Now that we have shown Tartarin as he was in his private life, before fame had crowned his head with laurels.  Now that we have recounted the story of his heroic existance in modest surroundings, the story of his joys and sorrows, his dreams and his hopes, let us hurry forward to the important pages of his history and to the event which lent wings to his destiny.

It was one evening at Costecalde the gunsmith’s; Tartarin was explaining to some listeners the working of a pin-fire rifle, then something quite new, when suddenly the door was opened and a hat hunter rushed into the room in a great state shouting “A lion! a lion!” General amazement, fright, tumult and confusion.  Tartarin grabbed a bayonet, Costecalde ran to close the door.  The newcomer was surrounded and questioned nosily.  What they learned was that the Menagerie Mitaine, returning from the fair at Beaucaire, had arranged to make a stop of several days at Tarascon, and had just set itself up in the Place du Chateau with a collection of snakes, seals, crocodiles, and a magnificent African lion....  An African lion at Tarascon!... such a thing had never been seen before, never in living memory.

The brave band of hat hunters gazed proudly at one another.  Their manly features glowed with pleasure and, in every corner of the shop, firm handshakes were silently exchanged.  The emotion was so overwhelming, so unforseen that no one could find a word to say.  Not even Tartarin.  Pale and trembling, with the new rifle clutched in his hands, he stood in a trance at the shop counter.  A lion!... an African lion!... nearby... a few paces away...  A lion, the ferocious king of the beasts... the quarry of his dreams... one of the leading actors in that imaginary cast which played out such fine dramas in his fantasies.  It was too much for Tartarin to bear.  Suddenly the blood flooded to his cheeks.  His eyes blazed, and with a convulsive gesture he slapped the rifle onto his shoulder, then turning to the brave Commandant Bravida (quartermaster.  Ret) he said in a voice of thunder, “Come, Commandant, let us go and see this.”  “Excuse me.  Excuse me.  My new rifle.”  The prudent Costecalde hazarded timidly, but Tartarin was already in the street, and behind him all the hat hunters fell proudly into step.

When they arrived at the menagerie it was already crowded.  The brave people of Tarascon, too long deprived of sensational spectacles, had descended on the place and taken it by storm.  The big madame Mitaine was in her element; dressed in an oriental costume, her arms bare to the elbows and with iron bracelets round her ankles, she had a whip in one hand and in the other a live chicken.  She welcomed the Tarasconais to the show, and as she too had “Double muscles” she aroused almost as much interest as the animals in her charge.