Let me tell you whence this kingship.

You must know, first, that every one there is a huntsman, from the greatest to the smallest.

So, every Sunday morning, Tarascon takes arms and leaves the walls, game-bag on the back, gun on the shoulder, with a commotion of dogs, ferrets, trumpets, and hunting-horns.  It is a superb sight.  Unfortunately, game is wanting, absolutely wanting.

However stupid animals may be, in the end they had become wary.

For five leagues round Tarascon warrens are empty, nests deserted.  Not a thrush, not a quail, not the least little rabbit, not the smallest leveret.

And yet these pretty Tarascon hillocks are very tempting, perfumed with myrtle, lavender, and rosemary; and these fine muscat grapes, swollen with sweetness, which grow by the side of the Rhone, extremely appetising too—­yes, but there is Tarascon behind, and in the little world of fur and feather Tarascon has an evil fame.  The birds of passage themselves have marked it with a big cross on their maps of the route, and when the wild-ducks, descending towards Camargue in long triangles, see the steeples of the town in the distance, the leader screams at the top of his lungs, “There is Tarascon!—­There is Tarascon!” and the whole flight turns.

In short, as far as game is concerned, only one old rogue of a hare remains, who has escaped by some miracle from the September massacres of the Tarasconners, and who insists on living there.  In Tarascon this hare is well known.  They have given him a name.  He is called “The Express.”  It is known that his form is in M. Bompard’s ground—­which, by the way, has doubled and even trebled its price—­but so far no one has been able to get at it.

At the present moment there are one or two desperate fellows who have set their hearts upon him.

The others have made up their minds that it is hopeless, and “The Express” has become a sort of local superstition, although the Tarasconners are not very superstitious and eat swallows in a salmi when they can get them.

“But,” you object, “if game is so rare in Tarascon, what do the Tarascon sportsmen do every Sunday?”

What do they do?

Well, bless me! they go out into the open country two or three leagues from the town.  They gather into little groups of six or seven, stretch themselves tranquilly in the shadow of an old wall, an olive-tree, take out of their game-bags a great piece of beef seasoned with daube, some uncooked onions, a large sausage, some anchovies, and begin an interminable luncheon, moistened by one of those nice little Rhone wines which make a man laugh and sing.

After that, when one has laid in a good stock of provisions, one rises, whistles the dogs, loads the guns, and the chase begins.  That is to say, each gentleman takes his cap, flings it into the air with all his might, and fires at it.

He who puts most shots into his cap is proclaimed king of the hunt, and returns in the evening to Tarascon in triumph, with his peppered cap on the end of his gun, amidst yappings and fanfares.