he panthers of the Zaccar and the lions of Atlas could alone
pronounce; but he was nowhere to be seen; the Alpinist had disappeared.

At that moment he was clambering with furious strides up a little path
among beeches and birches that led to the Hotel Tellsplatte, where the
courier of the Peruvian family was to pass the night; and under the
shock of his deception he was talking to himself in a loud voice and
ramming his alpenstock furiously into the sodden ground:--

Never existed! William Tell! William Tell a myth! And it was a painter
charged with the duty of decorating the Tellsplatte who said that
calmly. He hated him as if for a sacrilege; he hated those learned
men, and this denying, demolishing impious age, which respects nothing,
neither fame nor grandeur--_coquin de sort!_

And so, two hundred, three hundred years hence, when _Tartarin_ was
spoken of there would always be Astier-Rehus and Professor Schwanthalers
to deny that he ever existed--a Provencal myth! a Barbary legend!..
He stopped, choking with indignation and his rapid climb, and seated
himself on a rustic bench.

From there he could see the lake between the branches, and the white
walls of the chapel like a new mausoleum. A roaring of steam and the
bustle of getting to the wharf announced the arrival of fresh visitors.
They collected on the bank, guide-books in hand, and then advanced with
thoughtful gestures and extended arms, evidently relating the "legend."
Suddenly, by an abrupt revulsion of ideas, the comicality of the whole
thing struck him.

He pictured to himself all historical Switzerland living upon this
imaginary hero; raising statues and chapels in his honour on the little
squares of the little towns, and placing monuments in the museums of
the great ones; organizing patriotic fetes, to which everybody rushed,
banners displayed, from all the cantons, with banquets, toasts,
speeches, hurrahs, songs, and tears swelling all breasts, and this for a
great patriot, whom everybody knew had never existed.

Talk of Tarascon indeed! There's a tarasconade for you, the like of
which was never invented down there!

His good-humour quite restored, Tartarin in a few sturdy strides struck
the highroad to Fluelen, at the side of which the Hotel Tellsplatte
spreads out its long facade. While awaiting the dinner-bell the guests
were walking about in front of a cascade over rock-work on the gullied
road, where landaus were drawn up, their poles on th