I have attempted to produce a text which will entertain the average reader.  Those who want to know exactly what Daudet wrote must consult the French original.

TARTARIN DE TARASCON

Chapter 1.

Although it is now some twelve or fifteen years since my first meeting with Tartarin de Tarascon, the memory of the encounter remains as fresh as if it had been yesterday.

At that time Tartarin lived near the entrance to the town, in the third house on the left on the Avignon road, a pretty little Tarascon villa, with a garden in front, a balcony behind, very white walls and green shutters.

From outside the place looked perfectly ordinary, one would never have believed that it was the home of a hero, but when one went inside, well...  My goodness!  The whole establishment had an heroic air, even the garden!

Ah...!  The Garden... there was not another like it in Europe.  Not one indigenous tree grew there, not one French flower; nothing but exotic plants, gum trees, calabashes, cotton trees, coconut palms, mangos, bananas, cactuses, figs and a baobab.  One might have thought oneself in the middle of Africa, thousands of miles from Tarascon.  Of course none of these trees was fully grown, the coconut palm was about the size of a swede and the baobab (arbos gigantica) fitted comfortably into a pot full of earth and gravel.  No matter....  For Tarascon it was quite splendid, and those citizens who were admitted, on Sundays, to have the privilege of inspecting Tartarin’s baobab went home full of admiration.

You may imagine my emotions as I walked through this remarkable garden... they were nothing, however, to what I felt on being admitted to the sanctum of the great man himself.

This building, one of the curiosities of the town, was at the end of the garden, to which it opened through a glass door.  Picture a large room hung from floor to ceiling with firearms and swords; weapons from every country in the world.  Guns, carbines, rifles, blunderbusses, knives, spears, revolvers, daggers, arrows, assegais, knobkerries, knuckledusters and I know not what.

The brilliant sunlight glittered on the steel blades of sabres and the polished butts of firearms.  It was really quite a menacing scene... what was a little reassuring was the good order and discipline which ruled over this arsenal.  Everything was neat tidy and dusted.  Here and there a simple notice, reading “Poison arrows, Do not touch.” or “Beware.  Loaded firearms.” made one feel it safe to approach.