Place du Gouvernement, the noisiest place in the town, crowded with natives at all hours (concerts, see p. [220]). The equestrian statue, in bronze, of the Duke of Orleans (1810–42), a distinguished general in the Algerian campaigns, is by the Piedmontese Carlo Marocchetti (1845). Behind the statue, and half concealed by the Boul. de France, is the curiously incongruous—
Mosquée de la Pêcherie (Pl. 16, D 2; Arabic Jâma el-Jedid, new mosque), erected by Turkish architects in 1660 for adherents of the Hanefite ritual (p. [445]). It is a cruciform building with nave and aisles, a huge central dome tastelessly painted inside, a rich marble pulpit of Italian workmanship, and a square minaret (now clock-tower). Entrance in the Rampe de la Pêcherie (adm., see p. [220]).
A few paces to the E. of the Place du Gouvernement, adjoining the Rue de la Marine (Pl. D, 2), the harbour-street of the Turkish and early French period, is the small Place de la Pêcherie, the site of the pirates’ Slave Market.
Close by is the Great Mosque (Pl. 15, D 2; Arabic Jâma el-Kebîr), the oldest and largest mosque in the town, founded in 1018 for believers in the Malekite ritual, but often altered since then. Both the mosque and its minaret, originally built by the Abdelwadite Abû Tâkhfîn (p. [190]) in 1322–3, have now been modernized. The entrance is by a portico in the Rue de la Marine, erected in 1837 with materials from a mosque of the Jenina (p. [225]), leading into a court, embellished with a Turkish fountain, and to the unadorned sacred building itself, with its eleven aisles or arcades and horseshoe arches resting on low pillars.
The quarter to the N.W. of the Rue de la Marine, between Boul. Amiral-Pierre (Pl. C, D, 1, 2) and Rue Bab el-Oued (see below), is inhabited mainly by Italians and natives and still contains many mediæval features in its sombre lanes and passages. Soon after entering it, we come to a pleasing Turkish House, Rue Duquesne, No. 15, in the small square of that name, with a marble portal and a two-storied court.
The building of the Conseil Général (Pl. 5a, D 2; adm., see p. [220]), close by, Rue de la Charte No. 5, a good example of Moorish-Turkish architecture, with its Renaissance portal, was the British consulate in the Turkish period. No. 29, in the adjoining Rue d’Orléans, has a remarkably rich Italian Renaissance portal.
The short Rue du Quatorze-Juin, the last houses in the Rue des Consuls (Pl. D, 2), occupied by the other European consuls in the Turkish period, and the adjacent narrow Rue Navarin and Rue Jean-Bart, all have the character of the Kasba quarter (p. [227]).
The narrow passage called Rue des Postes leads here to the Rue Volland (Pl. C, 1), the cross-street between Boul. Amiral-Pierre and the Avenue Bab el-Oued (Pl. C, 1). Here, on the right, are the barracks and the Kursaal Theatre (p. [220]), and on the left the Lycée National, on the site of the Turkish janissaries’ barracks.
The Rampe Valée ascending hence to the Kasba quarter skirts the *Jardin Marengo (Pl. C, 1), a public park, laid out in 1834–47 on the site of the Mohammedan cemetery; the grounds, with their wealth of palms, yuccas, and bamboos, climb the hill-side as far as the mosque of Sidi Abderrahmân (p. [228]).
We now return by the Rue Bab el-Oued (Pl. C, 2; p. [222]) to the Place du Gouvernement. Halfway, in the Rue de la Kasba (p. [227]), rises on the right the church of Notre-Dame des Victoires (Pl. 8; C, 2), formerly a mosque (Jâma Bitchnîn, of 1622).