In addition to their passion for hunting the good people of Tarascon
had another passion, which was for drawing-room ballads. The number of
ballads which were sung in this part of the world passed all belief. All
the old sentimental songs, yellowing in ancient cardboard boxes, could
be found in Tarascon alive and flourishing. Each family had its own
ballad and in the town this was well understood. One knew, for example,
that for Bezuquet the chemist it was:-"Thou pale star whom I adore."

For the gunsmith Costecalde:-"Come with me to the forest glade."

For the Town Clark:--"If I was invisible, no one would see me." (a comic
song) Two or three times a week people would gather in one house or
another and sing, and the remarkable thing is that the songs were always
the same. No matter for how long they had been singing them, the people
of Tarascon had no desire to change them. They were handed down in
families from father to son and nobody dared to interfere with them,
they were sacrosanct. They were never even borrowed. It would never
occur to the Bezuquets to sing the Costecaldes' song or to the
Costecaldes to sing that of the Bezuquets. You might suppose that
having known them for some forty years they might sometimes sing them to
themselves, but no, everyone stuck to his own.

In the matter of ballads, as in that of hats, Tartarin played a leading
role. His superiority over his fellow citizens arose from the fact that
he did not have a song of his own, and so he could take part in all of
them, only it was extremely difficult to get him to sing at all.

Returning early from some drawing-room success, our hero preferred to
immerse himself in his books on hunting or spend the evening at the