1847-1848.
Abdel Kader arrived at Toulon the last week in December, 1847. A few
hours, or days at most, he thought, would suffice for any arrangement
which might still be necessary to facilitate his departure for the East.
He was invited to disembark, though no preparations whatever had been
made to receive him.
To his surprise, he and his family, and followers, eighty-eight in all,
were marched up to a fortress—the Fortress of Lamalgue. He remonstrated.
He was told not to be alarmed; and it was explained to him that a
certain time was necessary for the requisite correspondence, either with
the Turkish Government, if he was to be sent to St. Jean d’Acre, or with
the Egyptian Government, if he was to be sent to Alexandria; and that
then he could be allowed to proceed to his place of destination.
The day after his imprisonment a French officer demanded an interview.
General Daumas came, officially charged by the King of the French, to
make him the most brilliant offers, if he would only consent to forego
the solemn word which had been given him by General Lamoricière and the
Duc D’Aumale when he surrendered. He was offered a splendid position in
France—a royal château, a guard of honour, and all the pomp and
appurtenances of a prince.
Abdel Kader listened to the shameful proposal in contemptuous silence.
Being pressed for a reply, his countenance flashed up, and fixing his
eagle eye on his old friend, he said with warmth, “Have you ceased to
know me? What! is it you who thus speaks to me? Your diplomatic talents,
I have no doubt, are very useful to France; but I intreat you not to
expend them thus uselessly on me.”
Then, taking up a corner of his burnous with both hands, and leaning
towards the window, he exclaimed, “If you were to bring me, on the part
of your King, all the wealth of France in millions and in diamonds, and
it were possible to place them all in the fold of my burnous, I would
throw them on the instant into the sea which washes my prison walls,
rather than give you back the word which has been so solemnly given me.
That word I will carry with me to my grave. I am your guest. Make me
your prisoner if you will; but the shame and ignominy will be with you,
not with me.”
He was asked if he would like to go to Paris. “I know,” he replied,
“that Ibrahim Pacha lately visited it, and admired its wonders. But
France was to him a land of hospitality. He was free! As for me, as long
as I remain a prisoner, all France is but a dungeon. I have no wish to
be a victim crowned with garlands.”
Patient and resigned himself, Abdel Kader infused his followers with the
same spirit. They had hitherto been his subjects, accustomed to approach
him with all the deference and respect due to royalty. They were now his
companions. A common calamity had levelled all barriers. He placed his
little means at their disposal, too happy if he could in any way
contribute to their wants and alleviate their sufferings. “In the
position in which I am now placed,” he said, “I must do as my ancestors
have done. I can no longer say, ‘My horse, my burnous, my goods;’ but
‘Our horse, our burnous, our goods.’”
One day General Daumas came to visit him. It was in the depth of winter.
Abdel Kader was without a fire. The general expressed his surprise. “My
wood,” he replied, “was finished yesterday, and I could not bring myself
to ask any of my companions to spare me some of theirs. Poor fellows! in
place of taking from them, I wish it were always in my power to bestow.”
“You are not, then, like those great chiefs who seem to take a pleasure
in exhausting their people,” remarked General Daumas. “If I had
resembled such rulers,” was the reply of Abdel Kader, “would the Arabs
have sustained the struggle with you so long as they did, and sacrificed
everything to uphold me?”
Day after day passed, and still there came no orders for his release. A
painful uncertainty agitated his mind. At one time Colonel Beaufort, the
Duc D’Aumale’s aide-de-camp, assured him, on the part of the Prince,
that the King had resolved that the stipulation made with him should be
fulfilled. At another time he was told that the Chamber of Deputies had
called its validity in question.
On the 28th of February, 1848, Abdel Kader got the news of the
revolution, of the abdication of the king, of the proclamation of the
Republic. He saw at once the immense import of that event to his own
prospects, and felt himself to be the sport of a capricious fortune.
With the new Government he had no bond. He could no longer plead for the
sanctity of treaties, of honour, of good faith. He could not expect an
act of generosity, he felt, when he had failed to obtain common justice.
The sudden crash of a monarchy, hitherto supposed to be fixed on a solid
and enduring basis, was to him an apposite spectacle. He moralised to
those around him on the worthlessness and instability of human grandeur.
“Behold,” he said to General Daumas, “behold a Sultan who was everywhere
esteemed great and powerful, who had contracted alliances with other
sovereigns, who had a numerous family to perpetuate his line, who was
renowned for his wisdom and experience! A day has sufficed to overthrow
him. Am I not right in my conviction that there is no other real force,
no truth and no reality, but in the will of God? Believe me, this world
is a carcass; dogs only quarrel over it.”
He received a visit from M. Olivier, Commissary-General of the
Provisional Government. The great Republic had deigned to think of its
captive. But it approached him not as a Paladin, chivalrously determined
to redeem French honour, but as a suppliant, trembling at the magic of a
name which, even in its collapse, was of ominous import to French
dominion. He was asked what guarantees he could give to France that he
would not appear again in Algeria.
“I have no other guarantee to give of my unchangeable resolution for the
future,” he replied, “but that which I have already given. If I had not
wished to surrender I should not have been here. I came to you freely
and voluntarily. This guarantee is worth all others.” “Would you sign
with your hand,” pursued the delegate, “and will the chiefs who are
around you sign with their hands, a document sworn to on the Koran, by
which you solemnly declare that you will never appear again in Algeria,
or mix yourselves up, directly or indirectly, in its affairs?” “Such a
document I would sign with my eyes, if my hands were not sufficient.”
Abdel Kader was then asked to address a letter to the Provisional
Government, enclosing a document to that effect. He penned and forwarded
the following _précis_:—
“Praise be to the one God, whose empire alone is everlasting.
“To the upholders of the Republic which governs France, and who are,
with regard to it, as the eyes and limbs are to the body.
“Sidi Olivier, your commissioner, has been to see me. He has informed me
that the French, with one accord, have abolished royalty, and have
decreed that their country shall henceforward be a Republic.
“I was rejoiced at the news, for I have read in books that such a form
of government has for its object to root out injustice, and to prevent
the strong from doing violence to the weak. You are generous men. You
desire the good of all; and your acts are expected to be dictated by the
spirit of justice. God has appointed you to be the protectors of the
unhappy and afflicted. I look to you, therefore, as my natural
protectors. Remove the veil of grief which has been thrown over me. I
seek justice at your hands.
“That which I have done not one of you can condemn. I defended my
country and my religion as long as I could; and I am persuaded that, as
noble-minded men, you cannot but applaud me. When I was conquered—when
it was impossible for me any longer to doubt that God, for inscrutable
reasons, had withdrawn his support from me—I decided to withdraw from
the world. It was then, when I could have found an asylum with perfect
ease amongst the Berbers, or the tribes of the Sahara, that I consented
to place myself in the hands of the French.
“I was convinced that when once they promised to do so, they would
convey me to the country whither I declared it my wish to go. It was
with this conviction that I selected France wherein to put my trust; for
the word of France up to this day has been held to be inviolable. I
demanded from General Lamoricière that I should be conveyed to
Alexandria, without touching at Oran, or Algiers, or any port in France.
“To this demand he not only gave a verbal adhesion, but sent me a letter
solemnly guaranteeing the fulfilment of my wish, signed with his name in
French, and sealed with his Arabic seal. When this letter reached me,
believing the word of the French was _one_, I gave myself up into his
hands. At present this belief is shaken. Confirm me in it by giving me
my liberty. You have accomplished a work which promises to confer
happiness on all. Let me not be a solitary exception.
“Often have I said to myself, ‘Had the French taken me prisoner in
battle, they would have treated me well; for they are brave and
generous, and know how to hold the balance between the conqueror and the
conquered.’ Well, I have not been made prisoner. I gave myself up of my
own free will. Some of you may imagine that, regretting the step I took,
I still harbour thoughts of returning to Algeria. That can never be. I
may actually be numbered amongst the dead. My sole wish is to be allowed
to go to Mecca and Medina, there to worship and adore the all-powerful
God, until He calls me to Him.
“Receive my salutations.
“ABDEL KADER IBN MEHI-ED-DEEN.
“9 _Rebia il Oual_, 1264.
“_March_, 1848.”
Within this letter was enclosed the document demanded at his hands. It
ran as follows:—
“Praise be to the One God.
“I give you a sacred word which cannot be doubted.
“I declare that I will never henceforward excite troubles against the
French, either in person, or by letters, or by any other means
whatsoever.
“I make this oath before God, by Mohammed (praise and salutation be to
him), by Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ; by the Pentateuch, the
Gospel, and the Koran. I make this oath with my heart as well as with my
hand and tongue.
“This oath is binding on me and on my companions, one hundred and more
in number; on those who sign this document, and on those who sign it
not, being unable to write.
“Salutation from ABDEL KADER IBN MEHI-ED-DEEN.”
Abdel Kader felt assured that these documents, having been officially
demanded, would prove the immediate prelude to his release. The dawn of
each successive day was hailed as the harbinger of liberty. At last the
anxiously expected answer arrived. It was opened with impatience. Its
substance was, that “the Republic considered itself bound by no
obligation to Abdel Kader, and that it took him as the previous
Government had left him—a prisoner.”
The bitter mockery pierced Abdel Kader to the heart. He sunk into the
deepest despondency. Life was a burden to him, he declared. General
Daumas approached him with words of consolation. “How can you be
surprised,” he exclaimed in reply, with mournful earnestness, “that my
resignation should falter before the greatness of my calamity? My
family, my followers, are in despair. My aged mother and the women of my
household weep night and day, and no longer credit the hope I am obliged
to hold out to them.
“What do I say? Not only the women, but the men, give way to
lamentations. Their state is such, that I am persuaded if our captivity
is much prolonged, many will die. And it is I who am the cause of all
this misery! I alone persisted in surrendering to the French. None of
them willingly consented to it. You have, indeed, made me a deceiver;
and now they all reproach me for my confidence in you.
“Is there no tribunal in France especially charged to hear the cries and
reclamations of the injured? Call together all your Ulemas, and I
undertake to convince them of my rights. Ah! the Republic is far
different from that Sultan who, having become deaf, was seen to weep;
and being asked the cause of his tears, replied, ‘I weep because I can
no longer hear the complaints of the distressed and afflicted.’”
An order came for the removal of the prisoners to the Château of Pau.
They arrived there April 20th, 1848. The authorities had been informed
that English agents were in the neighbourhood seeking to facilitate
Abdel Kader’s escape. The windows of the château were barred with iron.
Sentinels paced under them night and day.
Abdel Kader smiled inwardly at all these precautions. The season of
suspense was over. He felt himself a prisoner for life, and he stoically
reconciled himself to his fate. A severe self-control disciplined his
hitherto tempestuous emotions. The magnanimity of his soul resumed its
wonted ascendancy. In a man possessing the mental energy and resources
of Abdel Kader, there could be no such feeling as that of solitude. But
the outer world now pressed on him. He accepted its diversion as a duty
rather than a pleasure. Crowds from all parts of France knocked at the
portals of the château. Impelled by mingled feelings of curiosity,
sympathy, and admiration, statesmen, diplomatists, and warriors, vied
with each other in doing homage to the august prisoner in his
misfortunes. Abdel Kader was obliged to hold levees, which sometimes
lasted for hours.
All were charmed with the loftiness and originality of his observations,
the delicacy of his allusions, the felicity of his compliments. Above
all, they were astonished to find that, so far from upbraiding those who
had been the cause of his severe trial, he seemed to take a pleasure in
suggesting extenuating circumstances for their conduct, and in
endeavouring to relieve them of the burden of their treason and their
shame.
General Daumas was his constant attendant. The general impression
respecting Abdel Kader may be gathered from the following letter,
addressed by the General to Monseigneur Dupuch, the Bishop of
Algiers:—“You are going to see the illustrious prisoner of the Château
of Pau. Oh! you will certainly not regret your journey. You have known
Abdel Kader in his prosperity, at a time when, so to speak, all Algeria
acknowledged his rule. Well, you will find him greater and more
extraordinary in his adversity than he was in his prosperity. Still, as
ever, he towers to the height of his position.
“You will find him mild, simple, affectionate, modest, resigned, never
complaining; excusing his enemies—even those at whose hands he may yet
have much to suffer—and never permitting evil to be spoken of them in
his presence. Mussulmans and Christians alike, however justly he might
complain of them, have found his forgiveness. He throws the conduct of
the former on the force of circumstances. The safety and honour of the
flag under which they fought explains that of the latter. In going to
console such a noble, such an exalted character, you will add another
work of sanctity to those by which your life is already distinguished.”
The Christian bishop and the Arab chief had long been bound by ties of
common fellowship in deeds of mercy and compassion; and Abdel Kader
selected his magnanimous coadjutor in the convention of Sidi Khalifa as
the depository of his inmost thoughts and reflections. His
correspondence with the bishop was constant and unremitting.
Latterly he wrote, “As you may have discovered in the mirrors of our
conversation, I was not born to be a warrior. It seems to me I ought
never to have been one for a single day. Yet I have borne arms all my
life. Mysterious are the designs of Providence! It was only by a wholly
unforeseen concourse of circumstances that I suddenly found myself
thrown so completely out of the career pointed out to me by my birth, my
education, and my predilection—a career which, as you well know, I
ardently long to resume, and to which I never cease praying to God to
allow me to return, now at the close of my laborious years.”
A record of all the remarks made by Abdel Kader to his numerous visitors
would require in themselves a volume. Not one left him without carrying
away and treasuring up some charming efflorescence of his facile and
comprehensive intellect. A distinguished advocate assured him of the
sympathies of an influential statesman. “I believe there is a little
fire of affection for me in his heart,” replied Abdel Kader; “but do not
let that prevent you from supplying it at times with fuel.”
When grasping simultaneously the hand of a priest and that of an
officer, he remarked, “I like such visits and such faces, because one
knows you at the first glance. Yours is the double uniform of devoted
souls and generous hearts.”
To a numerous company he once said, “I see around me kind and amiable
people, who are pleased to extol the few good qualities which I possess
by the favour of Heaven; but I fear there is no real friend here to tell
me of my defects, which are much more numerous.”
“I am often afraid for you,” said the Archbishop of Tours, “when I think
of the rigour of our climate.” “It is true your climate is cold, but the
warmth of your reception makes me forget it,” was the reply of Abdel
Kader.
On receiving a colonel at the head of his staff, he said, “I thank you,
colonel, I am deeply touched by your visit, and that of your brave
companions. You have fought me bravely in Africa, and vanquished me. I
adore the designs of God. Your present visit shows me that you think
that I also did my duty; but of that you are the best judges. Again I
thank you. After all, without alluding to any in particular, there ought
to be many an officer in the French army who should be grateful to me,
since but for me many a colonel would be still a captain, and many a
general a colonel.”
To a statesman he thus generously expressed himself:—“I am not irritated
at the previous delays in the execution of the convention between me and
General de Lamoricière. I know well that in the actual position of
France it would be indiscreet and importunate in me to press the matter
too strongly. I only beg not to be overlooked too long.”
A beautiful _bouquet_ having been presented to him by some ladies, he
addressed them in the following strain of Eastern compliment, “In
looking at this, and inhaling the perfume of so many lovely flowers, I
seem to see a symbol of your hearts, and to breathe their delicious
odours.”
The continued succession of visitors at last fatigued him. He begged
that the hours of reception might be restricted. All beheld the
serenity, the cheerfulness of his aspect with wonder and astonishment;
but who could fathom the inward and silent sufferings of that ardent and
impassioned soul, which had worn itself out to absolute exhaustion
during fifteen years, in contending bravely for its country’s
independence; which had only consented to relinquish the sacred struggle
in order to save the domestic hearth; and which now, far from both home
and country, saw all those most dear to it gradually sinking under the
slow and lingering agony of imprisonment and exile?
Still, as the illustrious captive sought to fortify his spirits by those
religious exercises and consolations which had been his life-long
strength and support, the waters of affliction rose around him. In vain
he strove to propitiate Heaven by penitential abnegation, by the most
rigorous fasts, by the most persevering prayers. A remorseless fate
seemed as it were commissioned to hold him in its iron grasp. Death was
almost daily ravishing from him the dearest objects of his love and
solicitude.
Scarcely were his eyes dried from weeping over such of his faithful
companions as had expired in his arms, than they were bent with feverish
anxiety on those whom he still saw before him sinking under the
complicated ravages of disease, melancholy, and despair. After having
wept over a son, a daughter, a nephew of the brightest hopes, he
trembled for his mother and mother-in-law, whose advanced age and
infirmities seemed more especially to mark them out as the next victims.
But despite all these cruel trials, Abdel Kader maintained an unshaken
equanimity of look and demeanour. His words never ceased to breathe the
spirit of heroic resignation. A sympathising voice once reproached him
for his pious austerities. “Why,” he replied, with a melancholy smile,
“why grudge me the consolation and hope of thus rendering my prayers
less unworthy to Him to whom I pour them out from the bottom of my
heart, and who yet, perhaps, one of these days, may answer them from his
throne on High?” With Job he seemed to exclaim, “Though He slay me, yet
will I put my trust in Him.”
Such saint-like simplicity of character, such humility, such almost
feminine grace and gentleness, combined as they were in Abdel Kader with
all the lion-like qualities which exalt and dignify the manly nature,
composed a _beau-ideal_ of moral and physical grandeur, which
involuntarily extorted enthusiastic reverence and adoration. The
extraordinary fascination which he exercised on all around him, whether
resplendent with the flashing of thousands of sabres unsheathed around
him at his command, or enveloped in a prison’s gloom, is attested by
instances of devotion and attachment too numerous to be mentioned.
Abdel Kader had left Algeria for ever, but the magic spell of his name
still remained, and it remains to this day. When some Arab chiefs, after
the surrender of the Sultan, visited the stables of the French
authorities at Mostaganem, the last person in the minds of the latter
was probably Abdel Kader, of whose ominous presence they had been
happily relieved. To their surprise they saw the Arab chiefs throwing
themselves frantically on a splendid black stallion, kissing its neck,
its shoulders, its very feet. It had been Abdel Kader’s charger. “It has
borne him! it has borne him!” was the repeated outburst of their
irrepressible feelings, and with difficulty they were torn away.
When Kara Mohammed, Abdel Kader’s equerry, and his inseparable companion
in all his battles, dangers, and reverses, looked on a porter at the
gates of the château still wearing the royal livery, he could not help
exclaiming, “What! your master is in England and you here! We would
cross mountains and seas to follow our master to the ends of the earth.
In receiving his benefits we are bound to him for life and death.”
Notwithstanding all Abdel Kader’s efforts and exhortations, his
followers gave way to a hopeless despondency. These sons of the desert,
to whom the boundless plains of the Sahara had been a home and the
distant horizon the only limit, languished and pined away in their novel
and dreary abode. The iron had entered into their soul.
At last an order came for their release. The bearer of the news expected
to be hailed with cries of joy and delight. “No, no!” they all with one
accord exclaimed, “while _he_ is a captive, none of us will separate our
lot from his!”
“But your master is going to be removed to another fortress,” was the
answer, “where you will be even more strictly confined than at present.”
“Never mind,” was the general cry. “What signifies? We are willing to
suffer more if necessary: but quit _him_ in his misfortune we never
will.”
In the month of June, 1848, General de Lamoricière was appointed
Minister of War. Abdel Kader now anticipated with certainty the near
approach of his deliverance. The man who had pledged his word to him was
in power. In the pressure of public affairs, however, Abdel Kader feared
he might be overlooked. He hastened, therefore, to address the general a
letter, in which he solemnly abjured him to vindicate his own honour, as
well as the national honour of France. Days, weeks, months elapsed, and
no answer was vouchsafed.
Abdel Kader maintained his usual imperturbability; but his Algerines
became furious. They formed a conspiracy to fall on their guard, unarmed
as they were, kill as many as they could, and taste in a desperate self-
sacrifice the sweetness of revenge. “We thought not of escape,” they
afterwards avowed. “We wanted to die, that our blood might be an eternal
shame to France, inasmuch as we should have been slain for reclaiming
the execution of the promise made to our master.” Abdel Kader, duly
averted of this mad design, interposed in time to thwart it.
The Minister of War was also apprised of it. He dreaded a catastrophe.
He sent an officer to the despairing and overtortured captives, with an
offer of freedom. It was then they returned the noble and sublime answer
already recorded. On the 2nd November, 1848, they voluntarily followed
their beloved master to the Château of Amboise.
An order had preceded them. Neither Abdel Kader nor any of his suite was
to be allowed to have intercourse with persons from without. They were
neither to be permitted to receive nor to write letters. The privilege
of freely receiving visitors was to be taken from them. No applicant for
an interview was to be granted his request without an especial
permission from the Minister of War.
This order was signed “De Lamoricière!”