Tartarin, a plump middle-aged man, is the chief "cap-hunter", but following his enthusiastic reaction to seeing an Atlas lion in a travelling menagerie, the over-imaginative town understands him to be planning a hunting expedition to Algeria.

On the boat from Marseille to Algiers, he hooks up with a conman posing as a Montenegrin prince who takes advantage of him in multiple ways.

Tartarin's gullibility causes him a number of misadventures until he returns home penniless but covered in glory after shooting a tame, blind lion.

Tartarin de Tarascon has been adapted into cinematic form three times, in 1908, 1934, and 1962, with each work being titled after its point of reference.

Belgian composer Arthur Meulemans (1884 -1966) created the "Ouverture voor Tartarin de Tarascon" for orchestra in 1955.