,
in which there is nothing bloody, nothing cruel ;
in which it is only a question of plucking off a
cockade planted between the horns of a bull !
Doubtless the sport is not absolutely harmless.
It requires skill and agility. But, on the whole,
accidents are rare, and are reducible to a few
innocuous bruises.

PORT TARASCON.

179

The flourish of trumpets, under the direction
of Escourbanies, Chief of the Levies and the
Orpheon, mingled its brazen uproar with the
cries and the rumble of the crowd. After the
" Port Tarascon March " had been played sev-
eral times, the drums beat a loud tattoo.

It was the signal. The circus, which had
suddenly become a field of danger, emptied it-
self in a trice, and one of the animals entered
the lists, greeted with frantic hurrahs.

She had nothing very terrible about her, the
poor scared cow, with her ribs showing through,
who stared at the crowd from big eyes disaccus-
tomed to the light of heaven; she only began
to " mooh," and stood still, sticking fast in the
middle of the arena, with her big tricolored cock-
ade between her horns.

I So PORT TARASCON.

One of the baiters came and " shaved " her,
as the term is, passing behind and before her,
clapping his hands and trying to excite her.
" There ! there ! there !" But she suffered him
to approach her, even to touch her, and remain-
ed quite peaceful and resigned, without the
slightest disposition to retaliate. There would
have been neither peril nor honor in relieving
her of her cockade.

At tliis sight the public got indignant, and
cried for the irons — the irons ! Then two men
came forward, armed with long poles tipped with
irons in the shape of tridents. When they prick-
ed the poor thing's nose, instead of losing her
temper, as usual, she uttered a plaintive low and
fled, rushing round the course, pursued, belabor-
ed, with all the world at her heels, in the midst
of hisses and hootings and shouts. " Enough !
enough!" cried the crowd. "Zou! zou! put her
out ! put her out ." She retired in extreme hu-
miliation.

The second cow absolutely refused to leave
the stable. Neither shouts nor blows nor prod-
dings could overcome her reluctance. It was
vain to push her ; it was fruitless to pull her ; it
was impossible to drag her across the threshold.

So they gave their attention to the third,
who was said to be very vicious with her blood

PORT TARASCON. l8l

up. She entered the circus on the gallop, dig-
ging her forked hoofs into the sand, lashing her
sides with her tail, and butting vigorously right
and left. The inquiring spectators who had
lingered in the arena skipped nimbly out of her
way, clearing the course on the spot.

This time, at least, there would be a fine
game. Not much, however, as it turned out.
The animal dashed away, bounded over the
rope, cleaving the crowd, taking aim with her
horns, and rushing straight to the sea, hurled
herself into it.

With water up to the hock, then up to the
shoulder, she went out as far as she could go.
Soon nothing more of her was seen than her
poor nose above the water, where her two horns
formed a crescent, with the cockade in the mid-
dle. She remained there till evening, woful-
ly lowing ; and the whole settlement, from the
shore, called her names, hissed her, and assailed
her with stones, hootings, and gibes, of which
last missiles the poor " state of things," who
had come down from his platform, had also
quite his share.

The collapse of the national game was a great
check to the Government, of which the disaffect-
ed party made haste to take advantage. " Mon-
key's work — little of it, and that little bad," said

l82

PORT TARASCON.

the bilious Costecalde, with his wicked grin.
This was the way he spoke of all the Govern-
or's acts.

Something at any rate had to be done to
drain off so much fermentation. The Govern-
ment therefore conceived the idea of an expe-
dition against King Nagonko. The scoundrel
had fled from the island, with his Papuans, after
the death of the unfortunate Bravida, and noth-
ing had been heard of him since. It was said
that he inhabited a neio'hborinsf island six or

PORT TARASCON. I 83

eight miles away, whose vague outh'ne was dis-
tinguishable on clear days, but invisible most
of the time, thanks to the continual rains and
the curtain of fog.

The unavenged insult to the Tarasconian flag
was one of the greatest grievances of Coste-
calde's section, one of his most powerful argu-
ments against the "state of things." These
were pointed mainly at the cowardice of the
head of affairs, who had exacted no reparation
for the death of the unhappy Bravida, none for
that of Cambalalette or of Father Vezole, to say
nothing of so many other compatriots devoured
by the savages.

In, the entoiLvage of Tartarin there had been
much talk of some really great attempt. Broth-
er Bataillet preached war as he alone could
preach it. Tartarin himself, with all that was
pacific in him, had long resisted. But so many
ill-natured remarks were retailed to him that
at last his patience broke down. As we say at
Tarascon," Little flies make big donkeys jump."
He therefore took a great decision, hoping thus
to re-establish his popularity, and the expedi-
tion was prepared.

When the long-boat had been put into con-
dition, repaired and provisioned, and the culver-
in, handled by Brother Bataillet and Galoffre

184 PCRT TARASCON.

the verger, set up in the prow, twenty militia-
men, all well armed, went aboard under the
orders of Esccurbanies and the Marquis des
Espazettes, and one morning they set sail.

Their absence was to last three days, and
these three days seemed extremely long to the
colony. What would be the result of so ad-
venturous a cruise ? To what dangers would
the expedition not be exposed ? Would it come
back at all ? These anxieties were fostered by
the perfidious machinations of Costecalde, who
kept gnawing like a wood-louse at his rival's
reputation, and went about saying, " What an
imprudence ! as if it would not have been much
be-tter to leave the wretches alone !"

Towards the end of the third day the report
of a cannon, rolling over the deep, brought
down the whole population to the shore, from
which the long-boat was seen to approach
at a rapid pace, under all her sail, with her
nose in the air, as if borne on a breeze of
triumph.

Even before she had reached the strand the
joyous cries of her company — the " Let's make
a noise!" of Escourbanies — announced from
afar the complete success of the enterprise.

An exemplary vengeance had been extorted
from the cannibals, heaps of villages had been

PORT TARASCON.

iS:

burned, and, according to every one's account,
thousands of Papuans slain.

The figure varied, but was always enormous,
and the accounts were rather different too. In

any case, what was certain was that they had
five or six prisoners of mark to show, among
whom were King Nagonko himself and his
daughter Likiriki.

1 86 PORT TARASCON.

The prisoners were conducted to headquar-
ters amid the ovations rendered by the crowd
to the victors. The soldiers filed out in great
array, carrying, like the companions of Colum-
bus on his return from the discovery of the
New World, all sorts of strange objects — brill-
iant plumes, skins of beasts, weapons, and spoils
of the savages.

But the prisoners were especially surrounded
as they passed, the good Tarasconians examin-
ing them with all the curiosity of hate. Broth-
er Bataillet had caused a few draperies, which
they ineffectually held together, to be thrown
over their black bareness ; and to see them
thus figged out, to say to one's self that they
had eaten up Father Vezole, Notary Cambala-
lette, and so many others, gave one the same
shudder of repulsion that one feels in menag-
eries, in the presence of anacondas digesting
under dirty blankets.

Kins: Nasfonko marched first — an old black-
amoor with a big belly, and a mass of crinkled
white wool that sat on his head like a smok-
ing-cap. A red clay pipe — the kind they make
at Marseilles — was attached to his left arm
by a bit of string. Near him came the little
Likiriki, with shining, impish eyes, bedecked
with coral necklaces and bracelets of pink

PORT TARASCON.

187

shells. They were followed by the others,
great monkeys with long arms, who showed
their pointed teeth in the grimace of their hor-
rible smiles.

There were a few jokes about them at first,
such as that they would give Mademoiselle
Tournatoire plenty of work, and the good old

I 88 PORT TARASCON.

spinster, revisited by her famous fixed idea, be-
ean indeed to think how she could turn them
out; but curiosity was quickly converted to
fury as we remembered the fate of our baked
and boiled compatriots.

Presently many people began to cry "Death!
death to them all! Zou! zou!" To give him-
self a more military stamp, Escourbanies had
adopted Scrapouchinat's phrase, and kept cry-
ing that we must have them all shot like green
monkeys.

Tartarin turned towards him and checked
his ravings with a gesture. " Spiridion," he said,
*' let us respect the laws of war."

But moderate your ecstasy. Tartarin had his
plan.

A consistent defender of our old friend the
duke, if he had never given in to his being an
impostor, he had yet at bottom had his suspi-
cions. If, after all, one had been taken in by a
vulgar swindler, the treaty for the purchase of
the island, which his Grace pretended to have
made with Nagonko, would then be as false as
all the rest; the island would not be ours, and
our vouchers for the acres, our great bargains,
would be nothing but so much waste paper.

Accordingl}^ as soon as the prisoners had
been introduced into the citadel, the Governor,

PORT TARASCON.

189

far from thinking of shooting them Hke green
monkeys, offered the Papuan monarch a solemn
reception.

This was just the sort
of thins: he knew how to
do, deeply versed in ev-
erything that had been
done by Captain Cook,
by Bougainville, and
other great navigators.

He simply approach-
ed the dusky monarch
and besfan to rub noses

O

with him.

The barbarian seemed
extremely surprised, as
in his tribe this
fashion had been
long abandoned,
had become quite
a lost tradition.

He submitted ^ I'iX^'^s-

none the less, evi- i'^. ' "' \^~.^

dently thinking it ^

must be a Tarasconian custom ; and at the spec-
tacle even the little Likiriki, who had a bit of a
nose like a kitten, scarcely any at all, insisted on
Tartarin's treating her to the same ceremony.

IQO PORT TARASCON.

When the rubbing of noses was over, arose
the question of communicating verbally with the
brutes.

Brother Bataillet spoke to them first, in his
Papuan of the other side; but naturally, as it
was not the Papuan of this side, they couldn't
understand. Cicero Franquebalme, who knew
English after a fashion, tried them with the
idiom of Shakespeare. Escourbanies mumbled
out a few words of Spanish, but without more
success than the others.

" Let us, at any rate, give them something to
eat," said Tartarin.

So a few boxes of tunny were opened. This
time the savages understood, and threw them-
selves upon the dainties in question, while the
Governor and Commissioners surrounded them,
watching them gluttonously devour and empty
the boxes, scraping them to the bottom with
fingers dripping with oil. Then, after several
great swigs of brandy, which they seemed par-
ticularly to appreciate, the King, to the gen-
eral's stupefaction, began to troll out in a hoarse
voice our Tarasconian revolutionary song about
chucking the refractory from the big window.
Hiccoughed forth by this thick-lipped barbarian,
with his mouth smeared with red and his teeth
with black, it had a fantastic, ferocious sound.

PORT TARASCON.

191

So, then, Nagonko knew our local language.

After a minute of amazement the anomaly
was explained.

Durine the few months of association with
the hapless passengers of the Farandole and the

Lticifcr, the Papuans had picked up a certain
amount of Tarasconian — a Tarasconian of no
great elegance, no doubt, and consisting mainly
of the expressions of the Rabblebabble ; but

192 PORT TARASCON.

with the aid of gestures it helped to enable our
friends to communicate with them.

So they communicated.

Questioned on the subject of our ally the duke,
Nagonko declared that he had never, never in
his life, heard of this distinguished personage,
or of any one who remotely resembled him.

The island had never been sold.

There had never been any treaty.

Never any treaty .f* Tartarin, on the spot,
caused one to be drawn up. The scholarly
Franquebalme had an extensive hand in the
framing of this severe and scrupulous docu-
ment. He availed himself in it of all his legal
erudition — v;hatsoever, whensoever, and where-
soever at every step — so that, with its Roman
cement, the thing made a compact and solid
whole.

Nagonko ceded the island in exchange for a
barrel of rum, ten pounds of tobacco, two cotton
umbrellas, and a dozen dog-collars.

A career of usefulness was thus opened to
these last objects of traffic, which had been
brought in such quantities because Tartarin
had read in the works of travellers that they
are particularly appreciated by the savages of
Oceanica.

A codicil affixed to the treaty authorized

PORT TARASCON. I 93

Nagonko, his daughter, and his companions to
reside on the west coast of the island, the direc-
tion in which the settlers never trusted them-
selves, for fear of Old Roman, the famous bull
who had become a buffalo.

The business was concluded in secret session
— knocked off in a few hours.

In this manner, thanks to their great leader's
diplomatic ability, the bonds and vouchers of
the colonists became valid again, really repre-
senting something.

And who was taken in this time? That plot-
ter of a Costecalde and his partisans.

Who, on the other hand, was very happy ? The
author of the Memorial, Pascalon, the gentle stut-
terer, now more than ever in love with his mum-
mum-master.

■imh

194 PORT TARASCON-

III.

Meanwhile we continued to be drenched,
for out of the continual grayness the water
continued to fall. Lord, how it fell ! In the
morning, when the windows of the big house
were opened on a crack, inquiring hands were
thrust out.

" Is it raining ?"

" It is rainino^ !"

" Another day of it ?"

" Another day of it !"

Yes ; it rained as it had rained in Bezuquet s
account of it.

Poor Bezuquet ! In spite of all the misery
he had endured with his mates of the Faran-
dole and the Liicifer^ he had staid over at Port
Tarascon, not daring to return in his tattooed
condition to any Christian land. Resuming the
attributes of an apothecary — he was now a sim-
ple medical assistant, very low in rank, under
the orders of Tournatoire — the late Provisional

PORT TARASCON.

195

Governor preferred exile, even in these condi-
tions, to the exhibition in civilized countries of
his monstrous countenance and his hands all
pricked with vermilion.

To avenge himself for his misfortune, he

made the most
grewsome pre-
dictions to the
others. If they
complained of
the rain, of the
mud, of the mil-
dew, he shrugged
his shoulders.

" Oh, just wait
a bit, my dears ;
there's better still
to come."

And Bezuquet
was not mistaken.
Living, as you might say,
half in the water, with no
fresh meat to eat, many of us be-
gan to pay for it.

The cows had long since been eaten up, con-
demned immediately after our fruitless attempt
to make them figure in the arena. Only one
of them was reserved, in case of symptoms of

196

PORT TARASCON.

',/:^

famine. The settlement had ceased to look to
its hunters, though there were such crack shots
among them, all penetrated with Tartarin's prin-
ciples, counting three times for a quail and twice
for a partridge. The bother was that there were
neither partridges nor quails, nor anything that

resembled
them, nei-
ther the
gull nor
the sea-
mew, nor
any other
bird of the
ocean ever
touching
at this side
of the isl-
and. All that
the hunters
encountered in
heir excursions
were a few wild
pigs — very few indeed
— and here and there a kan-
garoo, who was very difficult to hit on account
of its leaps and bounds.

With this animal Tartarin was rather at a

PORT TARASCON. I 97

loss to say how much to count. One day, when
the great shot, the marquis, questioned him on
the subject, he repHed, a Httle at a venture, " I
think your lordship had better count six."

His lordship counted six, but brought home
from his ducking nothing but a very bad and
very incurable cold.

" I see that I shall have to go myself," said
Tartarin ; but he kept putting off this excur-
sion, and game kept growing constantly scarcer.
Certainly the big lizards were not bad, but if
you ate nothing else you grew terribly tired of
their tasteless white flesh. Bouffartigue, the
pastry-cook, adapting a receipt of our clever
monks at home, had found a way of potting and
preserving it, but in the long-run the colony got
very sick of it.

The want of exercise completed the effect
of the absence of fresh meat. Nobody went
out ; everybody stayed moping in the big house.
What in the world should they have done out-
side, lackaday ! in the rain, in the great pools,
in the lake of mud that surrounded them ?

There was not much "walking round" in the
evening. A few of the pluckier ones — Escarras,
Dourladoure, Mainfort, Roquetaillade — some-
times started, in spite of the downpour, to have
a dig at the ground, to try and do something

iqS port TARASCOW.

with their acres, loath to give up all attempt to
plant. But they came back aching with pleu-
risy and pneumonia, or else their sowing pro-
duced the most extraordinary things. In the
hot humidity of the drenched earth a celery-
stalk would become in a night a gigantic tree,
hard enough to crack your teeth. That sort of
thing couldn't be eaten. The development of
the cabbage was phenomenal, but it was all in
stem as long as an alpenstock. As for potatoes
and carrots, they were no use at all.

Bezuquet had told the truth when he said
that things would either not come up at all or
come up too far.

To these manifold causes of demoralization
add the simple disease of " pining," of home-
sickness, a longing for sun-warmed nooks and
corners, under old walls gilded with the light of
Provence ; for our great, fresh, healthy breezes,
when the mistral bends the rows of cypresses,
or splits off in great scales the bark of the plane-
tree.

Nothing: of that sort on the wretched island
— nothing but permanent rain. The number
of the sick couldn't fail to increase steadily.
Happily for them the Commissioner of Health,
more of a Tarasconian than of a doctor, had a
limited faith in the pharmacopceia.

PORT TARASCON.

199

"I'm not one of your druggers and dosers,"
he said. Just the opposite in this of his prede-
cessor, Bezuquet.

Every morn-
ing, on their
. _ Mo:w:^t ^ rounds, this pair

met at the bedsides of
their patients, and while Bezuquet instantly sug-
gested his various poultices and plasters, Tour-
natoire only prescribed a nice little garlic
broth.

And it is not to be denied, my fine friend,
as they say down there, you had people all

200 PORT TARASCON.

swelled up, without voice or breath, already
wantins^ to save their souls and make their
wills, when in came the nice little garlic broth,
three sprigs for a small pot, a bit of roast meat
in three spoonfuls of olive oil, and the same
individuals who had been so far gone began to
sniff and say, " Bless my soul, it smells good !"

The mere smell immediately brought them
round.

They took a plate, then another plate, and
at the third they were sitting up, sir, or even
standing up, with their voices restored and the
swelling quite gone down. In the evening you
saw them in the parlor taking a hand at be-
zique. Ah ! the garlic of salvation, the garlic
of Providence !

A single patient, a patient of position, the
high and mighty lady, Madame des Espazettes
de Lambesc, had rejected Tournatoire's reme-
dy. Garlic broth was good for the Rabblebab-
ble, but when one comes down from the Cru-
sades— She wouldn't hear of it any more
than she would hear of the marriaoe of her
daughter Clorinde to Pascalon. As soon as
either this marriage or the garlic broth was
mentioned, she gave a " Pouah !" of haughty
disgust, which, in the Tarasconian fashion, she
pronounced " Puai !"

PORT TARASCGN.

2CI

The unhappy
lady was, howev-
,, y^ er, in a very bad

way. Yes, poor

»- thinsf, she had sfot it.

Understand by this

vague pronoun the in-

vv,'^^''! scrutable, preposterous,

aqueous aihiient which had settled upon our little

band of Southrons. Those whom it attacked

202 PORT TARASCON.

suddenly became very ugly, their eyes began
to goggle, their arms and legs to swell ; it made
them think of the terrible disease let loose
by Mr. Mauve in the legend of the Son of
Man.

The poor marquise had begun to " pro-
trude " everywhere. I beg your pardon for
this peculiar expression. It occurs in the Me-
viorial amid the record, full of delicate emotion,
of our gentle and desperate Pascalon's visits to
the city.

Authorized to pay them without hope, he
turned up at the big house every evening and
found the marquise in bed, under the shelter of
a great blue cotton umbrella attached to the
head of her couch. This arrangement prevailed
in all the cubicles, on account of the cracks in
the roof and the sudden leaks from conduits
that had burst.

But while she kept groaning under her um-
brella, the marquise would have nothing to do
with the garlic broth. To the entreaties of her
husband, of her daughter, even of Pascalon,who
sometimes ventured to propose, with his stut-
ter, a little sou-sou-soup, she replied, with an in-
expressible gesture of disgust, " Puai !"

Then the unfortunate Pascalon remained si-
lent, seated near the bed, watching the noble

PORT TARASCON. 203

lady " protrude " still further ; while the long
Clorinde, preparing the camomile tea, came and
went with the graceful skip of a young kanga-
roo, and the marquis, in a corner, philosophi-
cally filled his cartridges for the next day's
chase.

Roundabout in the neighboring cubicles the
water trickled down on the open umbrellas, the
children squalled, and contentious sounds, the
uproar of political discussion, came in from the
saloon, mingled with the perpetual patter of
the rain on the windows, on the zinc patch of
the roof, and the universal guttering of the
water.

Between whiles Costecalde kept up his un-
derhand intrigues, by day at headquarters, and
in the evening in the private room that had
been assigned to him as Commissioner of Agri-
culture. Barban and Rugimabaud, who had
sold their souls to him, helped him to diffuse
the most sinister rumors, this one among oth-
ers, " The garlic is giving out !"

It was appalling to think that it might run
short in the government emporium, this blessed
garlic, the savior, the healer, the universal pan-
acea. Costecalde accused the "state of things"
of monopolizing it for himself and his creatures
— of committing personal excesses with it.

204 PORT TARASCON.

Escourbanies (and with what a voice !) backed
up these cakimnies of his brother Commissioner.
There is a Tarasconian proverb which says that
the scoundrels who quarrel by day steal togeth-
er at night. This was quite the case with the
double-faced Escourbanies, who at headquarters,
before Tartarin, talked against Costecalde, while
in town in the evening he took (what will you
have ?) the opposite line ; obeying thus an in-
stinct of flattery which always led him, such was
his desire to please, to grovel before the person
with whom he happened to find himself.

The women took part in these discussions,
and they were not the least contentious debat-
ers ; their tongues went like windmills ; they
made more noise than all the men together, in-
cluding Escourbanies. Indeed, this political in-
iierference of the ladies was one of the greatest
dangers for the party in power; for though in
our southern households the woman is not sup-
posed to count for much, and has not the formal
honors, she is in reality the pivot of the family
life.

Tartarin, whose kindness and patience we
have not now to discover, bore up long against
these manoeuvres.

He was far, indeed, from being unaware of
them. In the evening^, when he smoked his

PORT TARASCON. 2O5

pipe, leaning on his elbows at his open window
— for, in spite of the rain, his powerful nature
needed the refreshment of the outer air — while
he listened in this attitude to all the sounds of
the night, the murmur of the Little Rhone mix-
ed with those of all the rivulets formed by the
downpour on the hills, he distinguished distant
voices, the echoes of speeches, and saw through
the thick atmosphere (it was as thick as water
could make it) the wavering lights in the case-
ments of the big house. Political passions surged
and sputtered yonder in the city.

The heart of our great Tartarin bled at the
thought that all this confusion was caused by
that monster of a Costecalde; his hand trem-
bled on the window-bar, his eye darted a flame
in the dusk — he could fancy himself en the track
of a wild beast. But as, after all, these emotions,
combined with the damp of the night, might
bring on the disease, he controlled himself,
closed the window again, and went quietly to
bed.

At last, however, matters reached such a point
that he decided on a great step.

He suspended the pay of Costecalde and his
two myrmidons ; he abrogated their titles and
dignities, and even deprived the first-named of
his mantle of Grandee of the First Class. He

206 PORT TARASCON.

appointed Beaumevieille, a former haberdasher,
Commissioner — a very honest man, though not
perhaps knowing much more about planting and
reaping than his predecessor. Beaumevieille
would, at any rate, be admirably seconded by
Labranque, a former manufacturer of oil-cloth,
and Rebuffat — the one who used to keep the
great place for caramels ; they were to replace
Rugimabaud and Barban as sub-commissioners.

The Governor's decree was posted up early
in town, that is to say, on the door of the big
house ; so that Costecalde, coming out in the
morning to proceed to his office, received the
affront of it full in his face. Which was a
mighty good job, adds Pascalon in his Memo-
rial.

This coup d'etai produced an immense agita-
tion in the settlement. The settlers flew about,
reading the decree over and over and criticisino:
it, so that the general residence had the buzz
of a frigrhtened hive.

For a long time back Costecalde and his min-
ions had held themselves ready for a movement,
and it may be seen by what followed how right
Tartarin was to act with vigor.

Lord save us, it was only just time !

In the space of four or five hours some twen-
ty, perhaps, of the disaffected sprang up and di-

PORT TARASCON. 207

rected their steps to the citadel; these comprised
the former habitues of the Cafe Pinus, together
with Pinus himself, who had never forgiven the
closing of his establishment. They were all
armed to the teeth, and they all cried : " Down
with the Governor! Death to the Governor!
Chuck him into the Rhone ! Zou, zou ! Res-
ignation ! Resignation !"

The troop was followed by four or five ex-
cited viragoes, and by the precious Escourba-
nies, howling even louder than the others :

" Resign ! Resign ! Let's make a noise —
make a noise !"

Unfortunately it was raining, it was pouring,
and this obliged each of them to hold his um-
brella in one hand and his gun in the other.

Besides, the Government had taken its meas-
ures.

Passing the Little Rhone, the insurgents
found themselves before the citadel, and what
did they see there ?

On the first floor Tartarin loomed up at the
ivindow, armed with his deadly Winchester and
supported by his faithful cap-shooters and can-
shooters, the infallible marquis much to the
fore ; all of them shots, mind you, who, at twen-
ty paces, counting four, could put their ball into
the little round label on a box of potted pears.

208

PORT TARASCON.

But what frightened the wretches above all
was the appearance of Brother Bataillet, who,
under the hood of the great door, bent over his
culverin, ready to fire at the first sign from
Tartarin.

So terrible and unexpected was the sight of
this artillery and its lighted match that the reb-
els wavered, and Escourbanies, turning one of
the moral somersaults which he so frequently

PORT TARASCON. 2O9

practised, had time to begin to dance the horn-
pipe of success under Tartarin's window, roar-
ing out, as fast as he could draw breath: ' Lons:
live the Governor ! Lonof live the ' state of
things !' Let's make a noise ! Ah ! ah ! ah !"

Tartarin, from his lofty post, still handling
his thirty-two shooter, responded, in a ringing
voice : " Let's turn in again, my disaffected
friends. The rain is coming down, and I am
loath to expose you longer to such inconven-
ience. We shall now call together our good
subjects in their comitia, and inquire of the na-
tion if our services be any longer required. I
recommend quiet until then — or else just step
back !"

The vote was taken on the morrow, and the
actual state of things re-elected by a crushing
majority.

A few days later, as a contrast to all this agi-
tation, occurred a touching ceremony, the chris-
tening of young Likiriki, the little Papuan prin-
cess, daughter of King Nagonko and pupil of
Brother Bataillet. His Reverence had com-
pleted the work of conversion inaugurated by
Father Vezole — God be praised !

She was truly a delightful little monkey, this
yellow-skinned princess, bedecked with red neck-
laces, in the short frock striped with blue made

2IO PORT TARASCON.

forher by Mademoiselle Tournatoire. Buoyant,
elastic, plump, and round, she could never keep
still — her legs were perpetually going off like a
clown's.

The Governor was godfather, and Madame
Franquebalme godmother. She was christened
under the names of Mary- Martha- Tartarina.
Only, on account of the dreadful weather that
prevailed that day, as it prevailed the day be-
fore, and as it would prevail on the morrow, the
function could not take place, as in the case of
Miraclete, at St. Martha's of the Palms, which
was now half full of water, its roof of foliage
havino- Ions; since fallen in.

The company collected for the ceremony in
the saloon of the general residence, but this did
not prevent our dreamy and poetic Pascalon
from harking back to the happ)^ day on which
he too had stood at the font with his dear Clo-
rinde, so often denied him, yet so consistently
loved.

The passage in his diary — we continue sim-
ply to give the general drift of it — bearing on
this episode is marked with a trace of tears, al-
most blurring out the words, " Poor little me
and poor little she !"

It was on the day following the baptism of
Likiriki- Tartarina that a most frio^htful catas-

O

PORT TARASCON.

211

trophe occurred. But the facts here acquire a
gravity ; let us leave the story to the Memo-
rial.

V

o'-*/

212 PORT TARASCOX.

IV.

December 4th. — To-day, the second Sunday
in Advent, we have been visited by a fearful
calamity, of which the consequences are deplo-
rable, and the effect on the settlement may be
most disastrous.

The verger Galoffre, Inspector of the Navy,
on o^oinof to examine the lono--boat, as he does
every morning, finds it gone.

The staple, the chain, the whole fastening
have been pulled out.

He thought at first it might be some new
trick of Nagonko and 4iis gang, as we are al-
ways suspicious of them; he thought that dur-
ing the night they might have been prowling
about this side of the island.

But, lo and behold, in the cavity left in the
post by the extraction of the staple, the Inspect-
or discovered, quite soaked with water and soil-
ed with mud, an envelope addressed to his Ex-
cellency !

PORT TARASCON.

213

Guess, now, what this envelope containedo
A visiting-card of our gracious Costecalde,
still inscribed with all his titles, Commissioner
of Agriculture and Grandee of the First Class,
and bearing in the corner, in pencil, the letters
P. P. C. Beneath were the names of Barban and
Rugimabaud, together with those of four mili=
tiamen, Caissargue, Bouillargue, Truphenus, and
RoQuetaillade.

214 PORT TARASCON.

For some days past the launch had been quite
ready, suppHed with provisions in view of a new
expedition planned by his doughty Reverence.

The wretches took advantage of this piece
of good-luck. They have carried off the whole
blessed thing, even the compass and their very
muskets.

Oh, the brigands ! oh, the deserters ! — to call
them thieves is to flatter them !

And to think that the first three are married
— that they leave behind them their wives and
a litter of brats! Their wives I can understand
— at a pinch you may leave your wife — but the
children are another matter.

In the city, at first, the thing was not believed ;
but after no room was left for doubt, you should
have seen the general uprising against the
traitors !

Madame Costecalde, a poor affair, reduced to
idiocy by her husband, was completely crushed.
The two others, Madame Barban and Madame
Rugimabaud, veritable furies, called down on
the heads of their respective ruffians every con-
ceivable catastrophe — shipwreck and drowning,
with some barbarian belly for a tomb. Madame
Barban especially yelled out her imprecations,
her hands trembling with rage like the twigs
of a tree.

PORT TARASCON.

215

-£^-

The general feeling evoked by this event has
been a kind of stupor. It seems now as if our
communications with the rest of the world were
destroyed. So long as we had the launch there
remained some hope of our reaching the conti-
nent by a kind of progress from island to island
— some belief in the possibility of looking for
help.

2l6 PORT TARASCON.

Brother Bataillet broke into a terrible rage,
appealing to heaven for all its thunder -bolts
ao-ainst our \vronQ;ers. Escourbanies, character-
istically, went about shouting that we ought to
have them shot like green monkeys, and that
by way of reprisals we ought to put their wives
and children to the sword.

The Governor alone kept his equilibrium.

" We must not get started," he remarked to
Escourbanies. "After all, they are still Taras-
conians. Let us pity them ; let us think of
the dangers they must run. Truphenus alone
among them has some idea of the management
of a sail."

Then came to him the fine thought of mak-
ing the forsaken children the wards of the
colony.

At bottom, I suspect he was not sorry to have
got rid of his mortal enemy and the latter's
minions.

During the day his Excellency dictated me
the following general order, which has been
posted up in town :

" General Order.

" We, Tartarin of Tarascon, Governor of Port Tarascon
and its Dependencies, Grand Ribbon of the Order, etc.,
etc., etc.,

" Recommend to the population the greatest cahii.

PORT TARASCON. 21']

"The guilty parties will be followed up with energy, and
subjected to all the rigor of the law.

"The Commissioner of Artillery and of the Navy is
charged with the execution of the present order."

Then, to wind up, and to reply to certain evil
rumors that have been for some time in circu-
lation, he directed me to add this postscript:

"The garlic will not give out."

December 6th. — The Governors order has
produced the very best effect in the city.

A reflection might, indeed, have been made
as to how we shall follow them up, and in what
direction, and with what means of getting afloat,
inasmuch as we have no idea where they have
gone, and no boat into the bargain. But it is
not for nothing that one of our local proverbs
says that you must take man by his tongue and
the bull by his horns. The Tarasconian race is
so sensitive to fine words, letting them lead it
so by the nose, that no one has doubted or
questioned for a moment.

Moreover, a sunbeam happened to peep out
between two showers, and this was enough to
cheer every one up. Now, for the hour, we all
turn out on the Walk Round; we do nothing
but laugh and lark. Ah, the good old stock —
the dear old stock ! •

2l8 PORT TARASCON.

December loth. — An unheard-of honor has
befallen me. I have been created Grandee of
the First Class.

At breakfast this morning I found my patent
under my plate. The Governor shows himself
deliofhted to have been able to confer on me
this high distinction. Franquebalme, Baume-
vieille, and Brother Bataillet seem equally grati-
fied with myself at this new dignity which ren-
ders me their equal.

It has rained, of course, but to-day the rain
has struck me, somehow, as less dreary.

In the evening, my visit to the city. The
news was already known, and among my noble
friends I was particularly congratulated. The
marquis gave me the accolade, Clorinde was
flushed with pleasure. No one but her lady-
ship appeared indifferent to my happiness.

Still awfully sick, still declining to have any-
thing to do with the garlic broth, she struck
me, under her umbrella, as protruding and sulk-
ing still more. Haughty as ever, she referred
with contempt to my wonderful investiture —
" Puai !" In her eyes, even this does not ele-
vate me in the social scale. Dear me, what in
the world does she want ? To come in for the
first class — at my age !

But, in spite of everything, I cherish the

PORT TARASCON. 219

hope that this new dignity, the honors with
which I am overwhelmed, the importance of
my functions, and the brilliancy of my future,
will, perhaps, finally get the better of her feel-
ing of caste.

December loth. — A dreadful rumor — in a
whisper — is going the rounds: the garlic is
runninor down !

If it should really give out, what on earth
would be the end of us ?

Frightful, indeed, to have to face without gar-
lic the innumerable feverish forms of rheuma-
tism that besiege us !

December 14th. — Something extraordinary is
going on at headquarters — something so extraor-
dinary that I scarcely dare to hint at it in this
record. I have doubted long of so strange an
anomaly, but at last it has become visible for
all — so visible that last evening, in town, all the
world was talking of it.

The Governor entertains a feeling !

And for whom, pray ? Why, for the little
monkey Likiriki, his godchild, who is certainly
a nice little thing, but has none the less re-
mained, under her varnish of education and
conversion, a lying, pilfering, gluttonous, dan-
gerous savage.

He — he! Tartarin, our s^rcat Tartarin, who

220

PORT TARASCOrv".

mio-ht have made the sjrandest matches, practi-
cally in love with a monkey ! Royal blood, if
you will, but with manners and customs so gro-
tesque, with her little skirt in rags, and her little

v^

person, on the days it

doesn't rain, perched on the

top of some cocoanut- tree,

from which she amuses herself with dropping

fruits as big as rocks on the heads of our most

venerable settlers. The other day she almost

put an end to one of the fathers of the state.

If any one asks where her Highness may be,
you hear something scramble down from the

PORT TARASCON. 22 1

branches, and the young lady presents herself.
And then, what manners at home !

I needn't call attention to their disparity of
age. Tartarin is quite sixty, grizzled, and fine-
ly filled out, whereas she is only twelve or four-
teen at the most — with these creatures you can
never tell.

I had certainly noticed sundry indications,
but I couldn't attach importance to them. For
instance, the indulgence of the Governor to the
old villain Nagonko — his allowances and atten-
tions— always keeping him to dinner when he
comes to headquarters. You should see the
filthy ways of the old gorilla — how he eats with
his fingers, and stuffs himself with everything,
especially with brandy.

He always ends with his incongruous song,
in his still more incongruous Proven9al, about
chucking people out of the window. In short,
no sort of form.

Tartarin has always treated all this as his
cheery, cordial ways ; and whenever the little
princess, following her father's example, has
played some trick that has given us all a shiver
in the back, the good Governor has only smiled,
beaming on her with paternal looks that seem to
make excuses for her, and to remind us that she
is onlv a child.

2 22 PORT TARASCON.

And, indeed, in spite of these symptoms,
and others still more conclusive, I continue to
doubt.

December iSth. — Impossible to doubt any
longer.

This morning in council the Governor open-
ed on the subject of his marriage to the little
princess.

He put forward the ground of policy, talked
of a mariage de convenance^ of the interests of
the settlement. He dwelt on the relations of
our little state, without alliances, lost on the
bosom of the deep. By marrying the daughter
of a Papuan king he would secure us a fleet of
pirogues, an army of mercenaries.

No one in the council raised an objection.

Escourbanies the first, dashed forward, stamp-
ing with enthusiasm : " Perfect, your Excellency
— a capital idea ! Ah ! ah ! ah ! When may we
look for the wedding?" This evening, in town,
who knows what infamies he will have invented?

Cicero Franquebalme by force of habit sorted
into two interminable little heaps, on the one
side and on the other, the arguments for and
against : " If, on the one hand, the colony, it is
not to be denied that on the other," etc., etc.
Finally, having considered everything, he gave
his assent to the Governor's plan.

PORT TARASCON. 223

Beaumevieille and Tournatoire were of the
same opinion; as for Brother Bataillet, he didn't
strike me as very warm, but having probably
been indoctrinated in advance, he didn't pro-
test.

The funny part of it was the shameless way
we all made believe— made believe that it was
really a question of the interests of the settle-
ment and of serious alliances. Tartarin, amid
a deep approving silence, continued to insist on
these high diplomatic considerations.

Then suddenly his kind old eyes filled with
bright tears, and he broke out, just as he might
have done at home : " And then, do you see,
gentlemen, it isn't so much all that — I'm sim-
ply fond of the little thing."

2 24 PORT TARASCON.

This was so simple, so touching, so Tarasco-
nian, that it quite went to our hearts. " Ah, go
ahead then, your Excellency, go ahead !" We
surrounded him, we pressed his hands. For
myself, Pascalon, also in love and having suf-
fered for love, Heaven knows how well I un-
derstood him !

December 20th. — The Governor's project is
much discussed in town, yet less severely than
I should have feared. The men treat it humor-
ousl}' — we are not Tarasconians for nothing —
with the drop of mischief that we always min-
gle with the question of love.

The women are more against him, especially
Mademoiselle Tournatoire's little set. Since
he wanted to get married, why not take his
wife from the nation } Many of them in talk-
ing so think, of course, of themselves and their
young ladies.

Escourbanies, coming down to town in the
evening, sided quite with the ladies, and put his
finger on the weak point of the alliance — the
bride's dreadful papa — such a father-in-law!
And then to marry a young person who has
partaken of our flesh ! One couldn't help
shudderino-.

I felt my blood getting up while the traitor
talked, and I bolted out of the room for fear of

PORT TARASCON. 22$

letting him have my fist in his face. You see
our blood is hot at Tarascon.

On leaving the general saloon I called on the
Espazettes. The marquise, dreadfully weak, is
still in bed, poor woman, determined to be dosed
and drugged by Bezuquet rather than give in
to Tournatoire and garlic.

In spite of her state, when she saw me come
in she began, with haughty raillery, "Well, my
Lord Chamberlain, w^ill there be ladies in wait-
ing^ attached to the new Oueen ?"

She wanted to make fun of me, but it in-
stantly struck me that there might be an open-
ins: in this for Clorinde and me.

Maid of honor or lady in waiting, my beloved
would have apartments in the citadel, and I
should be able to see her, to speak to her at
any hour. Could such happiness be possible.''

When I got back the Governor had gone to
bed, but I couldn't bear to wait till the morrow
to speak to him of my idea. It struck him as
sound policy. I lingered late beside his bed,
talking over his amours and my own.

December 22d. — Oh, these nobles — race of
hawks and vultures !

The marquise won't listen to it.

The marquis at a pinch would make the
best of it; with board and lodging at head-

15

226 PORT TARASCON.

quarters, better lodging than in town, and sport
and garlic at discretion, he would get on very-
well. But her ladyship — not at any price.

I pause ; she's a woman, after all, and I fear
my indignation may carry me too far.

December 2^th, Christmas Day. — Last night,
Christmas Eve, the whole colony assembled in
the grand saloon, the Government, the authori-
ties, all the world, and we kept the dear old
feast as we might have kept it at home.

Brother Bataillet said midnight mass, and
then we hid the fire, as we say in Provence.
It is done with a great yule-log, which is car-
ried round the room by the oldest person in
the company, and then placed upon the cinders
and sprinkled with white wine.

Princess Likiriki was present, laughing im-
mensely, and amused by the ceremony of the
log. The special sweets from Montelimar, the
Christmas cakes, and all the other delicacies
excited her spirits and her appetite.

Then we sang the yule-tide songs that we
sing at home: "I saw in the air an angel green,"
"St. Joseph showed me the Moorish King," and
many others.

The songs and the cakes, the great circle
round the fire, all brought back the mother-
land, in spite of the patter of the rain on the

PORT TARASCON.

227

roof, and the umbrellas all up on account of
the leaks.

At a given moment, whether on purpose or
not on purpose, Brother Bataillet struck up on
the harmonium the beautiful ballad of our orreat

J^

,i5,i

poet Mistral — the one about John of Tarascon
taken by the pirates.

It is the story of one of our people, who
goes among the Turks, assumes the turban,
becomes a renegade, and then, when he is on
the point of marrying the Sultan's daughter,

2 28 PORT TARASCON.

hears from the shore an old Tarascon song,
sung in the vernacular by mariners from his
country.

Then, as the water splashes up under the
oar, so a great flood of tears bursts his hard,
heart. He thinks of the land he has disowned ;
he thinks and despairs — despairs that he is
with the Turks. He pulls off the turban on
the spot, flings away the scimitar and the whole
business, and goes and joins the little Proven-
9al crew.

At the line about the water splashing up
under the oar a general sob broke forth ; the
Governor himself could scarcely wink away his
tears ; you saw the grand ribbon of the order
go up and down on his athletic chest.

It will, perhaps make a difference in a great
many things, this simple ballad, of our great
Mistral.

December 2<^th. — To-day, at ten o'clock in the
morning, we celebrated the marriage of his Ex-
cellency the Governor of Port Tarascon with
Princess Royal Likiriki.

The signers of the register were his Majesty
the bride's father, who made a cross for his
name, the Commissioners, and great dignitaries
of the settlement. Mass was said later in the
grand saloon.

PORT TARASCON.

229

The ceremony was simple and striking ; the
troops were all under arms, and every one in
full dress. Nagonko alone was rather a blot.

I

'^Lsfe-ta

'A'H

y

— i-'C.

His attitude, both as King and as father, was
nothing less than deplorable.

There was nothino; to be said against the

230 PORT TARASCON.

princess, who looked very pretty in her white
dress, reHeved by numerous coral necklaces.

The evening was a great revel, with double
rations, salvos of artillery, several rounds from
our can-shooters, and acclamations, choruses,
and universal joy.

Meanwhile it rains ; oh, it does come down !

But the popular rejoicing is not in the least
chilled.

POKT TARASCONo 2^l

0/

V.

"Look! look! A sail i A ship coming in!"

At this cry, uttered one morning by militia-
man Berdoulat, who was grubbing for turtles'
eggs in the drenching rain, the settlers of Port
Tarascon showed themselves at the apertures
of their mud-buried ark ; and while a thousand
cries re-echoed Berdoulat's call, " A sail! Look!
look I a sail !" the population, pouring out of
windows and doors, frisking and leaping like
clowns in a pantomine, rushed down to the
beach, which it filled as with the howlino- of
sea-calves.

•As soon as the Governor was notified, he
also rushed down, and while he went on but-
toning, stood radiant under the far from radiant
sky, amid the umbrellas of his subjects.

"Well, my children, didn't I tell you he would
come at last.-^ It's the duke !"

" The duke .?"

" Whom else would you have it be ? Cer-

232

PORT TARASCON.

tainly, our noble friend, coming to revictual
his colony; coming to bring us the weapons
and ammunition, the instruments, and those
strong arms of the Rabblebabble — bless them!
— which I've been asking him for from the
first."

You should have seen at this moment the
faces of consternation of those who had raved
the loudest against the dirty Belgian, for it was
not every one who had the impudence of Es-
courbanies, and was ready to begin so soon the
hornpipe of success. Escourbanies was already
dancing it. " Ah ! ah ! ah ! Long live the
Due de Mons !"

While this went on, a big steamer, high out

PORT TARASCON. 233

of water, very imposing, was moving up the
bay. She whistled and let off steam, cast an-
chor with a great rattle far from the shore, on
account of the coral reefs, then remained mo-
tionless and silent in the wet.

Our friends began to be rather surprised
that the people of the ship were not more ea-
ger to return their greeting, and reply to the
flapping of their umbrellas and the waving of
their hats. They thought his Grace a little
cold.

" If it comes to that, perhaps he's not quite
sure it's us."

" Perhaps he even knows the way we've been
abusing him."

" Abusins: him ? I never abused him in the
world !"

" No more did I ; never !"

" No more did I ; not a bit !"

Tartarin in all the confusion never lost his
head.

He ordered the flag to be flown on the pin-
nacle of the citadel, and to be backed up by a
shot or two.

The shot or two went off, and the Tarasco-
nian colors fluttered in the air.

At the same instant a frightful report re-
sounded through the bay, a cloud of heavy

234 PORT TARASCON.

smoke concealed the ship, and a kind of black-
bird, passing over the congregated heads with
a hoarse hiss, alighted on the roof of the em-
porium, from which it removed a corner.

At first there was a moment of simple stupor.

"Why, why, they're shoo — shoo — shooting
us !" shrieked Pascalon.

Imitating the embodied state, who had given
the signal, every one had bounced down on all-
fours.

" Dear me, then, it can't be the duke !" said
Tartarin, stretched straight on his stomach in
the mud.

Near him, wallowing like himself, Franque-
balme commenced, in a trembling voice and
without changing his position, one of his rigid
demonstrations ; " If, on the one hand, it were to
be the duke, on the other hand there would be
reason to supjDose — " So he went on.

The arrival of another shell cut his areu-
ment short.

Brother Bataillet alone had remained stand-
ing. In a thundering voice he called to his
gunner, Galoffre, declaring that between them
they must reply with the culverin.

" I forbid you to do anything of the sort, if you
please !" yelled Tartarin. " Such imprudence !
Hold him fast, all of you. Prevent him !"

PORT TARASCON,

235

Torquebiau and
Galoffre himself
seized his Rever-
ence, each by an
arm, and forced
him to he down on
his face hke the
others. At this
moment a third
shell whizzed over
from the ship.

It was plainly to
the flag of the
colony that these
strange missiles
were addressed ;
they were trying to
bring down the na-
tional colors.

Tartarin grasped
the idea, and under-
stood that, if the

flas: were removed, the shower of shells would
probably cease; so he bellowed out, with all the
voice he could command: " Devil take it! Haul
down the flag!"

Whereupon all the others began to bellow
with him: "Haul down the flag! haul down the
flag ! Don't you hear ?"

jllte^-

236 PORT TARASCON.

Every one heard, but nobody hauled, neither
settlers, nor soldiers, nor anybody else being ea-
eer to climb to such a dansferous eminence. It
was the brave maid-servant, to whom they al-
ready owed the patching of the roof, who became
the heroine of the occasion. She " shinned " up
the flag-staff as she was accustomed to " shin,"
and got possession of the unhappy bunting.

Only then the steamer ceased firing.

A few minutes later two launches laden with
soldiers, the glitter of whose arms was percepti-
ble in the distance, put off from the ship, and
approached the shore with the steady stroke of
the great oars of men-of-war.

As they got nearer, our friends could make
out the English colors dragging from the stern
in the foamy wake.

The distance was still great, so that Tartarin
had time to pick himself up, to tidy himself,
and brush off the mud-stains from his clothes
— time even to send for the grand ribbon of the
order, which he hastily passed over his shoul-
der.

He looked sufficiently like a public character
by the time the two boats ran up the beach.

The first person to jump ashore was an Eng-
lish officer, red-faced and haughty, with his hat
cocked up. Behind him came the sailors in a

PORT TARASCON. 237

row, with the name of their ship, the Toma-
hawk, on the ribbon of their caps, and these
were followed by an escort of marines.

Tartarin, now on his feet and conscious of
his grand ribbon, had quite recovered his dig-
nity; he held up his head; his lip curled with
the spirit of his great hours.

He waited, having Brother Bataillet on his
right and Lawyer Franquebalme on his left.

As for Escourbanies, instead of remaining
with the Governor he had pranced out to meet
the English officer, and was quite ready to dance
a frantic hornpipe before the victor.

But the representative of her gracious Majes-
ty was not all gracious himself. Without pa}--
ing the slightest attention to this misplaced
bowing and scraping, he turned a somewhat
astonished eye over the blue and red umbrel-
las of the strange tribe before him, and advanc-
ing towards Tartarin, inquired in English, "And
what nation?"

Franquebalme, understanding a little Eng-
lish, replied: "The Tarasconian."

The officer stared at this announcement of a
nationality he had never met with in any chart,
and demanded, with still greater insolence:
"What are you doing on this island? By what
right do you occupy it?"

23«

PORT TARASCON.

r iHniu; I Franquebalme,

deeply discon-
certed, translated
the inquiry to Tar-
tar in, who exclaimed:
"Answer that the island is ours, Cicero, that
it has been ceded to us bv Kins; Nasfonko, and
that we have a treaty in perfect order."

But Franquebalme had no need to go on
interpreting. The Englishman turned to the
Governor and said, in excellent French :
" Kinq; Nas^onko ? Don't know him !"
At this Tartarin instantly ordered Nagonko
to be hunted up and brought down.

While they were waiting, he proposed to the
officer to accompany him to headquarters, where
the treaty would be exhibited.

PORT TARASCON, 239

The officer assented, and followed Tartarin,
leaving a number of his companions in charge
of the boats.

The marines were drawn up in a row before
them, with their muskets dropped and their bay-
onets erect — such big, sharp, shiny bayonets !

" Be calm, my children, only be calm," said
Tartarin, making his way through the terrified
crowd.

The recommendation was very useless except
for Brother Bataillet, who continued to foam.
But they had their eyes on him ; he was nar-
rowly watched. " If your Reverence doesn't
mind what he's about, I promise you I'll tie
you," said his gunner, wild with terror.

Meanwhile they were looking for Nagonko,
and shouting for him everywhere^ seemingly
in vain. At last a militiaman discovered him
hidden among the stores. As the door of the
magazine had been smashed in by a shell, he
had taken advantage of it to follow up the pro-
jectile, and was now snoring between two bar-
rels, drunk with garlic, lamp-oil, and spirits of
wine, with our reserve of which he had made
terrible havoc.

In this condition, sticky and stinking, drip-
ping with grease, he was brought before the
Governor and the English officer. But it was

240 PORT TARASCON.

impossible to get a word out of him. He stood
there Hke a log, dumbly glaring.

Then Tartarin had the treaty brought, and
read it aloud, showing Nagonko's signature, his
cross, and the seals of the Governor and of the
grand dignitaries of the colony.

Either this authentic document would prove
the settlers' right to the island, or nothing else
would prove it.

But the officer, shrugging his shoulders, said,
"This nigger is simply a swindler, sir; he has
sold you what didn't belong to him. The isl-
and has long been an English possession."

In the face of this formal declaration, to
which the guns of the Tomahawk and the bay-
onets of the marines added very considerable
weight, Tartarin felt all discussion to be use-
less.

He contented himself with making his abom-
inable father-in-law a terrible scene. "You
hoary rascal, why did you tell us the island was
yours? Why did you sell it to us? Do you
wish to pass for a dishonest man ?"

Nagonko remained speechless, goggling still
more, and looking still more like a brute ; his
very limited and very primitive intellect having
quite evaporated in the fumes of garlic and al-
cohol.

PORT TARASCON. 24 I

Tartarin, seeing he should get no sort of sat-
isfactory answer from him, made a sign to the
militiaman who had brought him — " Take him
away !"

Then turning to the officer, who had remain-
ed stiff and inexpressive during the scene, " In
any case, sir, my good faith is beyond question."

'' The English courts of justice will settle
that, sir," the other replied, from the tip-top of
his superiority. " From this moment you are
my prisoner. As for the inhabitants, if the isl-
and be not evacuated in the next twenty-four
hours, they will all be put to the sword."

"Cracky! put to the sword!" Tartarin ex-
claimed. " But, in the first place, how in the
world shall we evacuate — we haven't a single
boat — unless we undertake to swim?"

The formidable fellow was at last brouofht
round, and consented to carry the settlers as
far towards home as Gibraltar; on condition,
that is, that all arms were surrendered, even
the rifles of the crack shots, the revolvers, and
the thirty-two shooter.

Hereupon he went off to luncheon, leaving
a squad of men to mount guard over the cap-
tive Governor.

It was also the hour of the mid-day meal at
headquarters, and after having looked cvery-
16

242

PORT TARASCON.

where for his Excellency's wife, who continued
to bear the title of princess, as she was nowhere
to be found, not even on the top of some cocoa

palm, her place was left
empty.

Eve ry
one was
so shaken
that Broth-
er Bataillet
forgot to say

L.

I

vv

^^v

grace.

The Governor and
his staff had been eatino;

some time in silence, with
\ their noses in their plates,
when suddenly Pascalon rose
to his feet, and raising his
glass, addressed himself to ut-
terance.

" Gentlemen, our Go - Go-
Governor is a pri-pri-prisoner
of war. I needn't inquire if we
shall not follow him into ca-ca-captivity!"
They sprang to their feet with uplifted glass-
es, shouting with enthusiasm :
" All of us— all of us !"
" Dash our eyes if we don't follow him I"

PORT TARASCON. 243

" Rather — rather !"

" Long live Tartarin ! Ha! ha! ha!" howled
Escourbanies.

But in another hour they had all given him
away, their poor Governor — all except Pascalon
— even his little royal spouse, who had been
miraculously found on the roof of the citadel.

At first she wouldn't come down ; her la-
dies in waiting, Mademoiselle Caussemille and
Mademoiselle Franquebalme, had been able to
bring her to it only by the distant exhibition
of an open box of sardines, just as a piece of
sugar is held out to a parrot who has escaped
from his cage.

" My dear child," said Tartarin, in his pater-
nal tone, when she was again at his side, " I must
tell you that I'm a prisoner of war. Which do
you like best, to come with me or to stay on
the island? I think the English would leave
you here."

Without the least hesitation, looking at him
with her smiling eyes, she replied, in her little
babbling speech, as soft as the twitter of a bird,
" Me tay in island ; me tay always."

"Very well, you're quite free," said Tartarin,
in a resigned tone.

But at bottom the poor fellow was awfully
cut up.

244 PORT TARASCON.

In the evening, in the stately desert of the
citadel, forsaken by his wife, by his dignitaries,
and all his servants, he had only the faithful
Pascalon at his side.

Through the open windows, from the dis-
tance, came the twinkle of lights in the city,
the hum of the great hive, the songs of the
English encamped on the shore, and the mo-
notonous murmur of the Little Rhone, swollen
by the rains.

It was all dreadfully dreary.

Tartarin closed his window again with a
heavy sigh, and while he tied up his head for
the night in the spotted bandana, he said to
Pascalon :

" When I learned that the others were go-
ing, and that they denied me, I bore it well
enough. But that little creature — I should
have thought she would have been more at-
tached to me."

The good Pascalon tried to console him.
After all, the little savage princess would be a
very queer piece of goods to carry back to Ta-
rascon — for back to Tarascon they of course
would go, if they could get there — and when
Tartarin should take up his old peaceful life
again, his Papuan wife might be rather in his
way and bring him under notice.

PORT TARASCON. 245

" Don't you remember, my dear, kind master,
that when you came back from Algeria your
ca-ca-camel was rather a bother?"

" My ca-ca-camel ? And pray what is there
in common?"

Pascalon turned very red. What an idea to
go and talk of a camel apropos of a princess of
the blood royal ! To make up for whatever ir-
reverence there might have been in the com-
parison, he called attention to the fact that
Tartarin's present situation was quite that of
Napoleon after he had been taken prisoner by
the English and deserted by Marie Louise.

"Quite so — quite so," said Tartarin, struck
by this similitude.

And this thoudit that his fate had a likeness
to Napoleon's had a good deal to do with con-
soling him — with giving him a quiet night.

The next day Port Tarascon was evacuated,
to the great joy of the settlers. Their irre-
coverable money, their humbugging acres, the
great financial operation, the great stroke of
the dirty Belgian who had victimized them
— nothing of all this was worth mentioning
beside their delight at getting out of their
swamp.

They were all taken on board first, because
in their rage against the Governor, whom they

246 PORT TARASCON.

held responsible for all their ills, they might
perhaps have done him a hurt.

At the moment they passed the citadel, on
their way to the boats, Tartarin showed himself
at his window, but he had to fall back quickly
before the jeers and gibes that greeted him,
and the clinched fists that were shaken at
him.

On a fine day the Tarasconians would per-
haps have shown him more indulgence, but
the unfortunates embarked in a pouring rain,
floundering in the mud, and carrying away on
the soles of their shoes tons of their precious
property. The bits of baggage that every one
had in his hand were dreadfully exposed by the
umbrellas.

When all the settlers had quitted the island
the English officer came to fetch Tartarin.

At headquarters, since morning, Pascalon
had been on the fidget, preparing everything,
doing up into bundles the archives of the
colony.

At the last hour he had a real inspiration of
genius — he asked Tartarin if he shouldn't put
on his mantle of Grandee of the First Class to
go on board.

" Yes, let them see it ; it will niake an im-
pression," replied the Governor.

PORT TARASCON.

247

And he himself put on the grand ribbon of
the order.

Below, on the pavement, rang the butts of
the muskets of the escort and the hard voice

of the officer — " Come, Monsieur Tartarin, we
wait for your Excellency."

Before oroins: down Tartarin took a last look
around him at the house in which he had

248 PORT TARASCON.

loved, in which he had suffered^ — known all
the intensity of passion and power.

Observins: at this moment that Pascalon
seemed to be hiding something under his
mantle of the first class, he inquired what the
object might be ; on which Pascalon, stuttering
not a little with emotion, confessed to his kind
master the existence of the Memorial.

" Very well ; go on, my child," said Tartarin,
gently, and pinched his ear as Napoleon used
to pinch his grenadiers. " You shall be my
little Las Casas."

The analogy of his destiny with Napoleon's
had occupied his spirit all night. Yes, they
were quite the same: the English, Marie, Las
Casas — a real identity of circumstance and
type. And both of them from the South !

BOOK THIRD.

Tartarin's dignified mien, as he stepped on
the deck of the Tomahawk, was not lost upon
his captors. They were especially impressed
by the grand ribbon of the order — pink, with
the embroidered Tarasque — with which he had
the odd idea of scarfing himself, as if it had
been a masonic symbol, as well as with the red
and black mantle of Grandee of the First Class,
in which Pascalon was draped from head to foot.

The English have, in fact, beyond everything,
a respect for constituted order, and even for
constituted eccentricity. To be very queer,
among them, is a title to esteem — it is only a
question of being queer enough.

In our Algerian dependency persons ani-
mated by this respectable oddity are called ma-
botil — cracked.

250

PORT TARASCON.

Half-way up the side Tartarin was received
by the officer on duty, and conducted with the
greatest consideration to a first-class cabin.

Pascalon was then rewarded for having fol-
lowed his kind master into captivity, inasmuch
as he had a room near the Governor's assigned
him, instead of being thrust between the for-
ward decks like the rest of the Tarasconians,
who were huddled together as if they had been
a herd of wretched emigrants. With them, in
degrading promiscuity, was confined the whole

PORT TARASCON. 25 I

of the former staff, punished in this manner for
its weakness and cowardice.

Between Tartarin's cabin and that of his
faithful secretary was a Uttle saloon furnished
with ottomans, embellished with panoplies and
great exotic plants, and opening into a small
dining-room, in which perpetual coolness was
diffused from two great blocks of ice, placed in
vases in the angles>

A butler and two or three footmen were at-
tached to the person of his Excellency.

Tartarin accepted these honors without sur-
prise, and when the officer who showed him
about remarked to him in French that if he
should be in want of anything he had only
to ask for it, the hero replied with the " Quite
so, quite so " of a sovereign accustomed to ev-
ery deference, to the anticipation of his every
wish.

At the moment they weighed anchor he as-
cended to the deck, in spite of the rain, to take
a supreme leave of his island.

It rose there dimly in the broth of mist, but
it was sufficiently distinct under its gray veil to
yield a glimpse of King Nagonko and his ruf-
fians engaged in pillaging the big house and
dancing a frantic fandango on the shore.

All Brother Bataillet's catechumens, with the

252

PORT TARASCON.

departure of missionaries and constables, re-
turned to the sweet spontaneity of nature.

Pascalon even thought he recognized, in the
maze of the dance, the graceful silhouette of
Likiriki ; but of this he was not quite sure.

Leaning on the bulwarks, the hero of Taras-
con looked at it all in perfect calm. The re-
semblance of his fate to Napoleon's had given
him a kind of alabaster attitude.

This resemblance was often in his mind ; he
often recurred to it.

" Yes," he said to his little Las Casas, " there
are strans^e communities between us." Like
the great Emperor, he was fond of representa-
tion, of platforms and costumes. He admitted
it quite frankly. " It's true, I confess, I am im-
pressed by feathers and flourishes, by the noise
and glitter of great reviews of armies — and,

PORT TARASCON. 253

like him, I have been perhaps too fond of
glory."

He recalled Napoleon, too, by the familiar,
traditional side — a resemblance that cropped
up even in little things, such as the taste for
sweet dishes. He was conscious of some of its
higher manifestations — the lofty and luminous
eloquence — the bursts of anger, terrible and
short.

" For instance, that time at the Cafe de la
Comedie, when I had the quarrel with Coste-
calde. Don't you remember, Pascalon ?"

And to the anecdote of the tray of Sevres,
broken one day by Napoleon, he compared the
cup of coffee that he himself, in a moment of
temper, had smashed at the club.

But the great point in common was the ex-
istence in each of the characteristic imagina-
tion of the South. Napoleon had it on the
grand scale, and so had he ; witness, on the
part of his predecessor, the Egyptian campaign,
all done on a camel's back, the Russian cam-
paign, and the dream of the conquest of India.
On his own side, had not his whole existence
been a fabulous dream of lions and mountains,
the conquest of the Jungfrau, the administra-
tion of an island five thousand leagues from
France } Certainly he didn't deny that the

2 54 PORT TARASCON.

Emperor, from a particular point of view, was
his superior ; but he at least had not shed
blood on such a scale, nor caused such terror
to mankind.

Meanwhile the island disappeared in the dis-
tance, and Tartarin, still with his elbow on the
bulwarks, continued to play to the gallery — to
the sailors who were removing the cinders scat-
tered on the deck, to the officers of the watch,
who had drawn nearer.

At last, as Pascalon began to have enough,
he asked his protector's leave to go forward and
mingle with the Tarasconians, whom they per-
ceived in a few frightened groups, in the rain,
removed from them by the length of the ship.
The young man pretended he wished to learn
what they were saying about the Governor;
but his real hope was to catch a glimpse of
his dear Clorinde, and be able to drop into her
ear a few words of encouragement and consola-
tion.

An hour later, when he came back, he found
Tartarin stretched on the couch in the little sa-
loon, airing himself in his drawers, quite as if
he had been at home at Tarascon, inliis little
house on the Long Walk, while he- finished a
pipe and sipped a delicious sherry-cobbler.

In a smiling mood, not the least morose, he

PORT TARASCON.

255

inquired, " Well, and what do you find those
good people say about me ?"

Pascalon couldn't conceal from him that it
had struck him their backs were rather up.

Huddled together between the forward decks
like cattle, ill fed and harshly treated, they re-
proached him with their principal misfortunes.

But Tartarin shrugged his shoulders. " Bah !
that will all evaporate the first time the sun
comes out."

256 PORT TARASCON.

He knew his people, you may well believe.

" I don't mean they really want to do any-
thing bad," rejoined Pascalon ; "but they are
worked up by that scoundrel of a Costecalde."

" Costecalde ! How is that ?"

Tartarin was somewhat disturbed by the
mention of this name. Pascalon explained to
him that Costecalde, whom the Tomahawk had
come across in mid-ocean and picked up out of
a drifting boat, in which he was dying of hun-
ger and thirst, had mentioned to the Commo-
dore the presence of a Tarasconian colony upon
English territory, and guided the ship even
into port.

The eyes of the Governor flashed. "Ah, the
traitor ! Ah, the reprobate !"

Then Pascalon, to soothe him, related the
dreadful adventures of Costecalde and his com-
panions.

Truphenus had been drowned ! The three
other militiamen, going ashore somewhere to
look for water, had fallen into the jaws of
the anthropophagi ! Barban had been found
dead of starvation in the bottom of the boat !
As for Rugimabaud, a shark had eaten him
up.

" Come, I say, a shark ! It's Costecalde who
ate him up !"

PORT TARASCON. 257

" But the most extraordinary thing of all,
your Ec-ec-Excellency, is that Costecalde pre-
tends to have encountered in mid-ocean, in the
midst of a storm, in the glare of the lightning
— guess what ?"

" What the deuce do you expect me to
guess ?"

" The Tarasque — the dear Old Granny !"

" Cracky, what a fraud !"

But, after all, the thing was not impossible.
The Tootoopimtpum might have been wrecked;
or else the Tarasque, roped to the deck, might
have been washed away by a great sea.

At this moment a steward brought his Ex-
cellency the bill of fare, and some moments
later Tartarin, in the best of humor, found him-
self at table with Pascalon before an excellent
champagne dinner — a dinner consisting of cer-
tain splendid slices of salmon and some won-
derful roast beef, done to the turn, quite pink,
with a delicious pudding to follow. Tartarin
relished his pudding so much that he request-
ed a substantial portion might be carried to
Brother Bataillet and Franquebalme. As for
Pascalon, he manufactured with the salmon
and the roast beef a few delicate sandwiches,
which he placed on one side. Is it necessary
to say for whom, lackaday .'*

17

258 PORT TARASCON.

On the second day of the trip, as soon as the
island was out of sight — it was as if its func-
tion in the archipelago had been to be an iso-
lated reservoir of rain and fog — the weather
turned fine. The ship pursued her course un-
der a bright soft sky, through an ocean deserv-
edly called Pacific.

Every day, after breakfast, Tartarin went
above and settled himself in his place, the same
place on the deck, to converse with his little Las
Casas.

Here was still another point of resemblance.
Had not Napoleon on the Northumberland his
favorite corner, the cannon on which he used to
lean, and which came to be called the Empe-
ror's gun ? Had the great Tarasconian this in-
cident in mind ? Was the coincidence not pure
chance? It may be so; but the fact should
not diminish him in our eyes. When Napo-
leon surrendered himself to England did he
not think of Themistocles, think of him undis-
guisedly ? " I come like Themistocles," and so
forth, and so forth.

Who knows whom Themistocles himself was
not thinking of when he came to sit by the
hearth of the Persians? Humanity is so old
that we are always treading in somebody's foot-
steps. As a matter of fact the anecdotes fur-

PORT TARASCON.

259

nished by Tartarin to his little Las Casas, his
backward grlances over his career, had but a
scant similarity to what is known of Napoleon,
and were quite personal to himself — Tartarin
of Tarascon.

His childhood in his native city figured in
this retrospect : his precocious adventures ; the
way that, as quite a little boy, he had had the
love of arms and of
the chase — the love
of the very smell of y

wild beasts. Then
how, in his rashest
pranks, his Latin
good sense had nev-
er forsaken him, a
sane inner voice say-
ing to him : '' Mind
you go home early.
Mind you don't take
cold."

" He sat on the
deck in the pleas-
ant sun, lolled in his
great rocking-chair,
with a smile on his
lips, and his eyes
dim with memories,

26o PORT TARASCON.

while at the other end of the ship peeped out
the captive heads of the wretched Tarasconians.
He summoned back far off things, such as a
visit one day to some gypsies who had en-
camped near the Pont du Gard.

" The sunshine played over the red masonry,
touched the great arches with fire. It was so
hot, I remember, that a bottle of lemonade that
I had put to cool in the river began to boil as
if it were on a gas-stove. The gypsies had
taken refuge in the shade of a cavern. When
we were near them a ragged old crone came
out to us, and after having studied the lines of
my hand to tell my fortune, she said, 'Some
day you'll be a king !' For a long time after-
wards I attached no importance to this proph-
ecy; I had quite forgotten it. But see how in
fact it has come true !" Then, after a mo-
ment's silence, he added : " You see I drop
these reminiscences helter-skelter, just as they
come to me, for I think they may be useful to
you for the Me7noriair

Pascalon drank in his hero's words, but he
was not the only one to drink them. Half a
dozen young midshipmen, collected round Tar-
tarin, listened open-mouthed to his stories. Not
far from them, stretched upon a bamboo couch,
a young married woman, the Commodore's lady.

PORT TARASCON.

261

listened as well. Of Anglo-Indian stock (Cal-
cutta was her home), much out of health, and
travelling to recover it, her warm pallor — a
cheek like the petal of a magnolia — her great
black eyes, gentle, pen-
sive, profound, gave
her a languid charm,
the effect
of which was
deepened by
the way a '
great ne-
gress in a
red turban
behind her
waved over her
head a big feather
fan. The Desde-
mona of the ship, she
slaked her thirst in the
eloquence of the captive
Othello.

Pascalon, very proud to see
his master with such an audience,
showed him off, drew him on to talk of his lion
hunts, of his ascent of the Jungfrau, of the mem-
orable siege of Pamperigouste ; while Tartarin,
expanding, let them have the whole thing, turn

262 PORT TARASCOX.

his pages like a book — some fine picture-book,
illustrated by his expressive Tarasconian habit
of acting whatever he said, and by the " bang !
bans: !" of his huntino- stories.

The AnQ;lo-Indian, in her extension-chair, as
drooping as a plucked flower, and curled up
in her laces to keep warm, shivered when his
voice rang out, and betrayed her emotions
by the pink flush in her cheek, as delicate as
a faint shade of carmine in a wash of water-
color.

When her husband, the Commodore, a kind
of Hudson Lowe, with the head of a tiger and
the cold eye of a jackal, came to say it was time
to go down, she supplicated, " No, no ! not yet !
not yet !" edging a glance towards the great
Tarasconian, who, as you may suppose, had not
failed to remark her, raising his voice for her
benefit, and giving another flourish to his noble
attitude and accent.

Sometimes when they went down to dinner,
after one of these sittings, he questioned Pas-
calon. " Wliat was the Commodore's lady say-
ing to you ? It seemed to me that she was
talking of me."

" Well, she was, mum-mum-master. Her lady-
ship was saying to me that she had already
often heard you spoken of."

PORT TARASCON.

26'

" That doesn't surprise me," said Tartarin,
simply. " I'm very popular in England."
Still another analogy with Napoleon !

One morning, when he had gone on deck
rather early, he was surprised not to find his
Anglo-Indian there as usual. She had proba-
bly been kept below by the bad weather, the
chill in the air that happened to have come
that day. Delicate, nervously sensitive, she had
shrunk from the mist and spray.

264 PORT TARASCON.

The agitation of the ocean seemed to pervade
the deck itself.

There had been an excitement about a whale,
an animal rare in those seas. This one had no
blow -holes, and spouted no water, which led
some of the sailors to declare that it was a fe-
male, and others to affirm that it was a particu-
lar species. They couldn't agree.

As the creature remained in the course of
the ship, sticking close to it, a young mid-
shipman asked leave of the Commodore to
go and try to get hold of him. A surly dog, as
usual, the Commodore refused, on the pretext
that they had no time to lose ; but he author-
ized the young man to try the effect of a few
shots.

The presumed whale was from two hundred
and fifty to three hundred yards away — now
showing, now diving, rising and falling with the
sea, whose perverse undulations made it very
difficult to hit him.

So a few shots ^vere taken, of which the sail-
ors in the shrouds announced the result, or
rather the absence of result, as the animal had
not yet been touched. He continued to play
upon the surface while every one watched, even
the poor Tarasconians shivering in the fore-
castle, drenched, soaked, far more exposed to

PORT TARASCON. 265

wind and weather than those who were quar-
tered aft.

Standing near the young officers who were
trying their skill, Tartarin pronounced on the
different shots : " Too far ! Too short !"

" Mum-mum-master, ii yo2c were to try!" bleat-
ed Pascalon.

Immediately, with a quick young impulse, one
of the midshipmen turned to Tartarin.

" Would your Excellency like a shot ?"

He offered his rifle, and the way Tartarin
took the weapon, weighed it, and shouldered it,
was something to see, as well as the way Pas-
calon asked, blushing, yet proud :

" How many times do you count for the
whale }''

" I haven't often tried this kind," answered
the hero, " but I think it's about eight."

He took aim, counted eight, fired, then re-
turned the rifle to the officer.

" I think she has got it," said the midship-
man.

" Three cheers !" cried the sailors.

" I knew it," said Tartarin, modestly.

But at this moment the air was rent with
dreadful howls, frantic cries, that brought up
the Commodore, who seemed to fancy his ship
had suddenly been boarded by pirates. The

266

PORT TARASCON.

Tarasconians
in the bows
rushed about
wringing their
hands and
brandishing
their arms, all
babbling to-
gether in the
noise of wind
and weaves.

" Heaven
help us, the
Tarasque! He
has shot the
Tarasque! He
has shot the

dear Old Gran-

I"
ny!

"Cracky !
what are they
saying?" asked Tartarin, turning pale.

About ten yards away from the ship the Ta-
rasque of Tarascon, the monstrous idol, reared
above the green billows her slimy, scaly back,
her chimera's head, with bloodshot eyes, and a
ferocious laugh on her vermilion lips.

Made of some very hard wood, with a solid

PORT TARASCON. 267

skeleton, she had kept afloat with wonderful
cleverness ever since the moment, as was after-
wards learned, a big sea had washed her off Scra-
pouchinat's deck. She had been rolling hither
and thither in the great tides and currents, tum-
bling and shining, stuck all over with sea-weed
and shells, outliving the typhoon and the cy-
clone, never sick nor sorry — indestructible, in
short — and now her first, her only wound, had
been inflicted by Tartarin of Tarascon.

To come from him — and to come to her !

The great fresh gash stared at them all from
the middle of the poor Old Granny's forehead.

One of the midshipmen cried : " I say, look
there. Lieutenant Swift! What extraordinary
beast can that be ?"

"That extraordinary beast is the Tarasque,
young man," said Tartarin, solemnly ; " the great
ancestress, the venerated grandmother, of every
good Tarasconian.

The officer stared in bewilderment, as well
he might, to learn that the quaint monster was
related by ties of blood to the strange, swarthy,
mustachioed tribe they had picked up on the
shore of a desert island.

Tartarin had uncovered, humble and respect-
ful, but the venerated grandmother was already
far, tumbling through the wide swell of the

268 PORT TARASCON.

Pacific. There she must wander still, an un-
submergable waif, mentioned here and there,
from time to time, in travellers' tales, now as a
gigantic polypus, now as a huge sea-serpent, and
ever the terror of crews and the stupefaction of
whalers.

As long as she was within sight Tartarin fol-
lowed her, in silence, with his eyes; and only
when she became at last a little black spot on
the white surge of the horizon he murmured,
feebly, to Pascalon, " Remember, / have told
you, my child, that's a shot that will bring me
bad luck !"

And all the rest of the day the hero was un-
easy, full of remorse and of a kind of sacred
dread.

PORT TARASCON. 269

II.

They had been sailing for a week, and were
approaching the fragrant shores of India under
the same clear and creamy sky, on the same
soft, oily sea, that Tartarin had enjoyed on his
first voyage, when, on a fine afternoon of heat
and light, he was dozing in his cabin, in linen
pantaloons, his dear old head done up in his
spotted bandanna, knotted like the peaceful
ears of a ruminant.

Suddenly Pascalon tumbled into the room.

"Eh.? What is it? What's the matter.?"
the great man broke out, pulling off his ban-
danna, which he was not fond of exhibiting.

"I th-th-think she's done for!" answered
Pascalon, out of breath, rounding his eyes and
stammering more than ever.

"Who's done for.? — the Tarasque.? Devil
take her, I know it too well !"

" No, no," said Pascalon, below his breath ;
" I speak of the Commodore's lady."

270 PORT TARASCON,

" Mercy on us ! poor little thing — she too ?
What makes vou think so ?"

For all answer Pascalon held out to him an
engraved card, nothing less than an invitation
to dinner that very evening from Commodore
Lord William and Lady William Plantagenet
— an invitation including his Excellency's secre-
tary.

" Oh, the old story — woman! woman!" Tar»
tarin cried ; for evidently this invitation must
have proceeded from her ladyship. The idea
could not have been the husband's ; he didn't
deal in such delicate attentions. " However,
ought I to accept .f* Doesn't my position of
prisoner of war — "

Pascalon, who had chapter and verse, re-
minded him that on the Northwnberland Na-
poleon ate at the Admiral's table.

"Yes, that settles it," Tartarin instantly re-
joined.

" Only the Emperor used to retire with the
ladies when the wine came on," Pascalon added.

" Perfectly ! that settles it still better. Reply,
in the third person, that we shall have the pleas-
ure of going."

" And we dress, master, don't we T'

" Certainly we dress !"

Pascalon would have liked to drape himself

PORT TARASCON. 27 I

in his mantle of Grandee of the First Class, but
Tartarin did not favor this measure, not intend-
ing himself to assume the ribbon of the Order.

" The invitation is not to the Governor ; it is
to Tartarin," he said to his secretary. " Don't
you see the shade ?"

There was nothing that the deuce of a fellow
didn't himself see.

The dinner was truly princely ; served in a
great glittering saloon that was furnished in the
rarest woods, and ceiled and wainscoted in that
deft and delicate English panelling in which
the fitting of the firm thin plates is like gold-
smith's work.

Tartarin was seated in the place of honor, on
Lady William's right. There were few guesis
— only Lieutenant Swift and the ship's doctor,
both of whom understood French. A footman
in nankeen livery, stiff and solemn, stood 'oe-
hind every chair. Nothing could have been
richer than the decanters and fiagjons and wine-
coolers, the massive plate with the Plantagenet
arms. In the middle of the table was a mas:-
nificent piece of silver overflowing with the
choicest flowers. You might have thought you
were dining with a viceroy.

Pascalon, naturally bashful in ail this splen-
dor, stuttered the more that he always happened

272 PORT TARASCON.

to have his mouth full when he tried to speak.
He admired the easy grace of Tartarin under
the observation of their tigerish host, who rolled
suspicious eyes, green eyes injected with blood,
and not rendered more human by albino brows
and lashes. This had not the least effect on
Tartarin : it was easy to see he was used to
creatures of the jungle. He talked to Lady
William with high courtesy, he chatted and ges-
ticulated, while his hostess scarcely made an
effort to conceal her sympathy for the hero,
looking at him with such orbs of her own, ex-
traordinary orbs, that seemed at once to laugh
and to languish.

" The unfortunates ! The husband will see
it all !" Pascalon said to himself every mo-
ment.

Her ladyship desired to know all about the
wonderful Tarasque.

So Tartarin told her the old tale of St. Mar-
tha and her blue ribbon ; told her of his people,
the history of the Tarasconian race, its tradi-
tions, and its exodus. Then he gave her a
sketch of his administration, his projects, his re-
forms, the new code of law that he had drawn
up. It was an odd thing, but it happened to
be the first time he had ever spoken of his code
of law.

PORT TARASCON.

273

He was profound ; he was bantering ; and,
grazing as he went the things of the heart, he
sang a few of the airs of his country — about
John of Tarascon, for instance, taken by Cor-
sairs, and his romantic amours with the Sultan s

daughter.

P

«f

^■L

Leaning over Lady WilHam, with what eyes
he devoured her as he sang the verse :

"They say that when he became general of the army,
With laurels on his brow, the laurels of the victor.
The daughter of the king, the daughter sweet and

shining.
Said to him, for she was smitten," etc.

He amused and delighted them all ; they all
relaxed and thawed under the influence of his
warm, sonorous voice.
iS

2 74 PORT TARASCON.

Her languid ladyship, usually so pale, turned
quite rosy.

She asked him about the national reel, the
famous farandole, that he was always talking
about. '

" Dear me, it's simple enough. I'll see if I
can't show you."

And wishing to monopolize the effect, he said
to his secretary, " No, Pascalon ; don't get up!"

He himself got up, striking out as he hummed
the air — ra-pa-ta, pa-ta-pla ! Unhappily at this
moment the ship gave a lurch, so that he pres-
ently found himself in a sitting posture on the
floor; but he picked himself up good-humor-
edly, and was the first to laugh at his misad-
venture.

The Englishry were tickled to death. The
banquet at this moment was drawing to a close
— poor Tartarin had scarcely tasted it — and as
the decanters had been ranged on the board, her
ladyship rose and rustled out.

At this the Tarasconian instantly tossed away
his napkin and followed her, without explanation
or excuse — conforming thus, in every particular,
to Napoleonic tradition. This was what Napo-
leon did ; so why shouldn't ke do it ?

The English looked at each other in stupe-
faction, and exchanged in their language a few

PORT TARASCON. 275

remarks that Pascalon only vaguely understood,
such as " original," " awfully queer," " off his
head."

The good secretary did his best to apologize
for his master; put forward the plea that his
Excellency, who scarcely drank any wine, was
never in the habit of sitting: lono:.

Then, as Tartarin was out of the way, it be-
came his turn to let himself go. Pascalon took
the floor and kept it. He told a series of sto-
ries of his own, and on the question of claret
was quite a match for his entertainers. You
wouldn't have recognized these starched gentry
under the contagious, humanizing, Southern in-
fluence of the two Tarasconians,

Shrewdly suspecting that his kind master had
gone to rejoin her ladyship on deck, Pascalon,
as soon as they rose from table, offered to take
a hand with the Commodore, w^iom he knew
to be a devotee of chess.

Their companions conversed roundabout, and
at a given moment Mr. Swift said something
to the doctor that made him laugh aloud.

The Commodore raised his head : " What is
Swift saying that's clever.'^"

Swift repeated what he had said, and the pair
laughed again.

Pascalon easily made out that they were talk-

276 PORT TARASCON.

ing of Tartarin, but he could only catch a few
words ; the sense was lost to him.

Meanwhile, what was Tartarin up to ?

He was on the deck, close to his hostess, and
the minutes elapsed for him with a charm and
a sweetness of their own. They drew an irre-
sistible poetry from the warm, scented breath
of the trade-winds, and from the rich glow on
sky and sea, and all over the deck of the ship,
of a great sunset that made all the ropes and
spars seem to trickle with gooseberry juice.
Leaning against Lady William's chair, our gal-
lant friend, who habitually wore his heart slung
over his shoulder, took advantao-e of the hour

O

for reverie, the hour for love; he bent towards
his companion and murmured low. Knowing
how women like to comfort and console, he re-
lated, in a voice muffled with emotion, the ro-
mance of his relations with the little dusky
princess. Pulling off the plaster, as it were,
from the sore of his grief, he drew a picture of
their heart-rending separation.

I won't declare to you that the picture was
very exact, that he didn't compose and arrange
it a little ; but, at any rate, he painted the scene
as he would have liked it to be. The " poor
child " had been dragged one way by family
duties and the other by conjugal love ; so that,

PORT TARASCON,

277

with his crushed heart, he could only bid her
remain with her old father, who had no one else
left. As he told these things he shed real tears,
and it seemed to him there were tears, too, in
the fine Anglo-Indian eyes that rested on him
while the sun slowly sank into the sea, leaving
on the horizon a kind of violet bloom.

But shadows approach, and the freezing voice
of the Commodore suddenly breaks the spell :

" It's getting late ; it's too cool for you, my
dear. You must go down."

She got up, and bowed slightly. " Good-
night, Monsieur Tarta-
nn.

He was infinitely

278 PORT TARASCON.

moved by the softness with which these words
were uttered.

He remained a few minutes longer on the
deck, walking to and fro, alone with his
thoughts ; but night was rapidly coming on.
The Commodore was right; the air was begin-
ning to freshen ; so he thought it best to go to
bed.

In passing the little saloon, of which the door
was ajar, he noticed Pascalon seated at a table
with his head in his hands, and the appearance
of turning with great intensity the leaves of a
lexicon,

" What are you doing there, my Pascalon }''

The faithful secretary, following him into his
cabin, apprised him of the scandal caused by
his abrupt withdrawal from the table. He
spoke of the phrase dropped by Lieutenant
Swift and overheard by the Commodore, who
had made him repeat it, to the general amuse-
ment.

" Although I understand English tolerabl}''
well," said Pascalon, " I didn't quite catch the
meaning of it. I only understood that they
were talking of something like a garden globe
— one of those big balls, silvered over, you
know, that stand on a lawn, and reflect sur-
rounding objects. But, as I remembered the

PORT TARASCON. 279

words, I've just been trying to reconstruct the
sentence."

While these explanations went on Tartarin
had lain down and stretched himself out in his
bed, quite at his ease, with his head done up in
his bandanna ; and he asked, while he lighted
the pipe that he smoked every night before he
went to sleep, "And how, then, does your trans-
lation come out ?"

" This way, my dear master — this is it : On
the whole, the Tarasconian is the Frenchman
magnified and exaggerated — seen, as it were, in
a garden globe."

" And you tell me that was what they found
to lauo-h at .^"

"All of them — the Lieutenant, the doctor,
the Commodore himself. They could scarcely
stop laughing."

Tartarin shrugged his shoulders with a gri-
mace of pity. " It tells the story of how rarely
the English have occasion to laugh, if that sort
of rubbish amuses them. Come, good -night,
my child ; go to bed yourself."

And soon they were both lapped in dreams —
dreams in which one communed with his Clo-
rinde, and the other with the Commodore's lady
— for Likiriki was already of the past.

The days followed the days and made up

28o PORT TARASCON.

weeks, and the voyage stretched out, adorable,
divine — an episode to count in Tartarin's hfe.

Ah! they were unforgettable hours — such
hours as one wishes to keep forever, to fix there
with a golden pin, as you fix a butterfly in a
glass case ; made up of long talks on the deck,
and of unexpressed affection for a charming
listening woman, of whom one asked nothing
more than the sympathy she had already shown.

Add to this the natural attraction that he
exercised on all round him, officers and sailors
alike havins: nothino: for him but kind smiles.
It was he who might have said, as Victor
Jacquemont* said in his correspondence : " How
odd is my fortune with the English ! These
men who seem so inexpressive among them-
selves, always so cold and dumb, my communi-
cativeness never fails to make them unbend.
They become affectionate in spite of them-
selves, and for the first time in their lives I
make capital kind people — I make Frenchmen
— of any Englishmen with whom I spend twen-
ty-four hours."

If an ordinary Frenchman could effect this
magical transformation, only think what a Taras-
conian might have done, being a Frenchman mul-

* The celebrated French traveller.

PORT TARASCON.

281

tiplied by ten ! — what Tartar! n, above all, could
do, being a complete compendium of Tarascon !
He was adored by every one on the ship —
that is, by every one in the cabin. There was
no more talk of his being a prisoner of war —
of his taking his chance with an English jury.

\V,'V>,v''V\

It was quite settled that he was to be set free
as soon as they should reach Gibraltar.

As for the fierce Commodore, delighted to
have found an adversary as redoubtable as Pas-
calon, he passed half his days before the chess-
board, leaving Tartarin in full liberty to make
a certain degree of love to Lady William.

282 PORT TARASCON.

The poor secretar)^ was the only one who
was not perfectly happy. He found these in-
terminable games of chess ,a dreadful bondage,
so that he was even sorry to have betrayed his
skill. He was much disconcerted in the evening,
in particular, when he found himself, through
havinor to o"ive the Commodore his eternal re-
vanche, prevented from going forward to take a
look at his dear Clorinde, for whom he never
failed to put aside some delicate morsel, some
tidbit purloined from the Governor's dessert.

For our poor Tarasconians, on their side,
continued to be treated as prisoners, and hud-
dled far forward in their gallery ; so that it was
the only sadness Tartarin knew, the wrinkle in
his bed of roses, when he was perorating on the
poop, or making a certain degree of love in the
pensive glow of the sunset, the fact that over
against him there, below the level of the lifted
stern, he had a glimpse of his compatriots
jammed together like vile cattle, under the
guard of a sentry, and that they averted their
eyes from him in horror, especially after the
baleful day when he pointed a rifle at the Ta-
rasque.

They could never forgive him this crime, nor
could he himself ever forget the fatal shot that
was to brino; him bad luck.

PORT TARASCON. 283

They had passed the Strait of Malacca, the
Red Sea, and had rounded the SiciHan cape ;
they were getting on to Gibraltar.

One morning, as land had been sighted, Tar-
tarin and Pascalon were putting up their lug-
gage, with the help of one of the footmen, when
suddenly they became conscious of the little
lurch given by a ship when it stops. The Tom-
ahawk was stopping, in fact, and at the same
moment was heard a sound of oars.

"See what it is, Pascalon," said Tartarin.
" Isn't it probably the pilot T

A row-boat had hailed them, indeed, but it
was not the pilot, as the boat carried the French
flag, and was manned by French sailors, among
whom were visible two men dressed in black
and wearing high hats.

The soul of Tartarin thrilled. " Ah, the
French flag ! Let me see it — let me see it, my
child."

He made for the port - hole, but at this mo-
ment the door opened, admitting a flood of
light, and two constables in plain clothes, with
brutal voices, armed with warrants, with a writ
of extradition, with all the tackle, in short,
laid their base hands on the unhappy State
of Things and on his secretary. The State
of Things turned pale and retreated. " Take

284

PORT TARASCON.

1 1

care what you do ! I'm Tartarin of Taras-

con

" That's just why !"

There was not a further word of explana-
tion ; not a word of reply to his multiplied ques-

PORT TARASCON. 2S5

tions. It was impossible to learn what either
of them had done, wh}^ they were arrested, and
where they were to be conducted. It was im-
possible to learn anything, to become conscious
of anything but the shame of passing laden with
chains — for they had been handcuffed — before
the midshipmen and the sailors, and through
the laughter and jeers of hooting compatriots,
who leaned over the sides of the ship, and
applauded, and cried, " Bravo ! well done ! zou,
zou !" as the captives were let down to the boat.

At this moment Tartarin would have liked
to sink to the bottom of the sea.

To change from a prisoner of war like Na-
poleon to the condition of a vulgar swindler!
And the Commodore's lady looked on !

Decidedly he was right — the Tarasque was
avenged, was even cruelly avenged.

286 PORT TARASCON.

III.

July ^th. Prison of Tarasco7i-on-the Rhone.
— I'm just back from the preliminary inquiry.
I know, at last, of what we are accused, the Gov-
ernor and I, and why, brutally seized on the
Tomahaiuk, in the midst of bliss, like a pair of
eels plucked out of the clear depths, we were
transferred to a French ship, and brought in
handcuffs to Marseilles, whence, under the press-
ing attentions paid to accomplished criminals,
we were forwarded to Tarascon, and placed in
solitary confinement in the city jail.

We are accused of gross fraud, of man-
slaughter through criminal neglect, and of vio-
lating the laws on emigration. Ah, most cer-
tainly I must have violated them, the laws on
emigration, for it's the very first time I've ever
heard of them, even by name, confound them !

After two days of solitary confinement, and
being forbidden to speak to any one whatever
— that's the sort of thing that's terrible for one

PORT TARASCON.

287

of tis — we were dragged to the police-court and
planted there before a magistrate.

This magistrate, Monsieur Bonicar by name,
began his career at Tarascon some ten years
ago, so that he knows me perfectly, having been
more than a hundred times at the shop, where
I used to prepare him a dressing for a chronic
eczema that he had on his face, and that he still
has.

288 PORT TARASCON.

This didn't prevent him, however, from ask-
ing me my surname and my Christian name,
my age and my profession, as if he had never
seen me in his hfe. I had to tell him every-
thino^ I knew about the Port Tarascon busi-
ness, and to talk two hours without drawing
breath. I went so fast his clerk couldn't follow
me. Then, without good-morning or good-even-
ing, "Accused, you may step down."

In the lobby of the court I encountered my
poor Governor, whom I had not seen since the
day we were put under lock and key. He
struck me as terribly changed.

As I passed he managed to say to me, in that
voice of his that thrills : " Courage, my child !
The truth is like oil ; it always rises to the
surface."

He couldn't add another word : the consta-
bles hustled him away.

Constables for him ! Tartarin in irons at
Tarascon ! And this anger, this hatred of a
whole people — his people !

I shall always have in my ears their howls of
fury, the hot breath of the Rabblebabble when
the police van brought us back here, each of us
padlocked in his compartment.

The lowered hood of my kennel prevented
me from seeing, but I could hear all round me

PORT TARASCON. ' 289

the uproar of a great crowd. There was a mo-
ment when the van stopped in the middle of the
market-place. I knew this by the smell that
came in through the cracks, by the little gleams
of sweet light ; it was the very breath of the
city, an odor of love-apples, egg-plant, melons of
Cavaillon, pepper-plant, and great sw-eet onions.
Oh, how it made my mouth water to smell all
the good things that I haven't touched for such
an age !

There was such a dense crowd that our horses
couldn't get on — a Tarascon crammed full
enough to make you believe that nobody had
ever been killed, or drowned, or devoured by
the anthropophagi. Didn't I even seem to rec-
ognize the voice of our Assessor of Taxes, the
late Cambalalette ? It was an illusion, certain-
ly, inasmuch as Bezuquet himself is able to tes-
tify to the taste of the poor man's flesh ; but all
the same it will give you an idea. One thing
I certainly heard, a most familiar jabber : " Duck
him! drown him! Zou, zou ! To the Rhone!
to the Rhone ! Let's make a noise ! To the
river with Tartarin !" Escourbanies was not to
be mistaken ; he was yelling louder than any
one.

To the river with Tartarin ! What a lesson
in history ! What a page for the Memorial!

19

290

FORT TARASCON.

I forgot to say that our examining magis-
trate gave me back my diary, which had been
seized on the Toviahaiuk. He had found it in-
teresting; he even urged me to continue it;
and in reo-ard to a few of our local idioms which
have slipt in here and there, he said to me, as
he smiled in his red whiskers, " You shouldn't

PORT TARASCON. 29 I

call it the Petit Memorial: you should call it
the Petit Meridional r

I pretended to laugh at his wretched joke.

July ^th-i^th. — The city prison at Tarascon
is an old historic castle, the former castle of
King Rene, which you may see any day from a
distance on the bank of the Rhone, flanked with
its four towers.

We have not had much luck with old histor-
ic castles. That time in Switzerland when my
illustrious friend was taken for a Nihilist leader,
and we were all taken with him, didn't they
throw us, at Chillon, into the dungeon of Boni-
vard ?

Here, it is true, it is a little less miserable :
the sunshine pours in, tempered with the breeze
of the Rhone ; it's not perpetually raining, like
Switzerland and Port Tarascon.

My place of confinement is of the narrowest ;
the four bare stone walls, with a few inscrip-
tions gouged out, an iron bedstead, a table, and
a chair. I get my sun through a barred win-
dow— anything but "big" — that hangs high
over the Rhone.

It's just from here that during the great Rev-
olution the Jacobins were chucked into the riv-
er— those for whom they made our famous pop-
ular song.

292 PORT TARASCON.

Dear me, how the populace never changes !
They favor us in the evening with that terrible
catch. I hear their voices come up from be-
low. I don't know what they've done with my
poor Governor, but the horrid chorus must
reach him as well as me, and he must make
some singular reflections.

My dearest master ! how, with his expansive
nature, he must miss me! And I miss him too,
though I confess I feel a certain relief at being
alone and able to think things over.

In the long-run it's rather fatiguing to be in-
timate with a great man. He talks so much
about himself! That was why, on the Toma-
hawk, I never had a minute of my own, never
an instant to take a look at my Clorinde. So,
many a time I said to myself, " She's over
there !" but I could never get away. After din-
ner I always had the Commodore's confounded
chess, and the rest of the day Tartarin never
let go of me, especially after I confessed to him
that I was busy with the Memorial. "Write
down this. Don't forget to make a note of
that." He poured out anecdotes about himself
and his relations, and they were not always par-
ticularly interesting.

To think of poor Las Casas ! Of his having
driven such a trade for so many years ! The

PORT TARASCOX. 293

Emperor used to wake him up at six in the
morning to carry him off to walk, to drive, and
as soon as they had started, used to begin :
" Have you got the place, Las Casas ? When
I signed the treaty of Campo-Formio — " * The
poor confidant had his own affairs — his sick
child, his wife in France — but what was this
for the other, who thought of nothing but de-
scribing and explaining himself to Europe, to
the universe, to posterity, every day and all
day, every night and all night, for years and
years together? The truth is, the real victim
of the English was not Napoleon, but Las
Casas.

At present, however, I'm spared this tribula-
tion. Heaven bear me witness that I've not
worked for my independence. It is only that
they keep us apart, and I take advantage of it
to think of myself, of my infinite misery, and of
my beloved Clorinde.

Does she believe me guilty ? She — never !
But her family does — all the Espazettes and
the Escudelles de Lambcsc. For all that set
a man without a title is always guilty. In any
case I've given up all hope of ever being ac-
cepted as a candidate for the dear girl's hand,
fallen as I am from earthly grandeurs. I shall
have to go and take up my work again among

2 94 PORT TARASCON.

Bezuquet's bottles and jars, in the pharmacy on
the bit of a square. Such is glory !

Jtily lytk. — A thing that troubles me much
is that no one comes to see me. They include
me in the hatred that they cherish for my mas-
ter. As the proverb says,

" When the wind is straight, the tree bends ;
When a man's poor, he lacks friends."

My cell affords me no other recreation than
an occasional perch on my table. In this way
I can reach my window, from which, through the
iron grating, I catch a wonderful view.

Between its little pale green islands, brushed
up with the breeze, the Rhone is shot with scat-
tered sunshine, while the sky is all streaked
with the dark flight of the martens, rushing
about with little cries, almost grazing me, or
dropping from ever so far up. Far below me
is the great suspension-bridge, so long that it
swings like a hammock ; you expect to see it
whisked away like somebody's hat as soon as
the mistral blows, as indeed you might have
seen it once upon a time.

On the banks of the river rise the ruins of
old castles — Beaucaire, with the town at its
feet, and Courtezon too, and Vacqueiras. Be-
hind their thick walls, crumbling with age, were

PORT TARASCON.

295

held of old those courts of love in which the
troubadours, the national bards of those days,
enjoyed the favor of the
princesses and queens they
sang. How everything
changes ! The old manors
are now but heaps of stone
smothered in briers, and the
national bards of to-day
may sing about the fine la-
dies and the damsels as they
will, the damsels and the
fine ladies don't trouble
their heads about them.

A glimpse that makes
me rather less sad is that
of the Beaucaire Canal, with
all its boats massed togeth-
er, and on its borders the
red legs of the little sol-
diers whom from my case-
ment I see strolling about.

The good people of Beau-
caire must be delighted with
all our misadventures, and
especially with the collapse of our great man.
It must be a joy to them to know he's in pris-
on, and treated like a thief fit for hanging or

296 PORT TARASCON.

drowning, for our proud opposite neighbors
have long been exasperated by his renown —
ever since they have ceased to be heard of
themselves, and their famous fair has ceased to
be talked about.

When I was a boy I remember what a rum-
pus they still used to make with that great in-
vention. People flocked from all over (except
from Tarascon — the bridge is so dangerous) ; it
was a tremendous concourse, half a million of
souls at the least, crammed in between the
booths. But from year to year the thing has
gone off; it's nothing to speak of now. Beau-
caire still holds her great fair, only no one
comes to it. You see nothing but placards
up in the place : To Let ; To Let ; Furnished
Apartments ; so that if some traveller does turn
up, a stray bagman or so, the people all rush
out and overwhelm him, rend him limb from
limb. The Town Council comes to meet him
with a band of music. In a word, Beaucaire
has lost every sort of credit, while Tarascon has
grown more and more celebrated ; and thanks
to whom, pray, if not to Tartarin ?

Perched on my table, just now, I was looking
out and thinking of these things. The sun had
gone down, it was twilight, when suddenly, on
the other side of the Rhone, a great light was

PORT TARASCON. 297

kindled on the tower of their castle. It burned
a long time, and a long time I watched it ; for
it struck me it was rather mysterious, this ar-
bitrary blaze, casting a ruddy reflection on the
Rhone in the deep silence of the night, stirred
only by the heavy flight of the buzzard. What
could it be meant for? — was it a signal ^

Is there some one, some admirer of our great
Tartarin, who wants to help him to escape ?
It's so extraordinary, such a blaze lighted on
the very top of a ruined tower, just opposite to
his prison !

/?(fy iSth. — To-day, as we came back from
the court, while the police van was passing be-
fore St. Martha's, I heard the still imperious
voice of Madame des Espazettes call out, with
the familiar nasality of these parts, " Cioreinde !
Clorinde !" and a soft, angelic voice, the voice
of my beloved, reply, " Mamma-a-a !" She's so
lamb-like that she seemed to ba-a it.

I dare say she was on her way to church to
pray for me, for the issue of the trial.

Returned to prison greatly touched. Wrote
a few verses in our graceful dialect on the hap-
py presage of this encounter.

In the evening, at the same hour, the same
fire blazes on the tower of Beaucaire. It shines
over there in the darkness like the bonfire

298 PORT TARASCON.

always kindled on St, John's Eve. Evidently
it's a signal.

Tartarin, with whom I have been able to ex-
change two words in the lobby, has also seen
the mysterious flame through the bars of his
dungeon, and when I told him what I thought
of it, suggested that it may be the work of
friends who wish, like those of Napoleon at St.
Helena, to get him away, he seemed greatly
struck by the parallel.

"Ah, really, when Napoleon was at St. He-
lena they tried to rescue him !"

But after a moment's reflection he declared
that he would never consent to this.

" It's not the descent from the tower — the
descent of three hundred feet by a rope-ladder
— that would frighten me. Don't think that,
my child ! What I should dread much more is
looking as if I were afraid to meet the charge.
Tartarin of Tarascon will never flee !"

Ah, if all those who keep howling as he pass-
es, " To the river, zou ! to the Rhone !" could
have heard with what sincerity of accent he
spoke ! And they accuse him of gross fraud ;
they pretend to believe him an accomplice of
the infamous Due de Mons ! Oh, come, you
don't mean it !

It's none the less true that he no longer

PORT TARASCON. 299

stands up for his duke; he now estimates the
Belgian scoundrel at his true value. This will
clearly appear from his defence, for Tartarin is
to plead his own cause. For myself, I stutter
too much to speak in public; so my case has
been undertaken by Cicero Franquebalme, the
incomparably and inveterately close texture of
whose reasoning is a secret to nobody.

July 20th. Evening. — The hours that I pass
before the magistrate are dreadfully painful.
The difficulty is not to defend myself, but to
do it without too utterly giving away my poor
master. He has been so imprudent, has had
such blind confidence in his abominable duke.
And then, with the intermittent eczema of the
worthy on the bench, one never knows wheth-
er to fear or to hope ; for his affeclion rides
him like a mania — he is furious when it
"shows," though he lets you off easier when
it doesn't.

An individual on whom it " shows," on whom
it will always "show," is our unfortunate Bezu-
quet, who, over there on our far isle, used to get
on well enough with his pictorial punctures;
but here, under the sky of Provence, is so sorry
for himself that he never goes out ; buries him-
self in the depths of his laboratory, where he
mixes herbs and makes messes, serving his

300 PORT TARASCON.

customers in a velvet mask, like a conspirator
in a comic opera.

It is noticeable that men are much more sen-
sitive than women to these cutaneous affections
— eruptions and pimples and blotches. I dare
say this is at the bottom of Bezuquet's rancor
a^rainst Tartarin — the cause of all his woes.

July 24th. — Summoned before INI. Bonicar
again. I think it must be the last time. He
showed me a bottle that had been found by a
fisherman on one of the islands of the Rhone,
and made me read a letter that the bottle
contained :

" Tartarin, Tarascon, City Jail. Courage.
A friend is looking out for you at the other
end of the bridge. He will cross it when the
moment has come.

"A Fellow-victim of the Dug de Mons."

The magistrate asked me if I remembered to
have seen this handwriting before. I replied
that I didn't know it ; but, as one must always
tell the truth, I added that an attempt had once
been made to correspond with Tartarin on
some such system. I spoke of the similar
bottle that before our oreat exodus reached
him with a letter to which he had attached

PORT TARASCON. 3O I

no importance, judging it only a rather vulgar
joke.

The magistrate said," Very good," and there-
upon dismissed me.

July 26th. — The inquiry is over, and the case
is expected to come on very soon. The town
is in high fermentation. The case will be
opened about August ist. There will be little
sleep for me till then. It's long, moreover,
since I have really slept in this roasting little
oven of a cell. I'm obliged to leave the window
open, so that the mosquitoes come in in clouds.
I also have the pleasure of hearing the rats
crunching in the corners.

During these last days I have had several
interviews with my counsel. He speaks of
Tartarin with infinite bitterness. I feel that
he doesn't forsrive him for not having intrusted
him with his case. Poor Tartarin ! he has no
one on his side.

It seems that the whole composition of the
court has been altered. Franquebalme has giv-
en me the names of the judges: Mr. Justice
Mouillard, with Van Iceberg and Roger du
Nord for assistants. There's no local influence
to work. I'm told these gentlemen don't come
from here. For some reason unknown to me,
the charges of manslaughter through criminal

302 PORT TARASCON.

neelect and violation of the laws on Emio^ration
have been withdrawn from the indictment. A
warrant is out against our precious duke, but
I shall be surprised to see him turn up; so that
Tartarin will have beside him in the dock only
Pascal Testaniere, known as Pascalon.

July jist. — A night of fever and anguish.
It comes on to-morrow. Lay very late in bed.
Had only strength to jot down this Tarasconian
proverb that I used to hear repeated by Bravida
— he knew them all :

"To stay in bed and not to sleep.
To wait and yet see nothing peep,
To love and yet have no delight —
Are things to kill a man outright."

PORT TARASCON. 303

IV,

Mercy on us, no, they didnt come from
there, poor Tartarin's judges, as you might have
seen on the fine AuQ^ust afternoon when the
case was opened in the great crowded court-
room.

I must tell you that the month of August, at
Tarascon, is the climax of the oppressive heat ;
it's as hot as Africa, and the precautions against
the vertical blaze of the sky are very much the
same. The recall of the troops is sounded at
eleven in the morning ; from that hour till four
o'clock they never stir out ; even the cavalry
are confined to barracks. You may therefore
imagine the temperature of a court-room stuffed
with an inquisitive public, packed so close that
no one could budge, with all the ladies, in feath-
ers and furbelows, piled in the gallery at the end.

Two o'clock rang out from the old clock-face,
with the images that go in and out, on the town-
hall; and through the high windows, flung wide

304 PORT TARASCON.

open and draped in long yellow curtains that
acted as blinds, broke the deafening shrill of
the cicadas in the tropical- looking trees of the
Long Walk — big trees with white, dusty leaves.
This sound was accompanied by the uproar
of the crowd, who couldn't get in, and by the
cry of the water-venders, familiar in the bull-
baiting days in the old Roman arena that does
duty at Tarascon as a modern circus: "Water,
fresh water — who'll have a glass ?" This was a
much more interesting spectacle than even the
bull-baiting, and the public trial of the great
Tartarin drew an audience from the whole
country, from Nimes,from Aries, from Avignon,
even from Marseilles.

But you had to be from Tarascon to resist
the heat, the sort of heat in which a man under
sentence of death (if he be not a native) goes
to sleep while it's pronounced. The most pros-
trate of all were the three judges, especially Mr.
Justice Mouillard, from Lyons, w^ith an air of
austerity, and a long, hoary, philosophic head
which made him look, if not like a French
Swiss, at least like a Swiss Frenchman, and the
mere sight of which filled you with a desire to
weep. The very names of his two coadjutors.
Van Iceberor and Ro2;er du Nord, sufficiently at-
test how little they also were to the manor born.

PORT TARASCON,

305

At the very beginning of the business these
three sages sank, in spite of themselves, into
a vague torpor, fixing their eyes on the great
squares of Hght cut out behind the yellow cur-
tains, and ending by undisguised slumber dur-
ing the interminable roll-call of the witnesses,
at least two hundred and fifty in number, and all
for the prosecution.

The constables, who didn't come from there
either, and who had been cruelly left to sweat
under their heavy toggery, also slept the sleep
of the just; the very flies, the terrible full-blown
flies of midsummer, slept in their swarms on the
ceiling.

These were certainly very bad conditions for
dispensing true justice. Happily the judges
had studied the case in advance ; without that
they wouldn't have understood a word of it, as
in their dozing vagueness they heard nothing
20

306 PORT TARASCOX.

but the racket of the cicadas and a far-off hum
of voices.

After all the witnesses had filed past the Pub-
lic Prosecutor, Monsieur Bompard du Mazet,
bes^an to read the indictment.

This time, I grant you, you have nothing
to do with the North, Imagine a little hairy
dwarf, with a paunch, all made up of a black
crop and a black beard, and of starts and jumps
and popping eyes, the instruments of a perpetual
pantomime, in which he indulged as freely as if
his great hot snoring voice didn't split your ears
like a brass-band. When he cried he shed real
tears, as big as peas; when he laughed his huge
reverberating guffaw caught up the farthest
man in the crowd stationed under the open
doors and windows.

He passed for the glory of the Tarascon bar;
but what rendered his requisitory still more in-
teresting, what gave it a peculiar attraction, was
the relationship of the orator to the hapless
Bompard, one of the first victims of the sad epi-
sode of Port Tarascon.

Never did an accuser seem to thirst more
for the blood of his victims. Lord, how he
treated our poor Tartarin, seated there with his
secretary between two constables ; how dear he
made him pay for his past triumphs !

PORT TARASCON. 307

Pascalon, overwhelmed with shame and de-
spair, hid his head in his hands; but Tartarin,
superior to that sort of thing, calm and deco-
rous, listened to everything, endured every-
thing, conscious of his decline, but also of the
purity of his motives and the stainlessness of
his honor. Meanwhile M. Bompard du iNIazet,
more and more insulting, held him up as a
vulgar impostor who had taken advantage of
a reputation that would bear no scrutiny — of
lions that he perhaps never killed, of mount-
ains that he perhaps never climbed, to associate
himself with an adventurer, an obscure if pre-
tended duke, who had not even an address to
give the authorities. He represented Tartarin
as even more guilty than the duke himself, in-
asmuch as the mysterious stranger could not
be accused of having plucked his own country-
men. The peculiar infamy of Tartarin was to
have speculated on the Tarasconians, to have
stripped them to their skins, scattering ruin
and misery round. " However," the orator de-
manded, " what could you have expected of the
man who would fire upon the blessed Tarasque,
upon our general grandmother ?"

At this peroration there was a burst, from
the benches, of patriotic sobs, which were re-
echoed in howls from the streets, where the

308 PORT TARASCON.

Prosecutor's voice had been heard; and he
himself, moved to tears by his own eloquence,
began to choke and sputter so loud that the
judges woke up with a start. Bompard du
Mazet had spoken for two hours.

At this moment, though the heat was still
very great, a tiny fresh breeze from the Rhone
began to flutter in at the windows.

Mr. Justice Mouillard now managed to stay
awake ; to keep him so, indeed (for he had only
lately been called to Tarascon), his growing be-
wilderment would soon have sufficed, so abun-
dantly was it fed by the inventive genius of
the Tarasconians, their unconscious and imper-
turbable mendacity.

The principal accused was the first to set
this wonderful spirit in motion.

During a portion of his examination, which
we are obliged to abbreviate, Tartarin suddenly
raised to heaven his extended hand :

" I swear before heaven and all the company
that I never wrote a word of that letter !"

The letter was the letter he had sent from
Marseilles to Pascalon, then editor of the Ga-
zette, to wind him up, to make him lay it on a
little thicker.

Well, now it appeared that Tartarin had
never written it ; he absolutelv denied and he

PORT TARASCON.

309

iiiiiiiiiii;n"'"

energetically protested. Perhaps the so-called

duke, not present —

Here Monsieur Mouillard interrupted him:
" Please hand this letter to the accused."
Tartarin took it, looked at it, then replied,

quite simply :

3IO PORT TARASCON.

" Oh yes, I see it is my hand. I did write it,
but I couldn't just remember !"

A moment later came a similar performance
on the part of Pascalon, in regard to an article
in the Gazette describing the great reception
at the town -hall of Port Tarascon — the recep-
tion of the passengers of the Farandolc and the
Lucifer by King Nagonko, the natives, and the
first settlers, accompanied with many details
about this civic edifice, of which, as we know,
not a brick had ever been laid.

Pascalon listened to the reading of this effu-
sion, which provoked the crowd to inextinguish-
able laughter and still more inextinguishable
ire ; he himself was indignant, not a word of it
was his, never in his life had he put his signa-
ture to such a pack of lies.

They placed before his eyes the printed ar-
ticle, signed with his name and illustrated with
little pictures based on hints he had given, to-
gether with his manuscript, which had been
picked up at the printer's.

" It's crushing," the unhappy youth then ad-
mitted, stuttering and weeping ; " it had com-
pletely escaped my mind !"

Tartarin took up the defence of his secre-
tary :

"The truth is, my lord, that, believing blindly

PORT TARASCON. .^11

all the stones told by the person De Mons, not
present — "

" He has a broad back, the person De Mons,
not present," the Prosecutor interpolated.

" I gave to this unhappy child," Tartarin
continued, " the idea of an article to be made of
them, saying to him, ' Now embroider on that.'
And he embroidered."

" It is true that I never did anything but em-
broi-broi-broider !" Pascalon timidly panted.

Oh, of the art of embroidery. Monsieur Mou-
illard was not to want for specimens, now that
he had beo^un the examination of the witness-
es, all from Tarascon and all inventive, denying
to-day exactly the thing they had categorically
affirmed yesterday.

" But this was what you said in the prelimi-
nary inquiry."

" I .^ / said that ? I never opened my
mouth !"

" But you signed it."

"/.^ /signed it.?"

" Here is your signature."

" Lord love us — it's true ! Very well, no one
can be more surprised than I !"

It was just the same for all of them — no one
remembered anything about anything. The
judges turned wan, sat confounded and bewil-

312 PORT TARASCON.

dered at this appearance of flagrant bad faith,
unable, in their character of men of the North,
to make the allowances indispensable in the
case of the South — to make so many fantastic
declarations and negations square in the least
with the facts.

One of the most extraordinary depositions
was that of Costecalde, when he related how
he had been driven from the island, forced to
abandon his wife and children, by the exactions
of Tartarin, romantically represented as a fero-
cious tyrant. Nothing could be more exciting,
more thrillino- than his adventure in the lon^^-
boat, the frightful successive deaths of his un-
happy companions. He sobbed as he depicted
the last moments of Rugimabaud, swimming
near the boat to freshen himself up a little, then
abruptly gobbled up by a shark, cut quite in
two.

"Ah, my poor friend's smile — I see it still!
He held out his arms to me, and I was dashing
towards him, when suddenly his face is contort-
ed, he disappears; nothing is left, nothing but a
circle of blood that spreads over the surface of
the water." And with his clinched hand Coste-
calde sketched a great circle in the air.

Hearing the name of Rugimabaud, the two
justices Van Iceberg and Roger du Nord,

PORT TARASCON. 313

roused but a moment before from their slumber-
ous gloom, leaned towards their colleague, so
that amid the unanimous outburst of sobs that
filled the court as an accompaniment to Coste-
calde's tears, the three big-wigs were seen for a
moment to confer together.

Then his Honor addressed the witness:

" You say Rugimabaud was eaten up by a
shark before your eyes ? But the Court has
just been hearing as witness for the prosecution
a certain Rufjimabaud who arrived here this
morning; may he not be by chance the same
person as the hero of your anecdote ?"

"Yes, indeed — rather! I am the same, it's
me!" roared the ex-Commissioner of Agricult-
ure.

" Bless me, Rugimabaud is here ?" exclaimed
Costecalde, not in the least disconcerted. " I
didn't see him — it's the first I've heard of him."

" He wasn't eaten up by a shark, then, as
you've just described ?"

" I think I must have confounded him with
Truphenus."

" Oh, I say, Fm here !" protested Truphenus
in turn.

" At any rate, be it one or be it the other,
what I know is that somebody or other was
eaten by a shark !"

314 PORT TARASCON.

O

And with the utmost calmness Costecalde
continued to answer questions as if nothing had
occurred.

Before he stepped down, one of the judges de-
sired to know, by his estimate, the exact number
of victims, of one kind and another.

" Forty thousand !"

He rolled so the r's of his " for-r-ty," that, as if
for the pleasure of hearing him do it again, the
judge exclaimed:

" How is that ? How many ?"

" Forty thousand !"

" You say forty thousand ?"

" At the very least, your Honor."

Now, the records of the colony were there to
attest that at no moment whatever had there
been on the island more than four hundred
Tarasconians.

Confronted with this kind of evidence, the be-
wilderment of his Honor could only grow. It
was shared by his august colleagues, now com-
pletely awake, who perspired with amazement as
much as with heat, never having been present at
such a trial as this, and thinking that every one
concerned in it must be simply mad. There
was nothing but violent interruptions and fiat
contradictions, which increased as the row of
witnesses grew longer, all jumping up and down,

PORT TARASCON.

3^5

gesticulating, talking at once, snatching the
words out of each others' mouths. A preposter-
ous trial indeed, a tragi-comedy exclusively con-
sisting of people eaten, drowned, cooked, roast-
ed, boiled, devoured, tattooed, who yet had turned
up there together in the same row, all in per-
fect health and with their full complement of
limbs.

In regard to the few who had not answered
to the roll, you couldn't say they were really
dead any more than the others, that they
wouldn't rise again the next minute like their
friends; which is the reason why M. Bonicar,
the magistrate, more intimately versed in the
nature of his countrymen, had recommended
Monsieur Mouillard to leave out the question of
manslaughter through criminal neglect.

The unhappy Mouillard, submerged in the
rising flood of contradictory evidence, demanded
silence without getting it, and had repeatedly to
threaten to clear the court. The spectators, in
their zeal for one side or the other, paid not the
least attention to him; so that, giving it all up,
he leaned his elbows on his desk and held his
head with his hands as if it would burst.

During a short comparative lull, M. Roger du
Nord, a little old man with long white whiskers
and a sarcastic smile, who was not without wit.

J

I 6 PORT TARASCON.

said aloud, bending over, with his judge's cap a
Httle askew:

" In short, in the lot, it seems to me that the
only thing that has not come back is the Ta-
rasque."

At this M. Bompard du Mazet, the Public
Prosecutor, sprang up with a movement of a
jack-in-the-box :

"And my uncle, then?"

"And Bravida, then?" cried Costecalde.

The Public Prosecutor went on with hifrh
dignity but rising emotion:

" I beg the Court to observe that my unfort-
unate uncle was one of the earliest victims. If
I have had the discretion not to speak of him
in my indictment, it's none the less true that
this particular absentee has not come back, and
will never come back."

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Prosecutor," inter-
rupted the principal worthy on the bench ; " it
so happens that your uncle at this very moment
sends in his card to me and requests to be
heard."

This piece of news produced an immense
rumpus. The public, the witnesses, the accused,
all sprang to their feet, scrambled upon the
seats, waved their arms, shouted, and exhibited
astonishment and curiosity in the good Taras-

PORT TARASCON.

317

conian fashion ; while his Honor, to restore or-
der, directed the Court to rise for a few mo-
ments' of which advantage was taken to remove
two or three constables who had fainted, and
were half dead with heat and mystification.

3l8 PORT TARASCON.

V,

" ' It's he — it's Gonzago ! I say — did you ever ?'
'Bless us, how he has filled out!'
' Mercy, how he has bleached !'
' You'd take him for a Turk !' "

The crowd stretched forward, agape, so long
had honest Bompard been removed from its
ken. He had been tremendously lean of old,
dry, brown, and mustachioed like a Greek brig-
and, with the eyes of a crazy goat ; but now he
was well rounded out, though showing in his
big puffed face the same swaggering mustache
and the same nonsensical eyes.

Looking neither to right nor to left, he followed
the usher into the witness-box, where Monsieur
Mouillard began to examine him,

" There's no doubt about your identity, Gon-
zague Bompard ?"

" To tell the truth, your Honor, I almost
doubt of it myself when I see " — here he let off
a noble oresture in the direction of the accused

PORT TARASCON. 319

— " when I see, I say, our purest glory on that
bench of infamy, and when, within these walls,
I hear insult heaped upon the soul of honor
and probity !"

" Oh, thanks, Gonzago !" cried Tartarin from
his place, suffocated with emotion.

He had borne without wincing every calum-
ny, but the sympathy of his old comrade made
his heart burst, filled his eyes with the tears of
a pitied child.

" Yes, yes, my gallant friend," Borapard went
on, " you won't remain there long on your filthy
bench. I bring with me the proof — the proof — "

He fumbled in his pockets, drew out a clay
pipe, a knife, an old flint, a match-box, a piece
of string, a yard-measure, and a little case of
homoeopathic medicines ; all of which objects
he laid one after the other on the table of the
clerk of the court.

" Come, Mr. Bompard," said his Honor, out
of patience; "just mention it when you've
done."

" I say, uncle, hurry up a bit," added M. Bom
pard du Mazet.

His uncle turned towards him.

'* Ah yes, you'd better meddle, you wretch,
after the beautiful line you have taken ! Treat-
ing our dear old friend as a swindler! Just

;20

PORT TARASCON.

wait till I get round there and cut you off with
a shilling, little scoundrel !"

The nephew kept sufiRciently cool under this
threat, and the uncle, continuing to fumble and

'■" T^f -.--f??

arranging before him a
whole museum of fantas-
tic objects, found at last
what he souHit.

" Here, your Honor, is
a letter which makes it as
plain as day that the so-called Due de Mons
is the big^o'est villain on earth, a regular vag-
abond and gallows-bird, the only guilty one, the
only one who ought to be laden with chains,
and on the bench of infamy."

" That will do — give me the letter."
Monsieur Mouillard took the letter, read it,
and passed it to his two colleagues, who in turn
began to examine it, and turn it upsidedown

PORT TARASCON.

321

and inside out. Durinsf this examination the
faces of the three judges remained inscrutable
and impenetrable. You could see they were
real judges of the North. Staring at their in-
expressive masks, it was very hard for the pub-
lic to get an idea of what the mysterious letter
contained ; the only thing that could be gath-
ered was the ex-
treme importance
of the document.

Every one stood
on tiptoe ; some
screwed round their
heads as if to get a
look; the hubbub of
voices increased, the
wave of curiosity
broke in the depths
of the gallery.

"What is it,
what's in it, what
is it all about ?"

And the agitation in the court gaining the
crowd outside, to which the successive phases
of the case were communicated through the
open windows and doors, there rose an j.iproar
on the Long: Walk, a confusion and a clamor
like the surge of the sea in a stiff breeze.
21

322 PORT TARASCON.

The good constables accordingly waked up,
the flies forsook the ceilino^ and be^an to buzz
about ; the waning afternoon brought with it a
few wandering airs, so that, as the Tarasconians
dread nothing so much as a draught, the spec-
tators who were near the windows began to
shout for them to be closed — they were afraid
of " catching their death."

For the hundredth time the unhappy Mouil-
lard bawled, " Silence, silence for a moment, or
I clear the court!" Then he continued the ex-
amination.

Qicestion. " Witness Bompard, how and when
did this letter come into your hands ?"

Answer. " When the Farandole was starting
from Marseilles the duke, or so-called duke,
handed me my papers as Provisional Governor
of the settlement, and at the same time he
slipped into my palm this big letter, fastened,
though it contained no money, with eight red
seals. He told me I should find in it his very
last instructions, and he directed me particu-
larly not to open it till we should reach some
islands or other — the Admiralty Isles — in the
144th degree of longitude. It's marked there
on the envelope — you can see."

Q. " Yes, yes ; I see. And then ?"

A. " Then, your Honor, you see, I was sud-

PORT TARASCON. 323

denly taken awfully ill, as you must have been
told ; it seemed to be a sort of catching thing,
so that, although I felt near my end, they put
me ashore at the Chateau d'If. Once ashore, I
was doubled up with pain ; but the letter was in
my pocket, for in my agony I had forgotten to
give it to Bezuquet when I handed him over
my credentials."

Q. " It is a pity you forgot. Well, then.?"

A. " Well, then, your Honor, when I got a
little better and was able to get up and put
on my clothes again — it was a good bit later,
a long time — one day I happened to put my
hand in my pocket by chance, and, lo and be-
hold ! there was the blessed letter with the red
seals !"

Here Monsieur Mouillard interrupted the wit-
ness with great severity :

" Witness Bompard, would it not be more con-
^A formable to truth to say that this letter, destined

to be unsealed only four thousand leagues away
from France, was by preference opened by your
hand on the spot, on the very deck of the ship,
so that you might see what was in it, where-
upon, acquainted with its contents, you shrank
from the immense responsibilities it entailed
upon you ?"

"You don't know Bompard, your Honor," this

324 PORT TARASCON.

personage replied. " I appeal to all Tarascon,
present in this court."

The silence of the tomb greeted this oratori-
cal flight. Enjoying on the lips of his fellow-
citizens the sobriquet of the Impostor, Bompard,
perhaps, went a little far in calling on them
to back him up. Tarascon sounded, therefore,
gave back no echo, which, however, did not pre-
vent the speaker from going on imperturbably :

" Your Honor sees, silence, as the proverb says,
means consent." And continuing his story :
" When it came to that, when I found the letter,
Bezuquet, who had left so many weeks before,
was too far away for me to overtake him ; so
that I made up my mind to see what was in the
confounded thing. Acting upon this, imagine
my horrible situation !"

A horrible situation, most horrible, too, was
that of the audience, still perfectly ignorant of
the contents of the precious document under
discussion, tormentingly fingered by the judges.

It was vain to crane over, it was vain to stretch
and stare ; the coveted knowledge was out of
reach — nothing was visible but the big red seals
of the wrapper.

" What was I to do, miserable me," Bompard
went on, " after I had read such horrors ? Was
I to strike out and try to swim after the ship ?

PORT TARASCON. 325

Alas, it was beyond m}- strength. Was I, by
making public my abominable missive, to pre-
vent the Tootoopiunp2iin from sailing ? Was I
to dash with cold water the enthusiasm of the
panting remnant of our party? They would
have risen in their wrath and stoned me ! I
was in such a dreadful dilemma that I was
afraid to show myself at Tarascon. At last I
made up my mind to go and hide over oppo-
site, at Beaucaire, where I should be able to see
everything without being seen. I succeeded in
obtaining simultaneous possession of two offices
there — that of Warden of the Fair-o^rounds and
that of Conservator of the Castle. I had a cer-
tain amount of leisure, as you may believe, and
from the top of the old tower, with a good glass,
I watched on the other side of the Rhone the
agitation of my unhappy compatriots, all bustling
for departure. And I gnawed my heart, I wrung
my hands, I held out my arms to them, bawling
to them from afar, as if they might have heard
me: 'Stop, stop — stay, stay — don't go — turn
round and go home !' I even tried to warn them
back by means of a bottle. Tell his Honor, Tar-
tarin, tell him that I tried to warn you."

" Yes, it's true," said Tartarin from the bench
of infamy.

" Ah, your Honor, what I suffered when I saw

326 PORT TARASCON.

the TootoopiLmpum really set sail for the land of
dreams ! But I suffered still more when they
all came back and when I learned that, opposite
to me there, the greatest of my countrymen was
lansfuishino- in fetters. To know that he was
immured in that dungeon and under a false
charge — it was really too much. You will tell
me that I ought to have produced the proof of
his innocence sooner; but when once one is
started on the wrong road it's the deuce and all
to get back to the right one. I began by say-
ing nothing, and it had become more and more
difficult to speak at last. Then you don't count
the Bridge, the dreadful Bridge that I should
have had to cross again ! So long as the pre-
liminary inquiry lasted I hoped the whole thing
would be quashed ; but when I saw that you
were really going on, knew that Tartarin was
really dragged into the dock between the myr-
midons of the law, then I could hold out no
longer, I let myself go — I crossed the Bridge.
I crossed it this morning in a terrible tempest ;
I was obliged to go down on all fours, the same
way as when I went up Mont Blanc. You re-
member that, Tartarin .?"

" Remember it ?" Tartarin rumbled.

" When I tell you that the Bridge was swing-
ing like a pendulum you'll believe I had to be

PORT TARASCON.

1^1

brave. I was, in fact, heroic. But here I am,
at any rate, and this time I bring you the proof,
the irrefutable proof."

Of the irrefutability of the proof neither of
the three gentlemen on the bench seemed par-

328 PORT TARASCON.

ticularly convinced ; and the senior, in his cold,
calm voice, expressed their common doubts.

" Who guarantees that this strange letter,
buried so long in your pocket, is really by the
person De Mons ? You see, we have to leave a
margin, with all you good people. Such a flood
of lies as I've been listening to for three hours !"

A long murmur rolled through the room,
suro^ed in the oralleries.

Tarascon hardly liked this — Tarascon pro-
tested. As for Bompard, he answered simply
with a smile :

" So far as I'm concerned, your Honor, I
won't absolutely claim that I'm the most literal
creature in the world — no, I won't go so far as
that. But see here ; just ask a question or two
of my friend there." And he waved his hand
at Tartarin. " In the way of the literal, he's
about the best thing we have here."

" Usher, hand this letter to the accused," said
the judge.

Tartarin took it, examined it, declared that
he recognized the handwriting and the signa-
ture unfortunately too familiar to him ; then,
still erect, turning towards the bench, with a
light in his eye, a ring in his voice, and the
famous letter brandished in his hand : " In my
turn, your Honor, armed with this cynical lucu-

PORT TARASCON. 329

bration, I summon you to acknowledge that all
the impostors don't come from the South. Ah,
you call us liars, us poor performers of Taras-
con ! But we are only people of imagination
and of overflowing speech — people who hit it
off, people who embroider, people whose fertile
fancy throws off things on the spur of the mo-
ment, and who are themselves the first to be
taken in, even when they are surprised, by their
own ino^enuous readiness. How different from
your liars of the North — deliberate, elaborate,
and perverse, with their rascally practical machi-
nations— such a one, for instance, as the signer
of this letter! Yes, thank God, one may say
that in the way of lying, when the North tries
its hand the South is no match for it at all !"

Launched on this theme, with his good-sense
and eloquence, Tartarin ought to have raised
the house. But it was all over. The great
man had decidedly forfeited public favor. No
one had an ear for him. Exasperated curiosity
had no ear and no eye for anything but the
mysterious missive with eight red seals that he
waved up and down in his hand.

Devil take it! what could there be in this tan-
talizing scroll which they handed to and fro
without coming to the point and reading it out "^

Tartarin would have liked to go on, but the

330 PORT TARASCON.

impatience of his fellow- citizens gave him no
chance. They only shouted from all sides,
"The letter — the letter! Read us the letter!"

Monsieur Mouillard ao^ain threatened to clear
the court if they didn't keep quiet ; but at last,
yielding to the popular desire, and addressing
the accused :

" So I am to take it from you that this is
really the writing of the person De Mons ?"

" You may take it from me. The hands are
identical, your Honor."

" Hand the letter to the clerk of the court,
so that he may read it out."

A huge " Ah !" of relief greeted these words,
and was followed by a silence so deep that you
could hear nothing but the buzz of the flies
within and the shrill of the insects without.
Every one sat motionless in his jDlace, cocking
his head to one side to hear better.

Amid this solemn attention of a whole peo-
ple the clerk of the court, in a slow, monoto-
nous, nasal voice, began to read the letter with
the eight red seals :

^'To ]\Ir. Gonzago Bovipard, Provisional Governor of
the Colony of Port Tarascon : to be opened in 144°
30' longitude east, opposite the Admiralty Isles.
" My dear Monsieur Bompard, — There is

no joke good enough to be kept up forever.

PORT TARASCON. 33 1

Put straight about and come quietly back with
your Tarasconians.

" There is no island, there is no treaty, there
is no Port Tarascon ; there are no acres nor
concessions nor distilleries nor refineries, there
is nothing of any kind.
Nothing, at
least, but a <M^,.i^..;M
splendid
operation
by which I
have pocket-
ed some millions,
which are now, I
am happy to say,
in as safe a place as
my person.

" What it has all come
to is a nice little Tarasconade,
which your fellow -citizens and illustrious
chief will certainly forgive me, since it has af-
forded them occupation and recreation, and re-
vived their taste, which they had rather lost, for
their delicious little town.

"Due De Mons.

" P. S. — No more a duke than Mons is his
duchy. Scarcely known in the neighborhood."

332

PORT TARASCON.

Ah, this time his lordship could only threaten
in vain to clear the court ; nothing could re-
strain the roars, the yells, the howls of rage that
broke forth and reached the street, the Long
Walk, the Esplanade, resounded through the

whole town. Ah, the Belgian, the dirty Bel-
gian; how they would have chucked him into
the Rhone if they could only have got hold of
him!

Every one lent his voice — men, women, and
children — and it was in the midst of this appall-
ing din, the racket of an angry hive, that Mon-
sieur Mouillard pronounced the acquittal of
Tartarin and of Pascalon, to the great despair

PORT TARASCON. 333

of Cicero Franquebalme, who was obliged to
keep to himself his great speech, to pack up
again the solid blocks of his argument, all his
whatsoevers and whensoevers and wheresoev-
ers — to swallow, in a word, his masterpiece, his
compact, cemented Roman aqueduct.

The public poured forth from the court,
spread over the town, surged through the Walk
Round, through the squares and bits of squares,
continuing to relieve itself in wild vociferations.
Ah, the Belgian, the dirty Belgian! his name
was everywhere mingled with the cry that has
ever since remained the bloodiest insult that a
Tarasconian can utter, " Liar of the North ! —
liar of the North!"

334 PORT TARASCON.

VI.

October 8th. — Resumed my position in Fer-
dinand Bezuquet's pharmacy. I have regained
the esteem of my countrymen and recovered
the tranquillity of my former existence on the
bit of a square between the two jars, the yellow
and the green, of the shop-front. There is only
this difference, that poor Bezuquet now sticks
fast to the back shop, as if he were the appren-
tice, where he works the pestle from morning
to night, pounding his drugs in the marble
mortar in a kind of rage, as if he hoped they
would feel it ! He only stops from time to time
to take a little mirror out of his pocket and
look at his tattooings. Poor Ferdinand ! nei-
ther poultice nor plaster can touch them ; there
is no help for him even in the nice little garlic
broth recommended by Dr. Tournatoire. He
has got them for life, his infernal illuminations.

Meanwhile I put up little parcels, I write lit-
tle labels, I exchange little remarks with little

PORT TARASCON.

335

customers, and I find a sufficient amusement in
the little gossip of the little town. On market-
days we have always a lot of people. Since
the wine-crop shows signs of mending, our peas-
ants have begun again to dose and drug them-
selves ; in the country about Tarascon there is
no more cherished pursuit. On Tuesday and
Friday the pharmacy is crammed.

The rest of the week it is sufficiently quiet;
the shop bell tinkles less frequently. I pass
my time in looking at the superscriptions of
the great glass bottles and the great jars of
white earthen-ware ranged on the shelves — the
sirupus gumini, the assafoetida, and the (ftapfjia-

336 PORT TARASCON.

KOTToda, in Greek characters, between two ser-
pents over the counter.

After so many agitations and adventures, this
lull in my existence is rather enjoyable. I am
preparing a volume of verses in our dear old
dialect: Li Ginjourlo (" Drops of Jujube "). In
the North the jujube is known only as a phar-
maceutic product, but here the tree, with its
thin foliage, produces a different fruit, a kind of
charming little red olive that melts in your
mouth. I shall collect in this volume my little
landscapes and my love-poems.

Woe is me ! I sometimes see her pass, my
long and flexible Clorinda, skipping over the
sharp cobble-stones of the bit of a square with
the same motion that on the island we used to
compare to that of the kangaroo. She's going
to second mass, her prayer-book in her hand,
followed by the valuable female domestic who
used to patch up our roofs and "shin" up our
flag-staffs, and who, since our return to Taras-
con, has passed from the service of Mademoi-
selle Tournatoire to that of the marquise and
her daughter. Never once has the high-born
damsel cast a glance at our poor shop. From
the moment I crossed its threshold again I
ceased to exist for her.

The town has recovered its ancient tranquil-

PORT TARASCON.

137

lity, and seems quite at home again. We stroll
on the Long Walk and on the Esplanade ; in
the evening we go to the club and to the play.
Every one has come back except Brother Ba-
taillet, who stopped

over in the Philip-
pines to set up a
new community of
White Fathers.
Here the convent
of Pamperi-
gouste has
opened its
doors a little
— just on a
crack — and
the Reverend
FatherVezole
(God be praised!)
is settled in it ao^ain
with a few other
holy men. The
bells have beQ:un ,
to tinkle gently,
ever so gently.

Who would ever be-
lieve that we had made
so much history !

4

.*^

22

338 PORT TARASCON.

How far it all seems now, and what rare fellows
we are to forget ! To appreciate this you must
see our sportsmen, the Marquis des Espazettes
at their head, start out every Sunday morning,
in brand-new trappings, to shoot game that
doesn't exist.

On my side, on Sunday, after breakfast, I go
and pay my respects to Tartarin. It is there
still, at the end of the Long Walk, the little
house with the green blinds ; the little boot-
blacks are there still before the gate, but some-
how they are stricken with silence, and every-
thing is lifeless and closed. I lift the latch, and
passing in, I find the hero in his garden, turn-
ing round the tank of goldfish, with his hands
behind him, or else in his study, surrounded by
his poisoned arrows and other outlandish weap-
ons. At present he never even looks at his be-
loved collections. The setting is the same, but
how the man has changed ! It was fruitless
for them to let him off ; they couldn't give him
back his honor, they couldn't give him back his
glory. The great man feels that that glory has
waned — this is the secret of his sadness.

But we talk together, and sometimes Dr.
Tournatoire comes in, bringing to the melan-
choly house his good-humor and his somewhat
primitive, his even questionable, medical jokes.

PORT TARASCON.

339

Franquebalme also comes on Sunday, Tartarin
having confided to him the protection of his
interests. He has a lawsuit at Toulon with
Captain Scrapouchinat, who is trying to recov-
er from him the expenses of the return trip ; an-
other suit, too, with the wudow of Bravida, who
has brought it as the guardian of her bereaved
children. If my poor dear master loses either
of these cases, how in the world will he keep
afloat.^ He has already sunk most of his sub-
stance in the lamentable adventure of Port Ta-
rascon.

Would to Heaven I
were rich ! Unfortunate-
ly the money I get from
Bezuquet isn't
the sort of thing
to enable me to
assist my noble
friend.

October loth. —
My "Jujubes "are
to appear at Avig-
non, with the
imprint of Rou-
manille. I'm aw-
fully happy about
it. Another piece

<^':

'.f0,^-

340 PORT TARASCON.

of good-luck is that they are getting up a great
procession in honor of St. Martha, whose feast
is on the 19th, and in honor, too, of the restora-
tion of our race to the soil of France. Dour-
ladoure and I, perched on an allegorical car,
are to represent Proven9al poetry.

October 28th. — Yesterday, Sunday, our pro-
cession came off. A long stream of cars and
cavaliers, the latter in historical costumes, hold-
ing out on long wands butterfly-nets for money.
A tremendous crowd of people, a cluster of
heads at every window, and yet, in spite of ev-
erything, a visible want of real animation. The
ingenious managers of the fete had vainly en-
deavored to make up for the absence of our
dear Old Granny; every one was conscious of a
gap, of a void — the car of the Tarasque was not
there. Smothered rancor woke up again at the
thought of the dastardly shot discharged in the
far Pacific ; as we passed before Tartarin's house
the mutter of resentment might have been heard
in the ranks. As at this moment Costecalde's
ill-conditioned gang tried to work up the crowd,
the Marquis des Espazettes, who was dressed as
a Templar, turned round on his horse — " Quiet
there, you know, gentlemen !" He had quite
the grand air, and the disorder was instantly
checked.

PORT TARASCON.

541

^^^V >f^:W'

H^^'
^

VOi>,

The tra7nontana was blowino-, and there was
unmistakable snow in it, as Dourladoure and I
were cruelly conscious in our picturesque hab-
its. We had borrowed our dresses — of the pe-
riod of Charles VI. — from the opera-troupe that
happens to be here now ; and seated, each of us,
on the battlements of a tower (for our chariot,
drawn by six white oxen, was supposed to rep-
resent King Rene's castle, in wood and paint-
ed pasteboard), we were pierced through and
through by the rascally blast, so that the verses
we recited to our big lyres chattered as much
as the speakers. Dourladoure remarked to me
that we were simply freezing. But we had to

342

PORT TARASCON.

freeze, we couldn't get down, for want of lad-
ders, those on which we had clambered up hav-
ing been inconsiderately removed.

On the Walk Round our sufferino^s were
more than we could bear ; and, to finish them
up, what did I do but bethink m3'self — oh, van-
ity of love ! — to take a short - cut and pass di-
rectly in front of the residence of a certain
high-born family.

So behold us squeezed into the narrow streets

of that part, with only
just room for
"-"'-- the wheels of
the car. The
noble man-
sion was shut
up, dark and
dumb behind
the black stones
of its old walls,
with all its shut-
ters drawn, to show
^ how the aristocracy

sniffs at the pleas-
ures of the Rabble-
babble.
I repeated a few lines,
in my quavering voice, and

~^^s

Mt,',

>w;.-

PORT TARASCON. 343

poked out my little bag to beg; but nothing
stirred — no one appeared. Then I ordered
the driver to move on. But it was impossible,
the car was stuck, wedged in — it was vain to
pull it from its front or to drag it from behind ;
it was simply held fast between the high walls.
Close to us, between the slits of the shutters, on
a level with our ears, we heard a smothered sio:-
gle ; in the face of which we had to stay ridicu-
lously perched on our pasteboard turrets, numb
with cold in spite of our burning shame.

Decidedly, King Rene's castle didn't bring
me much luck. The oxen had to be taken out
and ladders to be brought to get us down — all
of which seemed interminable !

October 28th. — What is it, then, what can it
be, the ache for glory? It is clear that when
once one has known it one can't live without it.

Last Sunday I called on Tartarin, and we
talked together in the garden, strolling along
the sanded paths. Over the wall the trees on
the Lons: Walk scattered their leaves down in
heaps, and as I noticed the melancholy in his
eyes, I tried to remind him of the glorious hours
of his life. But nothing could bring him round,
not even the various similitudes between his
career and Napoleon's.

" Oh, don't humbug me with your Napoleon !

344 PORT TARASCON.

When I fell into that the sun of the tropics had
muddled my brain. Don't ever talk of it again,
please : I shall be obliged to you."

I looked at him in stupefaction.

" Well, but my dear friend, the Commodore's
lady — "

" Leave me alone with your Commodore's
lady — the Commodore's lady was making a fool
of me !"

We took a few more steps in silence, while
an occasional cry from one of the little boot-
blacks (they were playing jack-stones on the
other side of the wall) mingled with the gusts
that whirled the dry leaves. Tartarin added, in
a moment :

" I see through it now ; the Tarasconians have
opened my eyes. It is as if I had been oper-
ated on for cataract."

He struck me as extraordinary.

Later, when I was going, he suddenly said,
as I pressed his hand : " Do you know, my dear
child, I'm going to have a sale ? I've lost my
suit against Scrapouchinat, and the other one
against Madame Bravida as well, for all the dia-
lectics of Franquebalme. The fellow builds too
big ; it tumbles down on top of you, and buries
you beneath its weight."

Ever so timidly I offered him my little sav-

PORT TARASCON.

345

ins^s. I would have o-iven them to him with all
my heart, but Tartarin wouldn't listen to it.

" Thank you, my child ; I dare say my arms,
my curiosities, my rare plants, will bring in
enough. If it's not enough I'll sell the house.
After that we shall see. Farewell, dear child :
these things are nothing!"

Dear me, what philosophy !

October 31st. — To-day I've had a great sor-
row. I was in the shop, serving Madame Tru-
phenus with a remedy for her baby, who has
measles, when a creak of wheels on the bit of a
square made me raise my head. I had recog-

346 PORT TARASCON.

nized the sound of the springs of the great
coach of the old Dowager of Aiguebouhde. The
old woman was inside, with her stuffed parrot
beside her, and opposite sat my Clorinda, with
another person whom I couldn't see very well,
as the sun was in my eyes — a person in a blue
uniform and an embroidered military cap.

" Who in the world is with those ladies ?"

" Why, the dowager's grandson, Vicomte
Charlexis d'Aigueboulide, an officer in the light
cavalry. Didn't you know that Miss Clorinda
and he are to be ' married together ' this very
next month ?"

It ofave me a blow. I must have looked like
a corpse.

After all, I had still had a hope.

" Oh, you know, it's quite one of your love^
matches," continued my clumsy customer. " But
do you know what we say ? —

" ' When you marry to your taste,

Your nights and days you're sure to waste.' "

Lackaday ! that's the way I should have liked
to marry.

November ^tJi. — Yesterday poor Tartarin's auc-
tion came off. I was not there, but Franque-
balme came to the shop in the evening and told
me all about it.

PORT TARASCON.

347

^^^f

-'^

It seems to have been heart-rend inor. The

o

sale hasn't brought a penny. It took place out-
side, before the door, according to our old cus-
tom. Literally, not a penny, and yet there were
a lot of people. The arms of all countries — the
poisoned arrows, the assegais, the yataghans, the

348 PORT TARASCON.

revolvers, the Winchester, the thirty-two shoot-
er— not a single sou did they fetch. The same
with the splendid lion-skins of the Atlas ; the
same with the great alpenstock, his glorious
staff of the Jungfrau; there was only here and
there a preposterous bid for these curiosities,
these treasures — the real museum of our city.
Yes, faith is dead.

And then the baobab in its little pot — the
wondrous exotic that for thirty years has been
the admiration of the country ! When it was
placed on the table, when the auctioneer de-
scribed it as ''Arbos gigantea — whole villages
are often covered by its shade " — it seems there
was a universal guffaw.

Tartarin heard this profane mirth from the
other side of the wall — he was taking a turn or
two in his little garden with a couple of friends.
He said to them, without bitterness :

" They, too, our good Tarasconians, have been
through the operation for cataract. Yes, now
they can see ; but they're cruel."

The saddest thin": of all is that the sale is far
from having produced enough to clear off his
debts. He has been obliged to dispose of his
house to the Espazettes, who mean to give it to
their young couple.

And he, the poor great man, what will become

PORT TARASCON. 349

of him ? Will he cross the Bridge, as has been
vaguely stated ? Will he take refuge at Beau-
caire with his old friend Bompard ?

While Franquebalme, standing in the middle
of the shop, dwelt on this dismal episode, Bezu-
quet, in the background, just peeping, with his
ineffaceable blazonry, through a gap in the door,
tossed us, with the laugh of a Papuan fiend, a
" Serves him right ! serves him right !" as if it
were Tartarin himself who had tattooed him !

November yth. — It is to-morrow, Sunday, that
my kind master is to leave the city and cross
the Bridge ! Can it be possible ? Is Tartarin
of Tarascon to become Tartarin of Beaucaire ?
Just see what a difference, if only to the ear!
And then the Bridge, the terrible Bridge to
cross. I know very well that Tartarin has run
other risks, and surmounted other obstacles ;
but, all the same, those are things that you say
in anger — you don't really do them. I can't
believe it yet.

Sunday, December loth. — Seven o'clock in the
evening. I've come in quite prostrate — I've
hardly strength to jot down these words.

It's done ; he's gone ; he has crossed the
Bridge !

Three or four of us had agreed to meet at his
house ; there were Tournatoire and Franque-

350 PORT TARASCON.

balme and Beaumevieille, and we were over-
taken on the way by Malbos, one of the veter-
ans of the militia.

My heart sank dreadfully at the sight of the
wretched bare walls and the ravaged garden ;
but Tartarin didn't even look round him.

That's the orood side of our Tarasconian nat-
ure — our incurable mobility. It helps us to be
less sad than other races.

He gave the keys to Franquebalme.

" You will hand them to the Marquis des Es-
pazettes. I bear him no grudge for not having
come ; it's quite natural. As Bravida used to

say:

" ' The love of the great

Is brittle friendship.

As soon as they've done with us

They turn their backs.'"

Turning to me, he added, " You know some-
thing about that, dear child."

This allusion to Clorinda touched me. To
think of me in such a peck of troubles !

When once we had got out on the Long
Walk we found it was blowing fearfully. Each
of us thought to himself, " Mercy on us ! look
out for the Bridge presently."

Tartarin didn't seem to be looking out for it
at all. The mistral had blown every one out

PORT TARASCON, 35 I

of the streets ; we met nothing but the garrison
band coming back from the Esplanade, the sol-
diers, bothered with their instruments, holding
fast with the other hand their capes, that were
flapping and flying away.

Tartarin talked slowly, strolling between us
as if he were taking the air. He talked about
himself.

" You see, the trouble with me has been that
I have had, in an extraordinary degree, the af-
fection we all have. I've fed myself too much
on regardeller

At Tarascon we call regardelle everything
that tempts desire, everything we long for and
yet can't put our hand upon. It is the food of
the dreamer — of imaginative people. And Tar-
tarin told the truth — nobody has eaten more
regardelle than he.

As I was carrying m}- hero's valise and band-
box, as well as his overcoat, I walked a little
behind and didn't catch everything. Some of
his words were blown away in the wind — it
blew ever so much stronger as we approached
the Rhone. I gathered that he was saying he
bore nobody a grudge, talking of his career with
genial philosophy.

" That ragamuffin of a Daudet has said some-
where that I'm Don Quixote in the skin of

352 PORT TARASCON.

Sancho Panza. Well, I suppose it's true. This
type of the fat Don Quixote, the Don Quixote
comfortably potted in his flesh, and always fall-
ing below his dream, is rather frequent at Ta-
rascon and its neighborhood."

A little farther, down a side street, we saw
capering along a back that we recognized. It
was Escourbanies, crying, "A lot of noise ! let's
make a lot of noise ! long life to Costecalde !"
as he passed the shop-front of the armorer,
who, as it happens, was this morning appointed
a municipal councillor.

" I've not the slightest feeling even against
him',' said Tartarin. "And yet such a fellow as
that represents the most horrible side of our
Tarasconian South. I don't speak of his ever-
lasting chatter, though he really chatters more
than is necessary, but of that dreadful desire to
please, to be amiable, which makes him do the
vilest and most abject things. He's with Coste-
calde to throw me into the Rhone. He would
be with me, if any good were to be got by it,
to do the same for Costecalde. But except for
that, my children, we are not so bad; it's a nice
little race, without which, long ago, our poor
old France would have died of pedantry and
ennuir

We had reached the river. Before us hung

PORT TARASCON.

353

a wild sunset, a few clouds high in the air. The
wind seemed to have fallen a little, but all the
same the Bridge was not tempting. We stopped
at this end of it; he didn't ask us to go farther.

"Well, then, my dears, farewell!"

He embraced us all, beginning with Beaume-
vieille, as the oldest, and ending with me. I
was wet, I was perfectly dripping with tears.

23

V'

354 PORT TARASCON.

which I couldn't wipe, encumbered as I was
with his portmanteau and overcoat, so that I
may say the great man Hterally drank them up.

Deeply moved himself, he took over his prop-
erty, the bandbox in one hand, the great-coat
over the arm, the valise in the other hand. At
last Tournatoire said to him:

" Above all, Tartarin, take good care of your-
self— you know the climate over there, the mor-
tality at Beaucaire! A little garlic broth —
don't forsret that!"

Our friend replied, with a wink:

" Don't be afraid; you know the old woman's
account of herself, ' the farther she went the
more she learned, and the less she wanted to
die.' I shall be like the old woman."

We saw him pass from us under the cables,
a little heavy but with a good step. The Bridge
was lurching horribly. Two or three times he
stopped to catch his hat, which was blowing
away, and we cried to him from the distance,
but without budging :

" Farewell, Tartarin — farewell!"

He never turned round. He answered noth-
ing ; his feelings were too much for him. He
only joggled his bandbox up and down behind
him as a response.

Three months later, one Sunday evening. — I've

PORT TARASCON.

;55

opened my Memorial again after a long inter-
val— this old green diary that I mean to leave
to my children, if I ever have any, worn at the
corners, begun five thousand leagues from home,
the companion of my vicissitudes at sea, in pris-
on, everywhere. There's a little room in it still,
of which I take advantage to enter a report that
has been in circulation since this morning — the
rumor that Tartarin has ceased to be!

For three months we have had no news of
him. I have known that he had settled at
Beaucaire, in company with Bompard, whom
he has been helping to superintend the Fair-

;56

PORT TARASCON.

srouncls and watch over the Castle. Such oc-
cupations come back, after all, to the old rcgar-
dellc. I have pined for my kind master so often
that I have had twenty minds to go and see
him, but I have always been kept
^'"■^- back by that fiend of a Bridge.
One day, looking over
towards the Castle of Beau-
caire, it seemed
to me that I
saw somebody
perched upon
it with an
opera-glass
directed this
looked as if
Bompard. He
went back in-
presently re-
companion, a
who had a
This compan-

way. The figure
it might be
disappeared,
to the tower, and
turned with a
very stout party,
look of Tartarin.

LolM

ion also took the glass, but lowered it presently
to wave his arms as a sort of sign ; the thing,
however, was so far off and slight and sketchy
that I was not quite so much excited by it as I
ought to have been.

This morning when I got up I felt awfully

PORT TARASCON.

157

uneasy, but without knowing why. I went out
to the barber's, as I do every Sunday, and was
struck with the curious, muffled, sallow sky, one
of those thick, dead skies that make the trees

_>^

JV«*i)

and branches, the pavements and houses, so
strangely distinct. When I reached the bar-
ber's— I always go to Marc Aurele — I called his
attention to it.

35^ PORT TARASCON.

"What a funny sun! It doesn't warm, it
doesn't light! Is there an ecHpse coming off?"

" Why, don't you know about it. Monsieur
Pascalon ? They've been expecting one since
the beginning of the month."

And at the moment he had got hold of my
nose, and had his razor just under it,

"And the news — I suppose you know the
news, eh? It appears our great man is no
longer of this world."

" What great man ?"

When he named Tartarin I only wanted a
little of making him cut my throat.

" That's what it is to leave home ! Without
Tarascon he couldn't live."

My friend Marcus Aurelius didn't know he
was so near the truth.

W ithout Tarascon and without glory it was
very certain Tartarin couldn't livCo

My kind old master — my dear great frJsnd !

The coincidence is awfully striking — an
eclipse the day of his death !

What a funny people we are, after all! Til
bet anything that there's not a creature in town
who isn't saddened by the news, which, however,
won't prevent every one from trying to look as
much as possible as if he didn't mind it.

All this because, ever since we made such
fools of ourselves out there, showing ourselves

PORT TARASCON. 359

SO hoaxing and so hoaxed, we have all wanted to
take the other line and appear to have learned,
once for all, the lesson of steadiness and sobriety.

The truth is, however, that we've not learned
any lesson at all; only now instead of saying too
much about anything we say too little — we lie
by understatement.

We no longer say that yesterday, in our old
arena, there were at least fifty thousand people;
we say it's putting it strong to call them at the
very most half a dozen.

It's only another kind of exaggeration !

-A'"^

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE LIBRARY
DO NOT REMOVE FROM BOOK POCKET

DATE DUE:

OCT 1 5 1993

CALL NUMBER

VOL COP

AUTHOR.

DAUDST, ALPHOMSE.
Fort Tara^on.

PQ
2216

1S91-

(Book Club)
* t(76-384 Oxford Street