Now, you may say, “Since game is in such short supply, what do these Tarasconais sportsmen do every Sunday?” What do they do?  Eh!  Mon Dieu!  They go out into the country, several miles from the town.  They assemble in little groups of five or six.  They settle down comfortably in some shady spot.  They take out of their game-bags a nice piece of boeuf-en-daube, some raw onions, a sausage and some anchovies and they begin a very long luncheon, washed down by one of these jolly Rhone wines, which encourage singing and laughter.

When all have had enough, they whistle for the dogs, load their guns and commence the shoot.  That is to say each of these gentlemen takes off his hat, sends it spinning through the air with all his strength and takes a pot-shot at it.  The one who hits his hat most frequently is proclaimed king of the hunt and returns to Tarascon that evening in triumph, his perforated hat hanging from the end of his gun and to the accompaniment of much barking and blowing of trumpets.

One need hardly tell you that there is a brisk trade in hats in the town, and there are even hatters who sell hats already full of holes and tears for use by the less skillful, but scarcely anyone is known to buy them except Bezuquet the chemist.

As a hat shooter Tartarin had no equal.  Every Sunday morning he left with a new hat.  Every evening he returned with a rag.  In the little house of the baobab, the attic was full of these glorious trophies.  All of Tarascon recognised him as their master in this respect.  The gentlemen elected him as their chief justice in matters relating to the chase and arbitrator in any dispute, so that every day, between the hours of three and four in the afternoon, at Costecalde the gunsmith’s one could see the plump figure of a man, seated gravely on a green leather arm-chair, in the middle of the shop, which was full of hat hunters standing about and arguing.  It was Tartarin delivering justice.  Nimrod doubling as Soloman.

Chapter 2.

In addition to their passion for hunting the good people of Tarascon had another passion, which was for drawing-room ballads.  The number of ballads which were sung in this part of the world passed all belief.  All the old sentimental songs, yellowing in ancient cardboard boxes, could be found in Tarascon alive and flourishing.  Each family had its own ballad and in the town this was well understood.  One knew, for example, that for Bezuquet the chemist it was:-"Thou pale star whom I adore.”

For the gunsmith Costecalde:-"Come with me to the forest glade.”

For the Town Clark:—­“If I was invisible, no one would see me.” (a comic song) Two or three times a week people would gather in one house or another and sing, and the remarkable thing is that the songs were always the same.  No matter for how long they had been singing them, the people of Tarascon had no desire to change them.  They were handed down in families from father to son and nobody dared to interfere with them, they were sacrosanct.  They were never even borrowed.  It would never occur to the Bezuquets to sing the Costecaldes’ song or to the Costecaldes to sing that of the Bezuquets.  You might suppose that having known them for some forty years they might sometimes sing them to themselves, but no, everyone stuck to his own.