CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Betrayal

CHRISTMAS MORNING, A SOMBER CROWD of Arabs milled around on the white, crescent-shaped beach of Mers el-Kebir. Some came to show their last respects to the emir; others would be going with him into exile. Those close enough snatched a piece of his black woolen burnoose to kiss. Men’s eyes glistened and women cried out their haunting you yous. To his great astonishment, Abd el-Kader saw Abbé Suchet coming through the crowd, looking like an Arab in his long black cassock and bushy black beard, now flecked with gray. He had been sent via packet boat by Bishop Dupuch to convey his gratitude for the emir’s decision to end the suffering on both sides.

It had been six years since Abd el-Kader first met this intrepid man of God who had braved hostile tribes, bandits, thirst and hunger to find him in the bled. The two embraced and exchanged some words. Abd el-Kader took off his turban and gave it to Suchet, who clutched it as he watched the emir and his entourage move slowly toward the rowboats that would take them shipboard and away from their homeland forever.

As the Arabs were filing past officers checking the list of those who had chosen exile with the emir, a young colonel noticed several white women among them. If those were Europeans, they could go free, the colonel announced. There were twenty-one Europeans, but none wished to leave the group, except for an elderly Spanish lady. They had married Arabs, had children to care for and said they had been well treated. The surprised officer let the women pass.

Over 100 men and women had cast their lots with the emir: relatives and servants and their children, and those of his former chieftains. Among the forty-five members of Abd el-Kader’s immediate family were his seventy-four-year-old mother, Zohra; his three wives — Kheira, Embaraka and Aicha; his sister, Khadijah; his two daughters, Zohra and Yamina, thirteen and five; and his four sons: Abdallah, twelve, Mohammed Said, nine, and Muhi al-Din, six, who were under the charge of their tutor, Si Mohktar. His year-old infant, Ibrahim was being cared for by Mohra, his Negro domestic who had also suckled him.

Rocked by a rough sea, Abd el-Kader stood at the porthole of his cabin looking for the last time at the distant mountains of his native land as the steamer, Asmodée, headed northeast, past the Balearic Islands toward the port of Toulon before undertaking the much longer trip to the Middle East. The crew tried to share their seasonal cheer with their nervous Arab passengers, who knew only the great sand seas of the Sahara and could not swim. They provided them with their familiar couscous and dried fruit and the doctors on board looked after the sick and wounded. The Arabs were also objects of endless curiosity, exotic animals in a French Noah’s ark. Most of them became seasick and preferred to stay below rather than publicly display their infirmities. Abd el-Kader never left his cabin, where he devoted himself to prayer, reading and reflection.

After two days of dampness, noise, the unfamiliar oily smell of the engines and the roiling sea, the Arabs were relieved when they were told they would soon be arriving at Toulon. Fresh supplies had to be brought on board, and negotiations with Mehemet Ali of Egypt and the Turkish Sultan were taking place. The emir readily agreed to the delay. But when the Asmodée arrived at Toulon, there was no evidence of preparations to resupply their ship.

The breathtaking speed of events took Paris by surprise. The emir had become a figure of almost mythical proportions. He was like a ghost who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. Abd el-Kader had confounded French generals since 1832, when he was elected to lead the jihad, and suddenly, amazingly, he was now in the government’s hands. Abd el-Kader’s old foe, General Trézel, was the minister of war. Like many a French officer, he had not only seen his career advanced by years of constant struggle with the emir, but had come to respect the emir’s powers of resistance and recuperation. On January 1, Trézel wrote to the Duke of Aumale acknowledging the promises made to the emir, saying that the king wanted to honor them.

However, there was hesitation and uncertainty clouding the royal will. Abd el-Kader did not know that the “French Sultan” was politically weak. King Louis-Philippe was facing growing discontent among the middle classes for reneging on his promises of electoral reform. The popular press in Paris and Algiers was outraged by the news of what it called “the dangerous and irresponsible commitment” made to the emir by the Duke of Aumale. And, most damaging, there was dissent within the royal family.

The Duke of Nemours, the king’s oldest son and heir apparent, was pressing his younger brother to retract his word. The prince refused, reminding his family in a long letter that Marshal Bugeaud had once offered a similar exchange to Abd el-Kader and had even allowed one of the emir’s most loyal caliphs, Ben Salem, to go into exile. The marshal, he pointed out, knew what a difficult enemy France faced. Bugeaud’s chasseurs had lost 4,000 horses from exhaustion in one winter, chasing the elusive emir. Furthermore, the prince argued, “no person who had actually fought the emir disagreed with Lamoricière’s transaction.” The duke was convinced that if the government took a clear and firm position that was favorable, public opinion would follow. “We also gave our word as soldiers,” he concluded with his ultimate argument.

The president of the royal council, Francois Guizot, a history professor who had made a career of politics, was not one to take a strong stand in favor of the commitment. He was weighing the honor of France with raison d’état: “No general, no chief of staff, not even a prince has the right to commit the king’s government, without examination or recourse to such an agreement,” he declared to the Chamber of Deputies in early January. The new era of public opinion and the popular press had created forces that were rattling the monarchy’s tentative steps toward greater democracy and making difficult the rendering of justice to the emir.

With the authority of ignorance, public opinion was certain that the emir was more dangerous in the Middle East than in the Sahara. The influential journal La Revue des Deux Mondes opined: “It seems to us unwise to send him to Acre or Cairo as he wishes. The public has expressed itself, and president Guizot would be ill advised to ignore it. If his tent is planted in the Middle East near the pilgrimage routes to Mecca and our African possessions, the emir can sow conspiracy and rebellion among those expecting his return.”

The public did not know the emir, just as the emir did not know what forces were acting on the honorable men in whom he had placed his trust. Instead of obtaining new supplies in Toulon and continuing on with their journey, the emir and his companions landed at a quarantine station on a barren peninsula south of the port. The unprepared local prefect had hurriedly delivered to the hospital a herd of live sheep, assorted fowl and, knowing little of Muslim customs, flagons of wine. The prince’s aide, Colonel Beaufort, who had accompanied the Arabs on the steamer, came to say goodbye to the emir after telling the local officers he was to be treated as a guest, not a prisoner.

Ten days later, rowboats were sent to the peninsula to take the emir to a more secure location. At the quay in Toulon, the Arabs were met by a convoy of carriages, omnibuses and wagons. Again there was disappointment. Abd el-Kader learned that his entourage would be divided into two groups. When he protested, he was told it would only be temporary. The emir’s immediate family and servants were to go straight up to Fort Lamalgue, just above the landing; the others would be taken elsewhere. So determined to stay in the emir’s company was Kara Mohammed, an intensely loyal former agha of the cavalry, that he claimed to be one of Abd el-Kader’s personal servants, which meant being a family member. From that day on, he acted as the emir’s steward.

In the gray winter dusk, a convoy of wagons and carriages clacked their way up the cobblestone road that led into Fort Lamalgue, which once held British prisoners captured at sea during the American Revolution. The emir and his family were met by Colonel Lheureux and the fort’s translator, Captain Rousseau, who showed them to their dank, lugubrious accommodations. When the emir asked about their departure for the Orient, Lheureux, knowing little himself, could only awkwardly apologize and give evasive answers. The inevitable correspondence with the Sublime Porte and the Egyptian Viceroy…these things took time, he explained.

“I am not anxious. I have confidence in France,” the emir replied stoically. “Furthermore, the eyes of the world are watching. It will judge if I am treated as I should.”

The authorities were obsessed by the fear that the wily emir would somehow escape, perhaps with the help of the treacherous English, who were not averse to creating problems for France. In his report to war minister Trézel, Colonel Lheureux emphasized the tight security he had established. “The emir does not know a single word of French, and in accord with your intentions, we will take all necessary measures to be certain that he doesn’t learn a word. I give you my assurance that I will not leave my post for a single minute until the end of my mission here and that he will be closely guarded night and day.”

The Arab men occupied the second floor, above the officers of the garrison, in a diamond-shaped bastion of an eastern corner of the fort known as Cavalier. The English officers who had been kept here in an earlier era were allowed to promenade during the daytime in the streets of Toulon, giving as bond their word of honor that they would return before sundown. No such freedom was allowed the Arabs, who would have spurned the opportunity anyway. They were in mourning, and an Arab in mourning doesn’t leave his tent. Abd el-Kader’s tent was the middle one of five glacially cold apartments, about fifteen feet square, which he shared with Abd er Rahman and his oldest son, Abdallah — mute and sullen witnesses of the emir’s conversations with the many visitors who wanted to meet him. The women were placed on the north side of the fort under the authority of Lalla Zohra. They kept their shutters closed day and night and were never seen to come out of their rooms. Arab men would be seen during the day squatting on the embrasures once occupied by cannons, staring for hours at the sea and their lost homeland.

In mid-January, the emir expressed to Lheureux his concern for his companions who had been taken elsewhere. He insisted they be brought to Lamalgue and they remain together. It would be even more crowded, the colonel pointed out, and unhealthy. “Don’t worry, bring them to me,” the emir countered. “If necessary, I will pile them on top of each other like grains of wheat in a silo. We are one family. It is better than being separated.” Two days later, Lheureux acquiesced, and an emotional reunion took place on the steps leading to the emir’s quarters.

Life for the “guests” at the fort soon became a routine that would have impressed a Trappist monk. Lamalgue became the emir’s monastery. The clammy foreign walls were unwelcome, but God can be praised anywhere and soon they echoed with remembrance of the All Powerful One in whose hands they were entrusted. To the annoyance of off-duty soldiers trying to sleep, the fort was transformed into a mosque, resonating five times a day with the cries of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. The zawiya of the emir’s youth had been burned to the ground by Bugeaud. Now, in Toulon, Abd el-Kader created his zawiya anew, this one guarded by a hundred French soldiers as he organized his followers’ lives around study and prayer, as reported to Paris by Colonel Lheureux:

The prayer of first light, when a dark thread can be discerned with the naked eye, the emir is doing his ablutions...after which, a brief visit to his mother and the rest of his family…he returns to his room to rest for an hour or so, followed by quizzing his three oldest children about the lessons they had been taught by their tutors the previous day. Eight to eleven o’clock he devotes to reading and writing, and visiting with the commandant and Rousseau, before taking his first meal of bread, butter, and dried fruit. At noon, midday prayers, after which he retires to his room and reads or writes and receives visits from his companions or from the outside until three o’clock, when he prepares for afternoon prayer. All the males gather in the courtyard for the prayer of el asr, including servants and boys. Readings from sacred books and discussion with his whole family follow until 5:00 PM. Another hour is devoted to visiting his mother, different wives and other family members. After the prayer of sunset, el maghreb, around six o’clock, the respected Abd er Rahman, Ben Thami, the tutors and Kara Mohammed join the emir in learned conversation, usually a discussion around a point of law or the meaning of verses in a sacred text that continues until the fifth prayer of the last light at eight o’clock. The emir takes his evening meal of couscous and conversation with intimates lasting until about ten o’clock.

Such were the diurnal rhythms that kept the minds and bodies of the emir’s extended family knitted together to face the trials ahead.

France’s word was also being tested. In order to preserve France’s honor yet satisfy its security interests, real or imaginary, Trézel had selected Lieutenant General Eugene Daumas for a delicate mission.

The government was on the horns of a dilemma. If the solemn word, given in good faith, of a crown prince and a French general was disavowed by the government, that could bring dishonor and shame on France. Honor was not an obsolete concept to a government and army still heavily populated with members of the old nobility. And there were the English to reckon with, who surely would use France’s betrayal to undermine its credibility in Europe. But public opinion, that new devil unleashed by the Revolution, was demanding that the savage Abd el-Kader be kept a prisoner. If Abd el-Kader could be persuaded to adopt France as his new country, and thereby release the government of commitments made in its name, then France would no longer be open to the accusation abroad of behaving treacherously, while still appeasing popular opinion at home.

Daumas was a wise choice. He was urbane, fluent in Arabic and was knowledgeable of Arab ways. More importantly, Daumas had been France’s consul in Mascara for two years during the period of the Treaty of Tafna. He had frequently spoken to fellow officers of his good relations with the emir. These qualities made him well suited for the conflicting roles he would be asked to play — negotiator, informant to the ministry, as well as advocate, companion and confidant to the emir. Now a commander of a regiment of native spahis in Algeria, Daumas happened to be in Paris on leave just when the war minister needed someone with his abilities. More from his soldier’s sense of duty than from conviction, Daumas took up the first task assigned to him: to persuade the emir to allow the French government to renounce the promises made in its name.

Abd el-Kader had just returned to his room after visiting his mother when Daumas appeared at his door, unannounced. Speechless at first, the emir embraced warmly the now balder and thicker Daumas like an old friend, which he had been during the Tafna peace. Daumas was amiable but reserved, not yet ready to reveal his assignment. He wanted to read the emir’s mood, to determine his strategy. Abd el-Kader clearly was pleased to see him and to be able to talk about the last days before his surrender. He continued to express his simple trust in France’s word and seemed to want to justify to Daumas his past actions.

“The fight had become too unequal and it only would have heaped more misery upon the considerable sufferings of my people. I preferred to place my trust in the hands of those I had fought so long and so tenaciously. The only real glory is to treat well an honorable enemy. We Arabs have a saying: ‘The hand loves to heal the wounds it has made.’ The Beni Snassen tribe didn’t want me to stop fighting. But I regret nothing. I believe in the written promise of General Lamoricière, agreed to by the son of the king of France, that I would be transferred to Acre or Alexandria from where I could reach Mecca.”

“You did not say anything about Mecca in your negotiation with Lamoricière,” interjected Daumas.

“When I designated Alexandria for exile,” the emir replied hotly, “of course I was only thinking about Mecca. I did not expect France to deliver me directly to the city of the Prophet. What else could anyone offer me in place of Mecca? Honors? Money? You know, Daumas, that I despise these things. You saw me when I was powerful and surrounded by flatterers who have long since betrayed me. A tent for shelter, simple food and clothes, my horse and weapons…that was all that I wanted in this world. I repeat, I have no other desire than to go to Mecca, read holy books, worship God and be buried in Mecca after visiting the tomb of the Prophet in Medina. My role on stage is over. I have given you my word. I wouldn’t even fight France if all your men in Algiers were dead and the city was occupied only by women. Believe me, my friend, I may look alive, but I am dead.”

Daumas left believing he had gained insight into the emir, who seemed naive and almost desperate. He surmised that taking away his hope of going to the Land of Islam could break his spirit and lead him to agree to the betrayal. Before leaving the fort, Daumas decided to have Rousseau tell Abd el-Kader the true purpose of his visit: the government of France refused to ratify the promise of General Lamoricière.

“Yes, it is true,” Daumas reluctantly admitted the next morning.

“I can’t believe it!” The emir was stunned. “The government will not honor the promise of General Lamoricière and the son of the king? Marshal Bugeaud himself had made a similar offer to me. You tell me now they don’t consider themselves bound?”

“They are afraid of public opinion,” Daumas ventured. “There are those who don’t trust you and think you are more dangerous in the Middle East. The massacre of the prisoners is still placed at your feet.”

Abd el-Kader jumped angrily out of his chair. “Very well, let them put me back in the position I was in when the promise was given. They will see whether it is easy to capture me.” Pausing a moment, he went on, speaking as a virtual supplicant to Daumas. “Are we to remain in France? We do not speak your language. Our customs, our laws and religion are not yours. Our clothes, everything about us, are made a subject of mockery. Do you understand this is a death sentence?” Sitting down, he continued with an air of resignation, “Why so many words? I am in your hands. You are the knife and I am the flesh. Cut it as you please.”

Daumas said nothing for several moments before replying with a verse from the Koran. Work, O my servant, and I will help you.

“What can I do?” cried Abd el-Kader. “I do not know your ways. I have no one to guide me on the dark sea that surrounds me.” After a pensive silence, Daumas suggested that he should write directly to the king. “Put your fate in his hands. He is kind and generous. At the proper time, he will grant your request.”

Abd el-Kader was puzzled. Should he do as Daumas suggested? Why should he appeal to the king’s generosity for what was due as simple justice? Keeping one’s word was a sacred obligation. The emir took up a pen, believing Daumas’ sympathy to be sincere. After several drafts, he succeeded in producing a letter that Daumas and Rousseau together translated, maintaining the purity of Abd el-Kader’s sincere, if grandiloquent, epistolary style. After his cries for mercy and justice, and a plea for a personal interview with the king, the emir ended his letter with a phrase that Daumas had hoped for: “The Almighty has ordained that I put myself as a child in your hands.”

Hours later, Abd el-Kader was having second thoughts. His brother-in-law Mustafa Ben Thami had questioned the wisdom of such an abject appeal, which he thought undignified and implied acceptance of whatever the king decided. The emir asked to have the letter back. “It has already been sent,” Daumas lied.

Trézel ordered Daumas to take up residence at the fort.

Daumas kept a diary of his conversations with the emir. He realized that he was capturing an historic voice as well as valuable intelligence — all part of his job of keeping his minister informed of the emir’s morale. Sometimes they would revisit the African campaigns. What was his opinion of French soldiers, Daumas asked? They were brave and well disciplined, the emir thought, but he couldn’t really judge since his resources were so unequal to the French. Only another opponent equally equipped and trained could properly judge. Other times, they talked about matters of religion, philosophy or politics. Sometimes they talked about mathematics, its relevance to war. They talked often about horses. Daumas was particularly interested in how the Arabs raised and trained their horses to make them so tough and fast, and valuable for war. Throughout, Abd el-Kader revealed his enormous knowledge of Algeria, its different peoples and their customs. Daumas also took the opportunity of his growing intimacy with Abd el-Kader to ask advice about how best to govern Algeria. The emir answered simply: “Govern as I did, with only the Law in your hand, then you will succeed.”

His daily talks with Abd el-Kader soon convinced Daumas that his assignment to get the emir to release France from its word was doomed to failure. Not admitting in his official reports the private anguish that Abd el-Kader sometimes shared with him, Daumas wrote to the ministry, “Abd el-Kader is indifferent to his own needs. He is calm and resigned and controls the situation. I am convinced he not only regrets having written the king, but, furthermore, that we will never get him voluntarily to release France from its promises. Not withstanding our power and wealth, there is nothing in France to tempt him. He is not interested in worldly things.”

A private bitterness alternated with the emir’s public politeness and resignation to the mysterious Divine Will. Sometimes it seeped out in Abd el-Kader’s conversations with Daumas, who was himself becoming less the false friend and more the overt admirer. “The best way to slay an honorable enemy is to pardon him. Then he becomes your slave,” he told Daumas one day. The comment reminded the colonel of Napoleon’s variation on the emir’s words: “One should never fear doing justice to an enemy; it is always honorable and sometimes wise.”

Daumas gradually fell under Abd el-Kader’s spell. The emir, in turn, became increasingly dependent on this sophisticated Frenchman with whom he could display his true feelings. “He is both warrior and saint,” he wrote the minister. “War failed him and now he seeks consolation in religion.” But Daumas was wrong. Religion was not a consolation, nor was war a métier in which the emir sought satisfaction. Religion permeated his whole being and gave him strength, whether in war or peace.

As a sign of their growing intimacy, Daumas invited the emir to have dinner with him and his wife, who happened to be the niece of Marshal Bugeaud. Out of respect for Abd el-Kader’s religious sensibilities, Daumas asked if he would mind if his wife joined them dressed in the European style, her face uncovered. It was not the laws of their religion, Abd el-Kader explained, but rather custom that required Arab women to veil their faces.

The emir was charmed by the intelligence and gentle elegance of Madame Daumas, whose face he discreetly scanned for resemblances to the great marshal. He noticed that her dress fit closely around her throat and its sleeves covered her arms to the wrists. A billowing skirt extended to the carpet covering even her feet. But for the narrowness of the dress at the waist, she was no less modest in her dress than an Arab woman, he told Daumas later.

While the emir was noticing in Toulon similarities in the coverage of properly dressed Christian and Muslim women, in Paris important figures were pleading his case based on their shared values of honor and trust. Before the Chamber of Peers, the Prince of Moscow, son of the illustrious Marshal Ney, who had covered Bonaparte’s disastrous retreat from Moscow, declared: “The government cannot hesitate to ratify the agreement. The danger the emir might pose in the Middle East is secondary to what is of prime importance: the word of France. You must choose. Do you consider Abd el-Kader a brigand, a sort of pirate, or, as the general of a vanquished enemy? In the first case, make him a prisoner. In the second, treat him in accordance with the Rights of Man promulgated by our own revolution.” Then General Fabvier rose to speak and urged supporting the commitments of its generals: “The interests of France and its honor are completely united in the immediate ratification of the accord. The reason is simple: the interests of France can not be separated from its good reputation...”

Louis-Philippe never responded directly to Abd el-Kader’s painstakingly crafted letter, written at Daumas’s behest. Daumas was instructed to let the emir know the king would not be inviting him to come to Paris and Trézel stubbornly continued to believe that Abd el-Kader could be seduced by worldly promises. Daumas was given a new task to test the emir’s resolve.

He was to offer the emir a choice: reside in France under conditions that would be nothing short of luxurious, or go to Alexandria and be under a virtual house arrest. There, he would be allowed to take with him only blood relations and indispensable servants, who would be spied on night and day by French and Egyptian agents. Should the emir choose to remain in France, reasoned the government, that would be the equivalent of releasing France from its word by demonstrating that he preferred France over a Muslim country. It would be a moral victory for French civilization.

Daumas knew he was playing the role of Satan before a Muslim Jesus. He sketched in glowing terms the vast realm that would be at the emir’s disposal free of prying eyes: a fine chateau in the countryside, a specially constructed private mosque, separate bathhouses for men and women, and a stable full of horses to ride and hunt across rolling plains and deer-filled forests. It took Abd el-Kader mere seconds to give his answer, “I have no hesitation in choosing Alexandria, even under the conditions you impose. I shall find there doctors of our Law, people of our own religion, wearing the same clothes and having the same customs and manners. You should know me better, Daumas. If you placed in my burnoose all the diamonds and treasure of the world, I would throw it without hesitation into the sea in front of us.”

Daumas reported his failure to Trézel. Yet, despite the emir’s disinterest in material things, Daumas took it upon himself to improve the physical conditions of the Arabs. He urged the ministry to procure for them more of their customary clothing and to provide better beds and furniture for their damp, stone quarters. He did this without consulting Abd el-Kader, who would have only expressed his indifference toward such things. His companions, following the emir’s example, had also refused to demand anything of their captors.

But as February progressed, cold and despair became the Arabs’ greatest enemies. The emir’s main concern was for the welfare of his companions. Daumas found the Arabs morose during the Feast of Mouloud, normally a time of exuberant celebration of the birth of the Prophet. The accidental death of one of their companions had deepened their gloom. The agha of the infantry, Haj Said, had died of asphyxiation from burning charcoal at night for warmth.

However, word of negotiations with Cairo and the news of General Lamoricière’s testimony in Parliament kindled some hope. On the fifth of February, the adversary in whom Abd el-Kader had placed his trust stood before the Chamber of Deputies to defend his actions. Lamoricière spoke honestly about the difficulty of capturing the emir. He acknowledged that his written agreement with Abd el-Kader had been confirmed by the Duke of Aumale, who had supported the conditions. The deputies were divided over the question of honoring their generals’ word or treating the emir as a savage killer unworthy of France’s honor.

Bending to those voices favorable to the emir, the war minister allowed the Arabs some relief from their confinement. A tour of the naval arsenal in Toulon was organized in mid-February for the emir and a dozen of his companions. The ubiquitous Daumas noted that everywhere he went the emir was received with great consideration and respect. “Throughout, he maintained his reserve, never showing great emotion or curiosity.” As the prayer of sunset approached, Abd el-Kader thanked his various hosts for the visits, indicating he wanted to return to the fort.

“No more excursions,” the emir told Daumas on their way back. He would not leave the fort again unless it was to go to Alexandria. He and his companions didn’t appreciate being gaped at by passersby. He also didn’t want to give the government reason to draw false conclusions about his taste for honors and things of this world that might tempt it to hold him longer.

The emir knew Daumas was working to make their lives less miserable. To thank him, he penned some poetic lines in honor of Toulon, and to plead his cause — a rose with a thorn:

May Prosperity be yours, O Port of Toulon
She is resplendent with the glory of your warlike pageant
And the cavalcade of your learning
With your yellow-bodied ships
Whose sighs are a consuming flame
Your castles inspire wonder,
The thunderbolts hurled by your cannon
Your ramparts and your vast army too.
Complete now the roster of your praise!
Give the guest who has entered your harbor
And received your hospitality
Leave to continue his journey to the Holy City

There were a few bright spots in the general gloom that enveloped the emir. One day, a Captain Morisot came to visit. Morisot wanted to personally thank the emir for the treatment he had received while a prisoner back in 1840. After his conversation with the emir, Morisot wrote him a letter of appreciation that passed through Daumas’s hands. “I have taken the opportunity to write Colonel Daumas in order to address a few lines to you, as I want to show you that, whether I am near or far away, you are always in my thoughts. Could I ever forget a man so good and generous, who surrounded me with medical care when I was wounded and with kindly attention when I was suffering? Did I not say to you when we met last Friday that it was one among the most wonderful days of my life? And you certainly know that such days are rare in this world.”

The emir never saw the letter. Knowing the government’s desire to dissuade the emir from leaving France and of gaining a cultural victory, Daumas thought the letter too favorable to the emir. He might use it to prove to the skeptics that he wasn’t responsible for massacring the French prisoners after Sidi Brahim, as this was still the public perception and the main cause of their distrust. Daumas still had his masters to serve.

Religion, more than any other, was Abd el-Kader’s favorite topic of conversation.Though it was obvious that the emir’s knowledge of the Muslim world was extraordinary, Daumas thought his knowledge of Christians and Christianity was deficient. He arranged a meeting with Father Cordoran, a local curé, to help the emir get better acquainted with Christians. The emir’s past correspondence with Bishop Dupuch had left him with a pleasant sense of anticipation about meeting another Christian marabout. Abd el-Kader felt an instant affinity with the curé whose simple black cassock resembled his own black burnoose. The two men spent many hours together discussing their faiths.

The emir wondered: If God had a son, did that mean God had a father too? If Christianity could reinterpret the teachings of Moses, why couldn’t Islam reinterpret Christ? He explained to the curé his own view of the great prophets: Abraham is the beloved of God; Moses, His interpreter; Jesus Christ is the goodness of God; Mohammed is His Prophet, sent to emphasize the unity of God. God is God. There is no God but God. He has no associates, partners or children.

They talked about reason as a divine attribute and found themselves in agreement. Reason is necessary for knowledge, and knowledge is good, but also it is more suited for terrestrial knowledge, which is knowledge of the husk that surrounds the deeper knowledge that belongs to the heart, not the head. Knowledge of external things is like rainwater. It comes and goes, but inner knowledge is like a fountain that never dries up…and so they talked for hours.

On a particularly cold day in late February, Daumas found the emir in his room wrapped in his burnoose shivering in front of a cold fireplace, his supply of wood exhausted.

“Why don’t you get some wood from your companions?” Daumas asked.

“Instead of asking for theirs, I would give them mine, if it were in my power.”

“You are not like other Arab chieftains.”

“Had I been like them,” the emir answered softly, “do you think the Arabs would have continued to fight as long as they did, and sacrificed their fortunes, their flocks, their lives to follow me? Throughout the fifteen years I never kept anything for myself. I could only lead by sharing in their sacrifices. Now, I have to continue to be disciplined.

Tantalizing rumors were reaching the Arabs. The great master, Horace Vernet, had been selected to paint a portrait of Abd el-Kader. The king had given him a message to deliver secretly. “Tell the emir that I will honor the promise of my son,” he told Vernet. “My ministers are cowards. They are afraid of the Chambers. I am not afraid in the least of Abd el-Kader.” Colonel Beaufort also paid a visit to the emir to assure him that the king intended to honor the agreement.

On February 28, the world changed. The emir learned that the king had abdicated in the face of a Parisian mob. A new provisional government had been established, headed by a committee of five. Louis-Philippe fled to England traveling incognito as Mr. Smith, and took with him Abd el-Kader’s best hope for freedom.

To those following French affairs closely, the fall of the monarchy was unsurprising. To the emir, its disappearance was unimaginable. Daumas soon learned the emir’s opinion about the turn of events during his daily tête à tête with him. “Look, my friend, I have read in books of the Greeks about the republic, that it is supposed to be a good form of government, but see how my culture is more prudent than yours regarding the destiny of man? Am I not right to believe there is no other real force, no truth or reality but in the will of God? Believe me, this world is a carcass; only dogs fight over it. There was Louis-Philippe, a great and powerful sultan, who everywhere was esteemed, who had a large family to perpetuate his line, was renowned for his wisdom and experience, but in one day he was overthrown.” (Louis Philippe was neither known for his wisdom, nor everywhere esteemed, yet he was the French “sultan” only a few eye blinks earlier, and now nobody.)

Republican government was a mystery to Abd el-Kader. A body without a head, he told Daumas. Five heads, Daumas explained. “I predict there will not be five but thirty-five million heads — and that is far too many,” the emir replied. In March, a representative of the five-headed government, Citizen22 Emile Ollivier, paid Abd el-Kader a visit. As the commissioner from the departement of the Var, he was selected by the fragile republic to assess the emir’s state of mind.

Citizen Ollivier found him in his white burnoose, sitting cross-legged on his divan between two windows, wooden rosary in hand, with an expression of serene melancholy. Citizen Ollivier, Daumas explained, had come to inquire if the emir was satisfied with the arrangements, if he had any particular needs for himself or his family. “My body lacks nothing,” he replied, “only my heart is empty.”

“What are you missing?”

“My freedom. I should not be here. You know that I was not taken by force of arms. I voluntarily put myself in France’s hands.”

“Would you and your chiefs sign an oath sworn upon the Koran by which you solemnly declare never to return to Algeria or involve yourself, directly or indirectly, in its affairs?” Ollivier asked at the end of his interview. The question disturbed the emir. Why did the government need such guarantees when the agreement with General Lamoricière was already clear?

“I have no better proof of my firm intentions for the future than what I have already done,” the emir answered. “I came to you voluntarily. Had I not wanted to lay down my arms, I would not be here. That act is worth more than all other guarantees. But yes, if my hand is not enough, I will even sign with my eyes.”

The commissioner left Fort Lamalgue carrying a letter from the emir to the new government, translated by Daumas. Like all the others he had written before, the letter was a plea for justice, exquisitely tailored to the sensibilities of his new masters.

“Praise to One God, alone whose empire is eternal,” he began his address to the provisional government. “…I rejoiced at the news of this new form of government because I have read in books that this republican government by its nature seeks to eliminate injustice and to prevent the strong from abusing the weak, considers all men brothers and avoids the errors that arise when a single person decides. You are generous men and desire the good of all people. Therefore, I consider you as my natural protectors.

“Remove the veil of suffering which has been thrown over me and my companions. I ask only justice from your hands… ”Abd el-Kader reiterated the voluntary nature of his surrender and the trust he had placed in the Frenchmen whose word he had believed. He made no apologies for defending his country and his religion so tenaciously. However, he explained, “when it was clear that God for His own inscrutable reasons had withdrawn His support, I took the decision to withdraw from the world…” Repeating his words to Daumas, he ended saying, “consider me as among the dead. My only desire is to go to Mecca, to pray and worship God until He calls me.”

Abd el-Kader then added his personal oath, written in his own Arabic hand with all the comprehensiveness of an Islamic lawyer.

Glory to God Alone!

I declare from henceforth to never provoke trouble for the French people, whether in person, or by letters, or by any other means. I make this oath before God, Mohammed — praise be to him — before Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ; by the Torah, the Gospels, and the Koran. I make this oath with my heart as well as with my hand and my tongue. This vow binds me and all my companions, more than one hundred, both those who sign this document as well those who don’t because they cannot write.

Salutations, Abd el-Kader Ben Muhi al-Din

Ollivier returned to Paris a champion for the emir’s release. He wrote to the Duke of Arago, the new minister of war and one of the five heads of the government. “To keep Abd el-Kader is to kill him, and it is our breach of faith that is killing him. Our honor, our most precious possession, is at stake. I am personally convinced of Abd el-Kader’s sincerity. His oath will be known throughout the length and breadth of Algeria. That will make it impossible for him to attempt a coup as he would lose his reputation for integrity which is the basis of his strength. France is strong enough not to fear such an enemy.”

The Ollivier’s request for a pledge from the emir brought the Arabs renewed hope. But the only response to the emir’s vow was a vague and pompous acknowledgment from Arago. “The republic is the government of the people. The people are generous and do not kick the vanquished. You, your family, your servants can count on the consideration which France accords its defeated enemies. May circumstances soon allow the Republic to show you its generous nature.” Indeed, the Second Republic was no more capable than its predecessor of wrestling with its difficult inheritance from Algeria. It was as weak and fragile at birth as the monarchy had been in its death.

Opinions varied widely on what to do about France’s interests in Algeria. Marshal Bugeaud had grown cynical from the constant, almost monthly changes of governors-general in Algiers. He expressed a change of heart before the Parliament. “We should get out of Algeria and let the native chieftains run it the way the Turks did and just retain the ports for commercial purposes.” The great Victor Hugo saw the situation differently, believing his country was embarked on a noble mission: “We must keep Algeria because we are bringing it the benefits of our great civilization.” And the skeptical Alexis de Tocqueville worried about the French becoming like hate-filled Americans in their conquest of the Indians: “Algeria will sooner or later become an armed camp where two peoples will fight each other without mercy until one or the other is wiped out.”

The days dragged by without word from Paris, while a deepening despair took hold of the Arabs. Daumas begged the emir to have patience. Abd el-Kader lashed back angrily. “Is it really surprising that my patience flags before my misfortune? My people are losing faith in me. I keep telling them this is only a temporary delay, that France will honor its word. Now my mother and my wives cry day and night and no longer believe my words of hope. Even the men are weeping, not for themselves, but their families. My brother-in-law, Mustafa, came to me in tears to say that his wife, my own sister, was asking to leave him and return to Mascara. And I am the cause of all this misfortune. Is there no tribunal in France charged to hear the complaints of the oppressed? Summon all your doctors of the law and I will convince them of my rights.”

On March 30, one of the emir’s former opponents, General Changarnier, stopped at Toulon to see Abd el-Kader before taking up his post as governor-general of Algeria. Though sympathetic to him, Changarnier came to deliver the final blow. The political instability in France and the reduction of forces in Algeria, he informed the emir, meant it would be impossible for the new government to order his release. The republic considered itself bound by no obligation. Abd el-Kader was found a prisoner by the new government. He would remain one for the foreseeable future.

“I am betrayed,” Abd el-Kader cried wildly, “and by those in whom I had placed my trust. This is unbelievable. And you would give me all the riches of France that I might purchase my own death.”

Turning to Daumas, the emir exclaimed: “If you keep us here, many of us will take their lives.”

“That is a deadly sin in your religion, as it is in mine,” countered Daumas.

“True, but there is one circumstance which permits it; that is when a Muslim is forced to renounce his faith.”

“No one is forcing you to renounce your faith.”

“Today, no, but will it be the same tomorrow? The promise of French commanders has been broken.” The emir turned to Changarnier, who looked silently at the floor not understanding the words but recognizing the expected emotions. “How can I be sure that sooner or later that which is most sacred to me will not be taken also?”

The next day, Daumas wrote an urgent letter to General Cavaignac, yet another minister of war whose career was advanced by fighting Abd el-Kader. In 1833, he had been reduced to eating cats when he was besieged by the emir in Tlemcen, and later, had been with Lamoricière during Abd el-Kader’s surrender at Sidi Brahim. “Our humanity demands that something be done,” Daumas pleaded. “Their quarters are cramped. These people are used to sunshine and outdoor life. Sooner or later they will all fall ill.” Colonel Lheureux, ever security conscious, had also written his own report to the minister which reflected a different concern. “The emir never ceases to talk in the most energetic manner about his betrayal. If the provisional government is not going to make a decision, then it is advisable to find a different location than Fort Lamalgue, far from the sea to avoid the possibility of escape.”

On April 5, the emir received another visitor from Paris. Charles Poncey, a poet with connections to the provisional government, came to personally deliver a letter from the committee of five giving assurances of justice and eventual release, but pleading the need for time to elect a new constitutional assembly. This body would be elected by all the people, that is to say, all male voters over twenty-one, toward the end of April and would draft a new, more democratic constitution.

Poncey then told Abd el-Kader that he would write articles and letters on his behalf to various journals and magazines. He promised to intercede with three of the members of the provisional government who were his friends. They talked about the political divisions in France that made taking action so difficult at that very moment.

France, Poncey explained, was having its own problems determining the role of God’s will in its affairs. The French were divided over their revolutionary past. The conservative, Catholic legitimists argued that any authority, even tyranny, was better than the chaos and anarchy of republicanism. France had experienced the horrors of the mob, the guillotine, and democracy run amok during the Revolution. Government power was absolute and had to be considered infallible. This could only happen if its authority was rooted in divine law and had the sanction and moral authority of the Catholic church. Legitimists considered the loss of the monarchy as God’s punishment for France’s evil ways.

The radical republicans were equally absolute in their rejection of monarchy and the privileges of birth and property. Many were atheists who saw religion only as a prop for tyranny and a tool for brainwashing. The republicans had forced the abdication of the king, yet they were splintered into factions, running the gamut from rabid socialists to constitutional monarchists. It was a difficult time for making unpopular decisions, and popular opinion, especially among the outspoken French colonists in Algeria, considered the emir a savage, infidel butcher.

The next day, Poncey handed Daumas a letter for Abd el-Kader. “I was moved when we met and you remarked on my humble poet’s clothing which you said was a sign of a sympathetic heart, of a French heart. Yes, I liked what you said, that the splendor of a person’s clothing doesn’t give any measure of his intelligence or virtue…As a poet, I admire your exploits, but as a Frenchman, I have to deplore them for they were directed against my mother, France. You were fighting fire with fire. And you did it inspired of a faith which I understand and respect. Today, all intelligent hearts admire you, and don’t consider your courage in defense of the freedom of your country a crime. France is the last nation in the world which would find in your devotion something hateful, because there is not a single Frenchman that would not give his blood to chase away anyone mad enough to invade his land…The current government can’t make a decision on something as important as this because it is only provisional. It needs to have the consent of the nation represented by the deputies who will soon be elected…Have confidence in us…”

After Poncey’s visit, while no less unhappy, Abd el-Kader could better explain to his followers the complexity of the problems facing the new government. There was nothing to do but wait.

But more bad news came. In mid-April, Abd el-Kader’s three brothers arrived with their families, believing that they would be joining him on his way to exile in the Middle East. From them he learned what he had feared — his devoted caliph, Bou Hamidi was dead, poisoned in the sultan’s prison. In all, thirty-five more people came with Mohammed Said, Hussein and Mustafa.

When his brothers were brought to his quarters, Abd el-Kader turned to Daumas. “Only one calamity is missing. And now it has arrived. I am a prisoner in defiance of international law, and now my family, which was free, is lured into an insidious trap. I never would have believed that a nation such as yours could sink so low as to snare men the way children cruelly snare little birds. Why should they share my fate? You have heaped treachery upon treachery!”

Daumas stood wordless and ashamed. He knew that at that moment workmen were busy cementing iron bars into the windows of an ancient castle in Navarre.