Tartarin de Tarascon combined this with several other sensible methods of training.  For instance, to habituate himself to long marches he would go round his morning constitutional seven or eight times, sometimes at a brisk walk, sometimes at the trot with two pebbles in his mouth.  Then to accustom himself to nocturnal chills and the mists of dawn, he went into the garden and stayed there until ten or eleven at night, alone with his rifle, on watch behind the baobab.

Finally, for as long as the menagerie remained in Tarascon, those hat hunters who had stayed late at Costecalde’s could see in the shadows, as they passed the Place du Chateau, a figure pacing up and down behind the cages... it was Tartarin training himself to listen unmoved to the roaring of lions in the African night.

Chapter 9.

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.  There was no greater triumph for the ladies than to go, on the arm of Tartarin, to the menagerie Mitaine and to have him explain, in front of the lion’s cage, how one goes about hunting these great beasts, at what point one aims and at what distance, whether there are many accidents, and so on... through his reading Tartarin had gained almost as much knowledge about lion hunting as if he had actually engaged in it himself, and so he spoke of these matters with much authority.

Where Tartarin really excelled, however, was after dinner at the home of president Ladeveze or the brave Commandant Bravida (quartermaster.  Ret) when coffee had been served and the chairs pulled together, then with his elbow on the table, between sips of his coffee, our hero gave a moving description of all the dangers which awaited him “Over there” He spoke of long moonless watches, of pestilential marshes, of rivers poisoned by the leaves of oleanders, of snows, scorching suns, scorpions and clouds of locusts; he also spoke of the habits of the great lions of the Atlas, their phenomenal strength, their ferocity in the mating season....  Then, carried away by his own words, he would rise from the table and bound into the middle of the room, imitating the roar of the lion, the noise of the rifle “Pan!  Pan!” The whistle of the bullet.  Gesticulating, shouting, knocking over chairs... while at the table faces are grave, the men looking at one another and nodding their heads, the ladies closing their eyes with little cries of alarm.  A grandfather brandishes his walking-stick in a bellicose manner and, in the next room, the small children who have been put to bed earlier are startled out of their sleep by the banging and bellowing, and greatly frightened demand lights.