Seeing this prudence you should not entertain the notion that Tartarin was afraid.

No! He was just being cautious.
The clearest evidence that Tartarin was unafraid is that he went to the club not by the short way but by the longest and darkest way, through a tangle of mean little streets, at the end of which one glimpsed the sinister gleam of the Rhone.

He almost hoped that at a bend in one of these alleys "They" would come rushing from the shadows to attack him from behind.

They would have had a hot reception I can promise you; but sadly Tartarin was never fated to encounter any danger...

not even a dog...