The magistrature supported Tartarin.  Two or three times, on a full bench, the aged president Ladeveze had said of him “He’s quite a character”.

Finally, the people supported Tartarin, his stolid appearance, the heroic reputation he had somehow acquired, the distribution of small sums of money and a few clips round the ear to the youngsters who hung around his doorstep, had made him lord of the neighbourhood and king of the Tarascon market-place.  On the quay, on sunday evenings, when Tartarin returned from the hunt, his hat dangling from the end of his gun, the stevedores would nod to him respectfully and eying the arms bulging the sleeves of his tightly buttoned jacket, would murmur to one another, “He’s strong he is.  He’s got double muscles.”  The possession of double muscles is something you hear about only in Tarascon.

However, in spite of his numerous talents, double muscles, popular favour and the so precious esteem of the gallant Commandant Bravida (Quartermaster.  Ret) Tartarin was not happy.  This small-town life weighed him down, stifled him.  The great man of Tarascon was bored with Tarascon.  The fact is that for an heroic nature such as his, for a daring and adventurous spirit which dreamt of battles, explorations, big game hunting, desert sands, hurricanes and typhoons, to go every Sunday hat shooting and for the rest of the time dispense justice at Costecalde the gunsmith’s was... well... hardly satisfying.  It was enough indeed to send one into a decline.

In vain, in order to widen his horizon and forget for a while the club and the market square, did he surround himself with African plants; in vain did he pile up a collection of weapons; in vain did he pore over tales of daring-do trying to escape by the power of his imagination from the pitiless grip of reality.  Alas all that he did to satisfy his lust for adventure seemed only to increase it.  The sight of his weapons kept him in a perpetual state of furious agitation.  His rifles, his arrows and his spears rang out war-cries.  In the branches of the baobab the wind whispered enticingly of great voyages.

How often on these heavy summer afternoons, when he was alone, reading amongst his weaponry, did Tartarin jump to his feet and throwing down his book rush to the wall to arm himself, then, quite forgetting that he was in his own house at Tarascon, cry, brandishing a gun or a spear, “Let them all come"!!...  Them?...  What them?  Tartarin did not quite know himself, “Them” was everything that attacked, that bit, that clawed.  “Them” was the Indian brave dancing round the stake to which his wretched prisoner was tied.  It was the grizzly bear, shuffling and swaying, licking bloodstained lips.  The Toureg of the desert, the Malay pirate, the Corsican bandit.  In a word it was “Them!”

Alas it was fruitless for the fearless Tartarin to challenge them... they never appeared; but though it seemed unlikely that they would come to Tarascon, Tartarin was always ready for them, particularly in the evenings when he went to the club.