With this lust for adventure, this need for excitement, this longing for journeys to Lord knows where, how on earth, you may ask, does it happen that Tartarin had never left Tarascon?
For it is a fact that up to the age of forty-five the bold Tarasconais had never slept away from his home town.

He had never even made the ritual journey to Marseille which every good Provencal makes when he comes of age.

He might, of course, have visited Beaucaire, albeit Beaucaire is not very far from Tarascon, as one has only to cross the bridge over the Rhone.

Regrettably, however, this wretched bridge is so often swept by high winds, is so long and so flimsy and the river at that point is so wide that...

Ma foi...