Tartarin de Tarascon. Alphonse Daudet

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СКАЧАТЬ the great novels were his "task."

      If only he had continued as he began, if only he had remained the poet of the "Lettres de mon moulin"; if only he had not been led astray by his "task", he might have brought to the world of readers that happiness which he brought to his few friends in the attic of Auteuil.

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      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.

      * * * * *

      Daudet says in "Trente Ans de Paris," page 142, that the home of the real Tartarin was five or six miles from Tarascon on the other side of the Rhone. In an article which appeared in "Les Annales," July 6, 1913, Charles Le Goffic tells of a visit to the house in Tarascon known as la maison de Tartarin, and reports a conversation he had with Mistral, the great Provençal poet, an intimate friend of Daudet. Mistral said that the real Tartarin lived at Nîmes, eighteen miles from Tarascon, to the west of the Rhone, and was no other than Raynaud, Daudet's own cousin. "Raynaud," Mistral told Le Goffic, "had travelled among the Teurs and talked about nothing but his lion hunts; he talked about them with his lower lip extended so as to form a terrible pout (moue), which gave a character of good-natured ferocity to the little gentleman's honest face. Raynaud recognized himself in Tartarin and became very angry with Daudet; the reconciliation between the cousins was not effected till toward the end of the novelist's life".

      BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

       Table des matières

      A definitive edition of the works of Daudet has been published by Houssiaux, in octavo, 1899 ff. (18 volumes). Convenient editions of most of them are published by Flammarion, Lemerre, Fasquelle, and others.

      The best sources for the study of Daudet's life and works are his Trente Ans de Paris, Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres, Notes sur la vie (Paris, 1899), his brother Ernest's Mon Frère et moi (Paris, 1882), and his son Léon's Alphonse Daudet (Paris, 1898).

      The following may also be consulted:

      J. BRIVOIS, Essai de bibliographie des oeuvres de M. Alphonse Daudet, Paris, 1895. H. CÉARD, introduction to the definitive edition. B. DIEDERICH, Alphonse Daudet, Berlin, 1900. R. DOUMIC, in Portraits d'écrivains and Études sur la littérature française, Vol. III. HENRY JAMES, in Partial Portraits. J. LEMAÎTRE, in Les Contemporains, Vol. II. R. H. SHERARD, Alphonse Daudet, London, 1894. B. W. WELLS, in A Century of French Fiction, New York, 1903. E. ZOLA, in Les Romanciers naturalistes.

      The illustrations in the following articles are of interest:

      J. A. HAMMERTON, "The Town of Tartarin," in The Critic, vol. 47, pp 317 ff. A. B. MAURICE, "The Trail of Tartarin," in The Bookman, vol. 14, pp. 128 ff.; vol. 15, pp. 520 ff.

      WORKS OF ALPHONSE DAUDET

       Table des matières

      POEMS, NOVELS, TALES, AND SKETCHES

      Les Amoureuses, poèmes et fantaisies (including La Double Conversion, Le Roman

       du Chaperon rouge, and other poems) 1857-1861.

       Le Petit Chose, 1868.

       Lettres de mon moulin, 1869.

       Lettres à un absent, 1871.

       Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon, 1872.

       Contes du lundi, 1873.

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