While Tartarin was preparing himself by these strenuous methods, all Tarascon had its eyes on him.

Nothing else was of interest.

Hat shooting was abandoned, the ballads languished; in Bezuquet the chemist's the piano was silent beneath a green dust cover, with cantharides flies drying, belly up, on the top...

Tartarin's expedition had brought everything to a halt.
You should have seen the success of our hero in the drawing-rooms.

He was seized, squabbled over, borrowed and stolen.