So it was one morning when some street urchins were chanting their jeers beneath the window of the room where our poor hero was trimming his beard.

Suddenly the window was thrown open and Tartarin's head appeared, his face covered in soapsuds, waving a razor and shaving brush and shouting "Sword-thrusts, gentlemen, sword-thrusts, not pin-pricks!" Fine words but wasted on a bunch of brats about two bricks tall.
Amid the general defection, the army alone stood firmly by Tartarin, the brave Commandant Bravida continued to treat him with esteem.

"He's a stout fellow," He persisted in saying, and this affirmation was worth a good deal more, I should imagine, than anything said by Bezuquet the chemist.
The gallant Commandant had never uttered a word about the African journey, but at last, when the public clamour became too loud to ignore, he decided to speak.
One evening, the unhappy Tartarin was alone in his study thinking sad thoughts, when the Commandant appeared, somberly dressed and gloved, with every button fastened "Tartarin!" said the former captain, with authority, "Tartarin, you must go!" and he stood, upright and rigid in the doorway, the very embodiment of duty.
All that was implied in that "Tartarin you must go" Tartarin understood.
Very pale, he rose to his feet and cast a tender look round his pleasant study, so snug, so warm, so well lit, and at the the large, so comfortable armchair, at his books, his carpet and at the big white blinds of his window, beyond which swayed the slender stems of the little garden.

Then advancing to the the brave Commandant, he took his hand, shook it vigorously and in a voice close to tears said stoically, "I shall go, Bravida." And he did go as he had said he would.

Though not before he had gathered the necessary equipment.
First, he ordered from Blompard two large cases lined with copper and with a large plaque inscribed TARTARIN DE TARASCON.FIREARMS.