We are told the story of the publication of "Tartarin de Tarascon" [1] by Daudet himself in his "Trente Ans de Paris." It began to appear in the Petit Moniteur universel, but did not appeal to the readers of this popular newspaper.
[Footnote 1: The other books of the "Tartarin" series are inferior to "Tartarin de Tarascon" (1872). "Tartarin sur les Alpes" (1885) relates the adventures of the hero while climbing the great mountains of Switzerland in order to prove that he is worthy of remaming P.C.A. (Président du Club Alpin de Tarascon.) In "La Défense de Tarascon" (1886, only a dozen pages long) we have a characteristic picture of the city preparing to resist the German invasion. "Port-Tarascon" (1890) is the last and poorest of the series. Tartarin leads his compatriots in a colonizing expedition to the South Seas, and then brings them home again. Finally, in self-inflicted exile, "across the bridge" in Beaucaire (cf. note to 13 28), the great man dies.]
Publication was interrupted after some ten installments, and the work was carried to the Figaro, by whose more aristocratic clientèle literary irony was not unappreciated. The hero was first called Chapatin, then Barbarin (cf. note to 56 12), and finally Tartarin. "Tartarin de Tarascon" is a galéjado, une plaisanterie, un éclat de rire. Continuing Daudet says: "Only one who was raised in southern France, or knows it thoroughly, can appreciate how frequently the Tartarin type is to be met there, and how under the generous sun of Tarascon, which warms and electrifies, the natural drollery of mind and imagination is led astray into monstrous exaggerations, in form and dimension as various as bottle gourds."
Daudet, like our Dickens, succeeded in producing characters invested with such reality that in the minds of readers they become veritable beings. Of all his creations Tartarin is the most widely known, and the world's conception of a French southerner is derived from the portrait of this hero.
As is usual in the works of Daudet, the character of Tartarin is not wholly fictitious. The home of the cap-hunters was really not Tarascon, but a village five or six leagues away on the other side of the Rhône. It was from this village, and in company with the prototype of Tartarin, that Daudet set out for Africa in 1861, chiefly to recover his health and incidentally to hunt lions. The novel is a souvenir of the author's sojourn in the home of the real Tartarin and of the trip which the two made together[1], the whole being greatly modified by the play of the novelist's Provençal imagination
[Footnote 1: See the following notes of this edition for evidence of the extent to which Daudet used the notes jotted down in Africa in the composition of "Tartarin": 70 21, 73 27, 81 5-6. See also "Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres," p. 44, where he speaks of the notebook from which he extracted "Tartarin" and other works.]
To appreciate "Tartarin de Tarascon" is not easy for a foreigner; and by foreigners is meant all those who have not lived in and do not know Provence. Americans and Parisians (see pages 16-17) look on Tartarin and his compatriots as mere liars.
They are not liars: they are suffering simply from the effects of a mirage. To understand what is meant by a mirage, you must go to the south of France. There you will find a magic sun which transforms everything, which takes a molehill and makes of it a mountain. Go to Tarascon, seek out a man who almost went to Shanghai, look steadfastly at him, and if the southern sun is shining upon him you will soon be convinced that he has actually gone to Shanghai.
In reading "Tartarin de Tarascon," therefore, remember that Tartarin's world is small and his imagination large; that he never lies, though he rarely tells the truth. Do not make the mistake of thinking Tartarin a lunatic. Just as his immortal predecessor Don Quixote was thoroughly sane except in that which touched the realm of chivalry, so Tartarin is a normal Frenchman except when he is under the influence of the southern mirage.
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