Tales of Tarascon

Once upon a time, over 2000 years ago, a terrible fire-breathing monster called the Tarasque terrorized villagers on the Rhone.

The villagers were blessed to live in Provence, the loveliest place on earth, with the blue Rhone River and green hillsides from which colorful flowers bloomed in season.  The soft golden sunshine made all the colors pop and gave Provence a temperate climate throughout the year.

Rich farmlands provided grapes for the most delicious wines and other bountiful crops that in the hands of gifted chefs yielded the tastiest meals imaginable.

The lavender aromas from nearby hillsides added to the sweetness of life in what should have been the most idyllic of villages, but life would never be happy as long as the Tarasque lived.  Few who saw the beast survived, so the rich bounty of the river could not be safely harvested by fishermen.  It was unsafe to travel by boat, so villagers in Arles and Avignon could not dare to sail between their fair communities.

Many brave knights tried to vanquish the monster, but all died in their quests.

A woman named Martha arrived with her sister Mary and a handful of others one day. It seems they had been set adrift in a boat without oars or sails, left to the mercy of the sea as punishment for staying loyal to their crucified lord, Jesus Christ.  God had other plans, delivering them safely to the fairest land of all, Provence, where they had found their way to this lovely village.

When she learned of the Tarasque, Martha said she had come to save the villagers from this beast.  How, they asked, could a slender woman wearing an oriental scarf do this when the bravest warriors could not?  "By this," she said, making the sign of the cross in the air.

When she returned with the Tarasque following meekly behind her, only her scarf tied around its neck to restrain it, the townspeople were amazed.  Some say the monster, feeling shame for all it had done or perhaps realizing it could never survive in captivity, died on the spot.  Others say the villagers, afraid it would return to its evil ways, attacked the beast at once to kill it.

Martha was said to be the same Martha from the Bible whose brother Lazarus was raised from the dead by Jesus and whose sister Mary bathed Jesus's feet in fine oils using her hair as a sponge.  Some say Lazarus was in the boat with them.  Mary in some retellings is said to be the same person as Mary Magdalene, which is something as a casual reader of the Bible I find plausible, though Biblical scholars do not agree.  Or maybe both of those Marys were there.  Maybe the Virgin Mary, whose golden statue rests above a massive city gate, was also in that little boat.

There are so many historical elements to that story that contrast what we know to be history that you may doubt the tale's veracity, but I can say for a fact that Viking Delling not only freely cruises between Avignon and Arles, but Julie and I braved walking around Tarascon in the afternoon after touring Arles...without an armed security detail!  We encountered no monsters.

One of the first sites we came to walking from the ship was Château de Tarascon, a 14th Century castle that could come right out of a fairy tale.  Built on the site of a medieval fortress, it served as the home for the Dukes of Anjou.  When Provence became part of France in the 15th Century, Tarascon lost its strategic importance for defense.  The castle gradually deteriorated.  Its sturdy walls served well when converted to being a prison in the 17th Century.  After the French Revolution went off the rails, Robespierre’s supporters were reportedly executed there.

In the 20th century, the exterior was refurbished to be as it had been in the  Duke of Anjou era.  Unfortunately, restoration efforts for the interior are said to in keeping with its incarnation as a prison.  Without the promise of seeing a room where the Tarasque had been held (which makes about as much sense as the rest of that legend), we passed on paying for admission.

In looking for Rue Amy, which Julie had seen on the map we picked up on the ship, we came upon a statue that looked like it a cartoon version of an American frontiersman like Davy Crocket.  In fact it was a tribute to a popular French literary figure, Tartarin of Tarascon, who came to life from the pen of 19th century novelist Alphonse Daudet.

Summarizing summaries --- because I have neither read the novel nor two sequels nor seen any of three French movies about Tartarin --- many villagers of Tarascon love to hunt, but they are so good at it, there is no longer game in the region.

So, instead of actually hunting, the villager men stand around telling tall tales about imaginary hunting exploits, then throw their hats in the air to shoot at them.

No one was a better shot than Tartarin, at least in his own estimation.  Through a misunderstanding of one of his boasts, he is forced to sail to Africa to hunt a lion.  His misadventures include getting scammed by a conman, presumably in humorous ways.  In Algiers, which even then was not the type of place where a hunter would go on safari to kill wild game, Tartarin mistakenly shoots a donkey.

Eventually, he sees a real lion, but it is actually a blind, tame lion used as a begging prop. Tartarin shoots it, claiming he thought the lion was charging him.  While he is disgraced, for some reason he packs the lion head and skin up and sends it home to Tarascon.

Broke and despondent, Tartarin eventually bums a ride on a boat heading home.  When he arrives back in Tarascon, he finds villagers have come to believe that he is returning a conquering hero, and that lion skin is only one prize of many wild beasts he killed on his adventure.  Soon, he adopts the lie and embellishes it further.

Perhaps the same DNA that made Jerry Lewis seem hysterical to the French comes into play among what I would say is otherwise a rather sophisticated cultural palate.  While the story pokes fun at citizens of Tarascon, the town celebrate this icon with a festival at the end of June.  As I mentioned regarding Arles, there are lots of festivals in summer months in Provence, so if that's your bag, that's the time to go. 

A huge revitalization project is underway on the roadway heading toward Arles from Tarascon, and I think this port town has great potential, which is probably why Viking ports there instead of Arles, though perhaps it is simply lack of port space in the more prominent village.

In any case, Tarascon already has the legends, and as you can see from the photos we took in our self-guided walk through town, there are some lovely sites to visit.

There are probably many more than we saw, but after our morning excursion of Arles, delicious wine with lunch and still recovering from having arriving to a six hour time change less than 24 hours prior, we headed back to the ship for showers and 5:30 cappuccino...or coffee with Bailey's Irish Cream.

Tarascon just needs a little enhancement of the reality, which post-pandemic economic growth --- as long as politicians don't crush it with wars and foolish policies --- and completion of the works-in-progress, could accomplish with a nudge from Viking.