The gallant Commandant had never uttered a word about the African journey, but at last, when the public clamour became too loud to ignore, he decided to speak.

One evening, the unhappy Tartarin was alone in his study thinking sad thoughts, when the Commandant appeared, somberly dressed and gloved, with every button fastened “Tartarin!” said the former captain, with authority, “Tartarin, you must go!” and he stood, upright and rigid in the doorway, the very embodiment of duty.

All that was implied in that “Tartarin you must go” Tartarin understood.  Very pale, he rose to his feet and cast a tender look round his pleasant study, so snug, so warm, so well lit, and at the the large, so comfortable armchair, at his books, his carpet and at the big white blinds of his window, beyond which swayed the slender stems of the little garden.  Then advancing to the the brave Commandant, he took his hand, shook it vigorously and in a voice close to tears said stoically, “I shall go, Bravida.”  And he did go as he had said he would.  Though not before he had gathered the necessary equipment.

First, he ordered from Blompard two large cases lined with copper and with a large plaque inscribed Tartarin de Tarascon.  Firearms. The lining and the engraving took a long time.  He ordered from M. Tastevin a magnificent log-book in which to write his journal.  Then he sent to Marseille for a whole cargo of preserved food, for pemmican tablets to make soup, for a bivouac tent of the latest design, which could be erected or struck in a few minutes, a pair of sea-boots, two umbrellas, a waterproof and a pair of dark glasses to protect his eyes.  Finally, Bezuquet the chemist made up a medicine chest full of sticking plaster, pills and lotions.  All these preparations were made in the hope that by these and other delicate attentions he could appease the fury of Tartarin-Sancho, which, since the departure had been decided, had raged unabated by day and by night.

Chapter 10.

At last the great day arrived.  From first light the whole of Terascon was afoot, blocking the Avignon road and the approaches to the little house of the baobab.  There were people at windows, on roofs, up trees.  Bargees from the Rhone, stevedores, boot-blacks, clerks, weavers, the club members, in fact the whole town.  Then there were people from Beaucaire who had come across the bridge, market-gardeners from the suburbs, carts with big hoods, vignerons mounted on fine mules ornamented with ribbons, tassels, bows and bells, and even here and there some pretty girls from Arles, with blue kerchiefs round their heads, riding on the crupper behind their sweethearts on the small iron-grey horses of the Camargue.  All this crowd pushed and jostled before Tartarin’s gate, the gate of this fine M. Tartarin who was going to kill lions in the country of the “Teurs”. (In Tarascon:  Africa, Greece, Turkey and Mesopotamia formed a vast, vague almost mythical country which was called the Teurs... that is the Turks).  Throughout this mob the hat shooters came and went, proud of the triumph of their leader, and leaving in their wake, as it were, little trails of glory.