Commander of the Faithful

“THE PRINCE-PRESIDENT WISHES TO SEE YOU.” A stunned Abd el-Kader silently followed Boissonnet to the gothic salon in the north tower. Dozens of candles from a great multilayered crystal chandelier lit the room, a massive log fire raged in the baronial hearth and there, in the middle of the floor, seated at a table surrounded by a clutch of attentive officers, was a small, pale-faced man, with sad eyes, black hair and a small spade beard on a long face.

Louis-Napoleon rose from his chair and looked inquisitively at the man who had charmed thousands of Frenchmen. “I have come to give you your freedom.” Abd el-Kader had caught the word liberté and had already knelt and kissed Napoleon’s hand before Boissonnet could read the hand-written proclamation of the president. Controlling his own emotions with some difficulty, Boissonnet read aloud from the piece of paper he had been handed:

“…You will be taken to Bursa in the territory of the Sultan as soon as certain details are settled. The government will provide you with a pension worthy of your former rank. For a long time I have been chagrined by your imprisonment, for it has been a constant reminder that my predecessor government had failed to keep its commitments toward an enemy caught in the grip of misfortune. In my view, it is humiliating for a great nation to have so little confidence in its own power that it breaks its promises. Generosity is always the best councilor, and I am sure that your residence in Turkey will in no way disturb the tranquility of my possessions in Africa.

Your religion, as well as mine, teaches submission to the decrees of Providence. If France is now the mistress of Algeria, it is because that is God’s will…You have been the enemy of France; nevertheless, I am ready to render full justice to your courage, your character, and your resignation in suffering. Consequently, I consider it a point of honor to end your imprisonment and to put my full confidence in your word.”

Abd el-Kader was overwhelmed. But before he could call his mother to come and hear the news, the emir was introduced to Napoleon’s entourage. Of particular interest to him was the new minister of war, General Saint-Arnaud, the exterminator of Arabs in the Dahra caves and great admirer of Bugeaud. His peaked eyebrows, pointed d’Artagnan beard and air of stiff dignity made him look the very embodiment of the cold, military aristocrat. Yet, he was another officer to whom the emir was henceforth indebted. Saint-Arnaud had been among those working behind the scenes for the emir’s freedom.

Surrounded by two of her grandsons, Lalla Zohra shuffled into the salon leaning on her cane. With a rare smile shining below her white haik, she approached Napoleon and kissed his hand. He hadn’t been briefed that the correct response to this humble gesture from an Arab queen mother was to withdraw his hand and kiss her forehead. A meal of couscous had been prepared so the President and his staff could sit at the table with Abd el-Kader and his family to celebrate his first meal in freedom.

“Others have knocked me down or imprisoned me, but only Louis-Napoleon has conquered me,” Abd el-Kader told his companions after the president had departed.

He gathered his companions to announce the news and to offer thanks to God for their good fortune. The next day, the emir composed letters to thank the many people he knew had been working for his release.

Abd el-Kader had discovered in exile that politics shrinks the spirit, whereas the sacred enlarges it without limit. In his own defeat and the fall of successive French governments, he had witnessed the meaning of that verse in the Koran he knew by heart: Everything on earth is ephemeral; only the face of your Lord will abide forever, in all its majesty and glory. Ruination is the inevitable companion of the politics of the sword.

The emir also had experienced the kindness of Christians and the nonreligious alike, understanding that the paths, even if straight and narrow, are also many. Yes, God is infinite, all-embracing and self-sufficient. Yet, His limited creatures can only know and worship Him in part. For Abd el-Kader, the plurality of beliefs was but a reflection of the infinite nature of God and the inexhaustible ways to praise God.

These ideas would be set to paper a few years later, but their roots were planted in the soil of study and reflection, and fertilized by the goodness he could find in a France that had betrayed him. From people of all stations — Dupuch, Daumas, Boissonnet, Ollivier, the Prince-President himself, and the humble coffin maker — he had witnessed the meaning of charity and goodwill in a land he could no longer call, “infidel.”

Abd el-Kader wrote to Louis-Napoleon asking permission to come to Paris to “admire the marvels of France and to better understand the spirit and nobility of the French nation.”

On the afternoon of October 28, Abd el-Kader was driven through the streets of Paris accompanied by Kara Mohammed, Kaddour Ben Allal and Boissonnet, now Major Boissonnet. An enthusiastic crowd was eagerly waiting to catch a glimpse of the emir as his carriage drew up at the Hotel de la Terrasse on the Rue de Rivoli. The influential daily, Le Moniteur, had written approvingly of Louis-Napoleon’s action. “The prince has marked the end of his tour of France by a great act of justice and national generosity — he has set Abd el-Kader free. A loyal and generous policy is alone fitting to a great nation.” Amboise had been the last stop of the President’s procession around the countryside to take the people’s pulse — a pulse that showed fatigue with all the political turmoil of the past years and a desire for stability.

Soon after his arrival at the hotel, a message was delivered inviting the emir to attend a special performance of Rossini’s Moses that same night. Abd el-Kader wanted to plead fatigue, but first asked Boissonnet if the “Sultan” would be there. When he learned that he would, the emir decided that he must go after all, even if he would only see him from a distance.

The emir’s carriage joined a stream of broughams, landaus and heavy diligences flowing toward the opera. The Boulevard des Italiens was lined with people as the carriages rolled over freshly sanded cobblestones toward the brilliantly gas-lit opera house that had been decorated with garlands and wreaths. Excitement charged the air. A plebiscite had been announced that would determine if France would again become an empire, this time with the great Napoleon’s nephew as emperor. That night, the beau monde of Paris was celebrating in anticipation of a new era.

A murmur rippled through the glittering crowd in the auditorium. Word had spread that Abd el-Kader was among the Arabs dressed in simple white burnooses who had entered the loge above. Society women and generals alike craned their heads to see which one might be the emir. Hundreds of lorgnettes and opera glasses searched the figures above. Suddenly a hush fell upon the crowd. Wild applause. The crowd rose to its feet and shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” as a man who was the same age as Abd el-Kader and who had also known imprisonment, entered his red velvet box, embroidered with golden bees topped by an imperial crown.

A special cantata had been composed for Louis-Napoleon between the first and second acts whose aria had the refrain “Empire is peace,” a popular slogan he had coined during a stump speech in Bordeaux, which had echoed across France. After the cantata, Abd el-Kader received an invitation to visit the president’s box. When the emir bowed to kiss the president’s hand, Louis-Napoleon pushed it away and embraced Abd el-Kader, kissing him on the cheek in the European manner. The crowd applauded approvingly the generous spirit of their emperor-to-be.

Louis-Napoleon also had offered to give an official reception at Saint-Cloud for the emir after he returned from two days of hunting. In the meantime, he had instructed his aides to show Abd el-Kader the sites of Paris. First, he was shown the Madeleine, whose mighty Corinthian columns resembled a massive Greek temple. Waiting for him at the top of the steps was the curé, whose arm the emir took affectionately before entering the nave where the two stood together, arm in arm, in front of the alter. An astonished crowd watched as the emir, side by side with the priest, prayed silently in a Christian house of worship. “When I began my terrible struggle with the French, I thought they had no religious feeling,” Abd el-Kader told the cure’ as they left the richly decorated nave. “If I had not already been disabused of my prejudices before, I would have been now after seeing the magnificence of this temple.”

It is likely the emir didn’t know that the Madeleine contained much of the story of France’s tortured relationship with God. The foundation stone of the church was laid in 1763 under the reign of Louis XV, but its construction was abandoned in 1891 by the Constituent Assembly that eventually beheaded his slow-witted successor, Louis XVI. Napoleon Bonaparte started to convert the structure into a temple glorifying the French army in 1806 following the battle of Austerlitz, but his debacle in Russia caused a change of heart. A humbled Napoleon reverted to the original idea of glorifying God and ordered that it be a church after all. But by 1852, the Madeleine was empty much of the time; its use was mostly ceremonial.

At Notre-Dame, Abd el-Kader admired the coronation robe of Emperor Napoleon I, then climbed one of the cathedral’s towers to view the city. He saw the emerald-green sarcophagus of the great Bonaparte at the Invalides and visited the hospital where veterans sat up as he passed by their beds. The appropriate words always seemed to come to him. “I have touched the sword of Napoleon and seen his tomb. I would leave this place completely happy if it were not for the thought that some of you may be here because you have been wounded by me or my soldiers.”

There were trips to the Hippodrome to witness French skill with the new art of ballooning, to the National Artillery Museum and the National Printing Works. Impressed by intricacy and speed of modern presses, Abd el-Kader exclaimed to his hosts: “Yesterday, I saw the batteries of war. Today, I see the batteries of thought.”

In between his visits to the monuments of French civilization, the emir entertained a stream of over 300 visitors in his hotel room. Alexander Bellemare, his new interpreter who had replaced the worn out Boissonnet, marveled at the ease with which Abd el-Kader received his guests. “To understand him properly,” wrote Bellemare, “one has to see him in the company of all those people who came every morning to pay their respects — to hear him talking tactics with the generals, science with the scholars and of his work as an organizer and a statesman. For each he found a kind word, an answer exactly suited to his own position and that of his guest. This endless sequence of apposite remarks made for two weeks to people whose position could be explained in advance only with a few brief words, revealed one of the most remarkable aspects of a man so remarkable in countless other ways.” Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Bonaparte’s aging brother, Jerome, Prince Murat and the Duke of Aumale were among the great, along with the humble, who sought an audience with the emir.

Five French soldiers who had been his prisoners came to see the emir. They wanted to thank him for the kindness showed during their two years of captivity. One was about to be discharged from the Municipal Guard because of ill health and begged him to be allowed to go to Turkey with him as his personal servant. The emir turned to Bellemare after the former prisoners left. “The French are good and just.”

Abd el-Kader also received a visit from Courby de Cognord who still believed five years later that Abd el-Kader was personally responsible for the murder of the prisoners.

“The massacre took place against my orders and against my known wishes,” the emir explained. “I was far away at the time.”

“Then why did you not punish the culprits?”

“I could not do so. My chiefs were in revolt and no longer obeyed me. My soldiers, embittered by defeat, had only a few handfuls of barley to live on. Do not question me further. I do not wish to accuse another.”

De Cognord suddenly understood the honorableness of this man who had chosen to shield his own brother-in-law. The Frenchman grasped the emir’s hand warmly in his own.

As promised, an official reception was given the emir at Saint-Cloud when Louis-Napoleon returned from his hunting expedition. The minister of war, Saint-Arnaud, and his former keeper, Daumas, accompanied the emir and his companions Kaddour Ben Allal and Kara Mohammed on the long ride from his hotel to the suburbs of Paris. This residence of Napoleon I was of special interest to the emir. Not only had he been compared to Napoleon by a number of Frenchmen, he had become a student and admirer of Napoleon’s achievements on and off the battlefield, but especially off. He also had with him a document that he wanted to give the president.

He had learned that the French newspapers were saying that when the president released the emir, he had received certain pledges in return. In fact, the emir had not given pledges, though he had considered the idea and rejected it. “I preferred not to do so for his sake and mine,” the emir explained to Bellemare. “It would have detracted from his generosity by giving the impression he had imposed conditions on me. For my part, it was repugnant to appear like a Jew buying his freedom for a piece of paper.” The emir wanted to give him a written statement of his own free will.

When Louis-Napoleon entered the grand salon at Saint-Cloud, Abd el-Kader wanted to kiss his hand, as was his custom, but was again embraced by the French “Sultan.” Abd el-Kader handed him the piece of paper, saying that words are like the wind. Writing alone is permanent.

“I have come to your Highness to thank you for your kindness… You trusted me. You refused to listen to those who doubted. You set me free, thus fulfilling the commitments others made, but failed to keep. I come to swear to you by the Covenant and promises of all the prophets and messengers of God, that I will never do anything to betray your trust. I will never break my word. I will never forget your kindness and I promise never to return to Algeria…”

The president politely acknowledged the document, considering it unimportant, and then proceeded to personally conduct the tour of the palace and its grounds. At the stables, Abd el-Kader admired a beautiful white horse of Arab stock. “It is yours. I hope it will make you forget that you have not ridden for along time. Try him out and ride him in the review that will be held in your honor at Versailles.”

November third was the finale of the emir’s conquest of Paris. Not only had he taken Paris with his charm, even the army saluted him. Abd el-Kader was brought from his hotel to the Versailles rail station in an opulent salon car accompanied by War Minister Saint-Arnaud, Daumas, Magnan and a handful of other generals. Six regiments from the cream of the army he had tormented for fifteen years were going to pay their respects to a worthy adversary. Trumpets sounded, swords flashed, flags dipped that afternoon on the Sartory Plain as the emir, mounted on his new Arab charger, flanked by Daumas and Magnan, observed thousands of brightly colored cuirassiers, lancers, carabiners, troops of the line and artillery units parade and maneuver for hours. That evening, War Minister Saint-Arnaud hosted a dinner in the emir’s honor for eighty guests in the palace of Versailles.

For two weeks Abd el-Kader paid homage to France and official France paid homage to him in a mutual love fest that was summed up by The Times of London. “Abd el-Kader is the lion of the day…He is equally at ease in a church, at the opera, receiving visitors or being received, dropping his eyes respectfully when confronted with the admiring gaze of beautiful ladies or lighting up with a fire that is not yet dead within him at the neigh of a charger…”

Since October 16, Lalla Zohra hadn’t needed her cane. Back at Amboise, Abd el-Kader found her waiting for him by the door of his room. Bellemare remembered the scene. “He ran toward his mother, embraced her warmly, then threw himself at her feet and smothered them with kisses. Zohra lifted him up and begged him to give her a full account of his visit. He made her sit down while he stood and told her of the receptions he had attended and the things he had seen.”

For the first time in years, Lalla Zohra shed tears of joy.