From the English officer we turn to the French one, whose book is of a much more ambiguous character. Who is this Count St Marie? Whence does he derive his countship and his melodramatic or vaudevilleish name? Does he write in English, or is his book translated? Is he a Frenchman as well as a French officer, a bonâ fide human being, or a publisher’s myth; a flesh and blood author, or a cloak for a compilation? From sundry little discrepancies, we suspect the latter; and that he is indebted for name, title, and rank, to the ingenious benevolence of his editor. Sometimes he talks as if he were a Frenchman; at others, in a manner to make us suppose him English. Whatever his nation, it is strange, if he has been an officer in the French service, that he should request information from a certain mysterious Mr R——, whom he constantly puts forward as an authority, on the subject of promotion in the French army, and respecting French military decorations. The commanders of the Legion of Honour, he tells us, wear the gold cross en sautoir, like the cross of St Andrew. Odd enough that Count St Marie should be more conversant with Scottish decorations than with French ones. Talking of Bougia, at page 203, he remarks that “the blindness and imbecility of the French in Africa is (he might have said are) more perceptible there than any where else;” and adverts to “the ruined débarcadère, the fragments of which seem left only to put French negligence to shame.” We doubt if any Frenchman would have written in this tone, especially in a book intended for publication in England. There are many similar passages in the volume. Yet the gallant count talks of the French consul as “our consul,” and of the French troops as “our columns,” the latter in the very same paragraph in which he sneers at their victories. His style is free from foreign idioms, but here and there occurs a peculiarity seeming to denote a translation. A town is said to be garrisoned by veteran troops, when the meaning evidently is, that the garrison was a detachment of the French corps known as “the Veterans.” Although cent sous is a common term in France to express a five-franc piece, in English we do not talk of a payment of one hundred sous. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. We have probably said enough to make our readers coincide in our suspicion, that “Algeria in 1845,” by Count St Marie, is neither fish, flesh, nor red herring, but altogether of the composite order. It is, nevertheless, amusing and full of anecdote, with only here and there a blunder or dash of exaggeration; and although, as we believe, a compilation, it is tolerably correct in its statistics and inferences. We must protest, however, against the humbug of the system. A book that has merit may be launched under its true colours, and kept afloat without a titled name upon the title-page.
The motives that induce the French to cling, with a tenacity which an immense annual outlay of treasure and human life has hitherto failed to weaken, to their African conquest, are, we believe, pretty well appreciated, at least in this country, where colonies and colonization are understood, and where French policy is studied by many. Algeria is the safety-valve by which the superfluous steam of the national character is in some measure let off; it affords a point de mire for the people, occupation for the army, a subject of discussion for the newspapers. Doubtless a large section of the French nation, or at least of its more sensible and thinking classes, would gladly witness the abandonment of a colony which has already cost more than there is any probability of its yielding for years to come—more, perhaps, than it ever will yield, either in direct or indirect advantages. But were it proposed to give it up, the general cry would be loudly against the measure. Not that there is a probability of the proposal being made. The present shrewd and wary ruler of France well knows that a little blood-letting is as essential to keep down the feverish temperament of his people as a plaything is to occupy their thoughts and preserve them from mischief. Algeria is at once the leech and the toy. Restless and enterprising spirits there find the field of action they require; those who might otherwise be busy with home politics, have their attention diverted by battles and bulletins. The evils of protracted and unprofitable warfare do not, in this instance, come home to the nation in a very direct and palpable form, and therefore disgust at the resultless strife has not yet replaced the interest and excitement it creates. Now and then a tent or an umbrella is captured and stuck up in the gardens of the Tuileries to be gaped and wondered at by the Parisians. This gives a fillip to popular enthusiasm, and well-fed national guardsmen, as they take their turn of duty at the palace gates, look with increased respect and envy upon the Algerine schako and bronzed visage of their fellow sentry of the line. Captain Kennedy gives an amusing instance of the extent to which the martial ardour of sober French citizens is sometimes carried by that stir of arms and din of battle whose echoes are wafted to their ears from the distant shores of the Mediterranean.
“Among the various costumes and styles of dress seen in the streets of Algiers, none are so ridiculous as that of the European civilian, dressed à l’Arabe, some fine specimens of which we saw to-day. One of this genus, a wealthy shopkeeper from the Rue Chaussée d’Antin, had, by his adventures a short time since, created some little amusement. Enthusiastic on the subject of the new colony, his thoughts by day had been for months of Algiers, and his dreams by night of bournoused warriors, fiery steeds, and bloody yataghans. At last, determined to see with his own eyes, he left his beloved Paris, and arrived safely in Algiers.
“His first care was to procure a complete Arab dress, in which he sallied forth the morning after his arrival. He came in search of adventures, and he was soon gratified. Stalking along, he accidentally hustled a couple of French soldiers, was sworn at, thrashed, and rolled in the mud as a ‘Sacré cochon d’Arabe,’ lost his purse from having no pockets in his new garments, and was nearly kicked down stairs by the garçon of his hotel for venturing to enter his own room.
“Undismayed by these misadventures, he set out the following day, armed to the teeth, to ride to Blidah. When, half-way there, he was seized as a suspicious character by two Arab gendarmes, for being armed without having a permit, and pretending not to understand Arabic; he was disarmed and dismounted, his hands tied behind his back, and fastened to his captor’s stirrup. He spent the night on the ground in a wretched hut, with a handful of cuscusoo for supper, and next morning was dragged into Algiers in broad daylight, half dead with fear and fatigue. On being carried before the police he was instantly liberated; and, taking advantage of the first packet, returned to France, having seen more of life in Algeria in a few days, than many who had spent the same number of years in the colony.”
Great must have been the discomfiture of the worthy burgher, although he had much reason to rejoice at having encountered Arab gendarnes and French troopers, instead of Bedouins or Kabyles, who would hardly have let him off with a beating, a night’s imprisonment, and a cuscusoo supper. We can imagine his delight at again finding the asphalte of the Boulevards under his boot-soles, and the respect with which his coffee-house gossips regarded him, as he related, over his post-prandial demi-tasse, or in the intervals of his game at dominos, the adventures of his amateur campaign, and the perils that beset the pilgrim to Algeria. A slight traveller’s license would convert the pair of gendarmes into a troop of hostile cavalry, and his brief detention in the hut into a visit to the dungeons of Abd-el-Kader. His friends would look up to him as a military authority, his wife exclaim at the injustice that left his button-hole undecorated; and when next his company of the national guard elected their officers, he would have but to present himself to be instantly chosen. The laurels he had failed to achieve in Africa would be bestowed upon him by acclamation in the guard-room of his arrondissement.
In relating the well-known incident that gave rise to hostilities between France and the Dey of Algiers, Count St Marie goes back to the remote cause, which, by his account, was a lady. In the time of Napoleon the Bey of Tunis had a favourite female slave, for whom he ordered, of an Algerine Jew, a costly and magnificent head-dress. The Jew, unable to get it manufactured in the country, wrote to Paris; the head-dress was made, at an expense of twelve thousand francs, and the modest Israelite charged it thirty thousand to the Bey. The latter was too much pleased with the bauble to demur at the price, but, not being in cash, he paid for it in corn. There chanced just then to be a scarcity in France; the Jew sold his grain to the army contractors, and managed so well that he became a creditor of the French government for upwards of a million of francs. Napoleon fell, and the Bourbons declined to pay; but the Jew contrived to interest the Dey of Algiers in his cause, and remonstrances were addressed to the French government. The affair dragged on for years, and at last, in 1829, on the eve of a festival when the diplomatic corps were admitted to pay their respects to the Dey, the latter expostulated with the French consul on the subject of the long delay. The answer was unsatisfactory, and the consequence was the celebrated rap with a fan or fly-flap, which sent its giver into exile, and converted Algeria into a French province. On visiting the Kasbah, or citadel, at Algiers, Captain Kennedy was shown the little room in which the insult was offered to the representative of France. It is now used as a poultry-yard. “Singularly enough,” says the captain, “as we entered, a cock, strutting on the deserted divan, proclaimed his victory over some feebler rival by triumphant crow—an appropriate emblem of the real state of affairs.” But the conquered cock is game; and although sorely punished by his adversary’s spurs, he returns again and again to the charge.
Within the fortress of the Kasbah were comprised the Dey’s palace, harem, and treasury. The buildings are now greatly altered, at least as regards their application. The private residence of the Dey has been converted into officers’ quarters, the harem is occupied by artillerymen, a kiosk has been arranged as an hospital, and a mosque has become a Catholic chapel. The treasury was said to contain an immense sum at the time of its capture by the French; but the exact amount was never known, and various accounts have been given of the probable disposal of the money. Captain Kennedy believes there is little doubt that the sum of forty-three millions of francs, officially acknowledged to have been shipped to France, was employed by the ministers of Charles the Tenth in their vain endeavours to suppress the revolution of 1830. Certain general officers of the invading army have been charged with acts of appropriation; but nothing was ever proved, and the whole rests on rumour and unsupported assertion. However the money was got rid of, there is no doubt that a vast deal was found. The Dey, a careless extravagant old dog, worthy of his piratical ancestors, was any thing but minute in his record of receipts and expenditure. He was not the man to ring his sovereign or mark his bank-notes; he knew as much about double entry as about the Greek mythology or the Waverley novels, and kept his accounts with a shovel and a corn-bin. Wooden partitions divided his treasury into compartments—one for gold, one for silver, and separating foreign and native coin; when money was received, it was thrown in uncounted; when wanted, it was taken out without form or ceremony of writing. “Such also was the carelessness shown,” adds Captain Kennedy, “that, in one part, the walls still bear the impressions of coins cast in at random, before the inner coating of plaster had had time to dry,”—quite a realisation of fairy tale accounts, and popular ideas of Oriental profusion and lavish prodigality. The manner in which these heads of gold and silver were guarded is equally curious, and completes a picture worthy of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. “Prior to the French occupation,” says M. St Marie, “any attempt to penetrate into these caves was impracticable, the approach to them being guarded by lions, tigers and hyenas, chained up at short distances from each other.” Besides these formidable brute body-guards, whose melodious voices must have greatly soothed the slumbers of the fair inmates of the seraglio, the Dey had barracks within the Kasbah for his household troops, on whose fidelity he relied for protection from the soldiery of the regency, frequently in a state of mutiny.
Military hospitals are of course a primary necessity in a country where half a million of soldiers have perished during the last fifteen years, either by disease or the sword. At Algiers there are several establishments of the kind, one of which, situated in the gardens of the Dey, and capable of containing five thousand sick, is particularly worthy of notice. Large as the building is, it is insufficient in summer and autumn to accommodate all who seek admission. The gardens have been left as much as possible uninjured, and their orange-trees and fountains afford cool shade and delightful freshness to the convalescent soldiers. On the other hand, the Jardin Marengo, belonging to Colonel Marengo, the commandant of the citadel of Algiers, contributes its quota to the sick wards. It is cultivated, Count St Marie informs us, by condemned soldiers, who suffer dreadfully from the heat and from exposure to the burning sun. Scarcely a day passes without some of the unfortunate men being conveyed to hospital, and in many instances they never recover. The real name of Colonel Marengo is Capon. His father distinguished himself at the battle of Marengo, and Napoleon jestingly bestowed on him the name retained by his son, instead of the ignoble appellation that he previously bore. Apropos of the hospital—or it might just as well be said, àpropos de bottes—the Count, who certainly never loses an opportunity of bringing in a good story, relates one of a M. St Vincent, president of a French learned society, who went to Africa to prosecute researches in natural history. Eager for specimens, he was liberal in his payments; and one day a great curiosity was brought to him in the shape of two rats, each with a long excrescence, like the trunk of an elephant, issuing from the top of the nose. He caught at the prize, and immediately forwarded to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris a scientific description of the rat trompé. But his letter had scarcely gone when the excrescence became dry and dropped off; and on examination it was found that incisions had been made above the noses of the animals, and the tails of two other rats inserted The rat trompé dwindled into a rat trompeur.
After a short stay in the city of Algiers, and contemplating a return thither, Captain Kennedy and his companion, Viscount Fielding, started for Blidah by diligence. At about half a mile from the Kasbah, the road—an excellent one, constructed by the troops—passes under the walls of Fort l’Empereur, built in commemoration of a victory obtained by the Moors in the year 1541 over the troops of Charles V. Some of the cannon abandoned on this occasion by the Spaniards were originally French, having been taken by the imperial army at the battle of Pavia. The Algerines mounted them on the Kasbah, where they remained until in 1830, after an interval of three hundred and five years, they again fell into the hands of their first possessors. The fort, which owes its existence to a signal triumph of Algerine power, was not destined to survive the downfall of the Crescent. Invested by the French, a few hours’ cannonade dismounted its guns, breached its walls, and ruined its defences. The garrison were compelled to abandon it, and retreat into the city, with the exception of a few desperadoes, who had sworn to perish, but never to fly before the Christians. Whilst the French troops impatiently awaited orders for an assault, a tremendous explosion took place; and when the dust and smoke cleared away, the whole western face of the fort was a heap of ruins. The surrender of the city shortly followed.