Brémonde de Tarascon, Tarascon, Bouches-du-Rhône (13)

Elisabeth 'Alexandrine' Brémond (1858–98) was a félibresse born in Tarascon, who died in Fontvieille and is better known as Brémonde de Tarascon. She came from an old family of paysans from Provence, published her first work in 1883 and married the poet and lawyer Joseph Gautier in 1886. The back of the monument lists her works: Li Blavet de Mount-Majour (1883), Velo Blanco (1887), Brut de canèu (1892), Lou debanaire flouri (published posthumously in 1908 by Joseph Roumanille), and the unpublished play 'Anen aganta la luno'. The monument was erected in 1965.

F. Barberin, Tarascon, Bouches-du-Rhône (13)

This one defeats me at present, although maybe someone will enlighten me. This is a monument to medical 'Docteur F. Barberin' (1854–1920), who is described as helping the poor in Tarascon. The trouble is that I can find no mention of him anywhere. He even appears to have a street named after him – along wih a certain Victor Barberin – but I can find no reference to either of these people. It could be my Googling, I suppose, but all the same...

Louis Renard in Tarascon (13)

'RUE Louis RENARD

Historien local 1915– 2006 '

It's excellent that a town should recognise the work of its local historians, and hats off to a person who has researched the history of shoemakers in the small town of Tarascon over five hundred years. Among Louis Renard's works are Les Cordeliers de Tarascon : du XIIIe siècle à la Révolution française (1984); Tarascon : le temps retrouvé (1991), La Tarasque (1991), and Tarasacon - Sa vie municipale, quotidienne, religieuse et artistique (1999). Here is a representation of the town's legendary amphibian La Tarasque outside his 'den':

Alphonse Daudet and Tartarin de Tarascon in Tarascon (13)

The hilarious bumbling braggart who professes to be a bold hunter of lions, but who hasn't so much as walked over the town bridge to neighboring Beaucaire until forced into an uncomfortable spot and show how, er, great he is. A brilliant sculpture of him standing on a dead lion.

And under the statue, a representation of Alphonse Daudet smiling as he writes:

'Cet homme, c'était Tartarin de Tarascon, l'intrépide, le grand, l'incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon.
En France, tout le monde est un peu de Tarason.'

'This man was Tartarin de Tarascon, the bold, the great, the incomparable Tartarin de Tarascon.

In France, everyone has a little of Tarascon in them.'

My other Alphonse Daudet posts:

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Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)
Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13) again

Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin de Tarascon (1872)

Tartarin de Tarascon is one of Alphonse Daudet's delightful mock-heroic novels – which even delighted Flaubert – about a small, fat man with a super-large ego: he portrays himself as an adventurer, a lion-killer, a first-rate hero. Problem: he lives in the small town of Tarascon in Provence, and has never dared to even venture across the small bridge that separates Tarascon from Beaucaire (although I did so some time ago and obviously lived to tell the tale). He wears exotic clothes, has fearsome exotic weapons on his walls, cultivates exotic plants, and yet doesn't fulfil exotic expectations.

Reading, certainly, is part of the problem, and just think of the unfortunate fate of Emma Bovary. But the kind of fiction Tartarin is reading is adventure material by the likes of Fenimore Cooper and Gustave Aimard. Don Quixote (ah, windmills!) was another one whose head was skewed by books, and interestingly enough the narrator of Tartarin de Tarascon sees Tartarin in a similar light to him, but also likens him to Quixote's servant Sancho Panza. So both the would-be (but ridiculous) knight gallant Quixote and the careful (even pragmatically cowardly) Panza figures in Cervantes's novel co-exist in the same person: one pushes forward, the other pulls back.

Evidently the Panza side has triumphed up to now, but the all-important matter of what the tarasconnais think of the apparent hero is vital and Tartarin's credibility as a hero is wearing laughably thin, so he is forced into action by setting off with many weapons and much ammunition to, er, Algeria. Where he is of course taken for a number of rides.

Inevitably, Tartarin learns that Algeria is far from lion territory, and although he falls in love with, indeed gets together with Baïa, he is still risking his reputation in Tarascon, so he determines to hunt these elusive lions. Unfortunately the only one he encounters is a prized blind one, which (financially) costs him dearly, although he sends the skin back to Tarascon and returns (accompanied by a devoted camel) to great acclaim. A tall story about a short man? Yes of course, but it's irresistible.

My other Alphonse Daudet posts:

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Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13)
Alphonse Daudet in Fontvieille (13) again
Alphonse Daudet and Tartarin de Tarascon in Tarascon (13)