The establishment had another advantage in that it was sometimes attacked by bandits.  On these occasions the gates were slammed shut, the staff armed themselves, the consular flag was hoisted and “Pan!  Pan!” They fired through the windows at the bandits.

I need hardly tell you with what enthusiasm Tartarin-Quixote greeted this proposal; unfortunately Tartarin-Sancho did not see the matter in the same light, and as his views prevailed the affair came to nothing.

At the time there was a great deal of talk in the town.  Was he going or not going?  It was a matter for eager discussion.

Although in the end Tartarin did not go, the event brought him a great deal of credit.  To have nearly gone to Shanghai and actually to have gone there was for Tarascon much the same thing.  As a result of so much talk about Tartarin’s journey, people ended by believing that he had just returned, and in the evenings at the club the members would ask him for a description of the life in Shanghai, the customs, the climate, and big business.

Tartarin, who had gathered much information from the brothers was happy to reply to their questions, and before long he was not entirely sure himself whether he had been to Shanghai or not; so much so that when describing for the hundredth time the raid by bandits he got to the point of saying “Then I dished out arms to my staff.  Hoisted the consular flag and we fired ‘Pan!  Pan!’ Through the windows at the bandits.”  On hearing this the members would exchange suitably solemn looks.

Tartarin then, you will say, is just a frightful liar.  No!....  A thousand times no!  How is that? you may say, he must know vey well that he has not been to Shanghai... to be sure he knows... only....  Perhaps the time has come when we should settle the question of the reputation for lying which has been given to the people of the Midi.

There are no liars in the Midi, neither at Marseille, nor Nimes, nor Toulouse, nor Tarascon.  The man of the Midi does not lie, he deceives himself.  He does not always speak the truth but he believes he speaks it.  His untruth, for him, is not a lie, it is a sort of mirage.  To understand better you must visit the Midi yourself.  You will see a countryside where the sun transfigures everything and makes it larger than life-size.  The little hills of Provence, no bigger than the Butte Montmartre will seem to you gigantic.  The Maison Carree at Nimes, a pretty little Roman temple, will seem to you as big as Notre Dame.  You will see that the only liar in the Midi, if there is one, is the sun; everything that he touches he exaggerates.  Can you be surprised that this sun shining down on Tarascon has been able to make a retired Captain Quartermaster into the gallant Commandant Bravida, to make a thing like a turnip into a baobab and a man who almost went to Shanghai into one who has really been there.

Chapter 7.