On hearing this, the whole club would quiver.

"But according to that, this Tartarin of yours is an awful liar."

"No, no, a thousand times over, no! Tartarin was no liar."

"But the man ought to know that he has never been to Shanghai" --

"Why, of course, he knows that; but still" --

"But still," you see -- mark that! It is high time for the law to be
laid down once for all on the reputation as drawers of the long bow
which Northerners fling at Southerners. There are no Baron
Munchausens in the south of France, neither at Nimes nor
Marseilles, Toulouse nor Tarascon. The Southerner does not
deceive but is self-deceived. He does not always tell the cold-drawn
truth, but he believes he does. His falsehood is not any such thing,
but a kind of mental mirage.

Yes, purely mirage! The better to follow me, you should actually
follow me into the South, and you will see I am right. You have
only to look at that Lucifer's own country, where the sun
transmogrifies everything, and magnifies it beyond life-size. The
little hills of Provence are no bigger than the Butte Montmartre,
but they will loom up like the Rocky Mountains; the Square House
at Nimes -- a mere model to put on your sideboard -- will seem
grander than St. Peter's. You will see -- in brief, the only exaggerator
in the South is Old Sol, for he does enlarge everything he touches.
What was Sparta in its days of splendour? a pitiful hamlet. What