CHAPTER XXI

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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!”

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