Rue Abdel el-Kader
Visitors climbing the ramp from rue Emir Abdel el-Kader to Château Amboise may wonder about the street name. They may be even more curious about the incongruous garden of remembrance in the Château grounds, more suited to the deserts of Arabia than the banks of the Loire.
Who was Emir Abdel el-Kader? What was his connection with the Château?
The religious and military leader was held in honourable confinement in Château Amboise for four years, a diplomatic way of saying he was a prisoner of war.
You might think there were far worse prisons and so there were, but the Château in 1848 was not as it is today, it was draughty and very, very cold.
In 1830 France occupied The Barbary (Berber) Coast, part of the vast Ottoman Empire. Abdel el-Kader’s father led the harassment of the French troops. Like Jeanne d’ Arc who drove the English out of what is now France, he was revered. Algeria, like France, was too divided to oppose invaders.
In November 1832 when Abdel el-Kader was elected Emir, war was not on the young man’s agenda. A highly educated Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic, he found to his dismay he was expected to become a military leader.
In 1834 the French commander-in-chief, General Desmichels and Abdel el-Kader signed a Treaty to establish peace in the region. El-Kader was given the title Commander of the Believers. All the Saharan tribes paid him homage. He employed people of all nationalities and faiths, Arabs, Jews and Christians, to help him build the modern state of Algeria. He organized a regular army, set up an administration with salaried officials and taught his people austerity by setting an example by living in a tent.
The Emir signed another Treaty with General Bugeaud in 1837. He agreed to recognise French sovereignty in return for two thirds of Algeria and the rights to a gorge through the mountains in north Algeria, known as The Iron Gates.
When the Duke of Aumale, son of Louis-Philippe, breached The Iron Gates el-Kader retaliated. Bugeaud warned him off with the spine chilling words: I will enter into your mountains, I will burn your villages and your harvests, I will cut down your fruit trees.
In 1847, after seventeen gruelling years of war, el-Kader, now forty-one, offered to surrender on the proviso he would be exiled on Muslim soil, to Alexandria or Akka on the road to Mecca.
General Lamoricière wrote: ‘I have the order of the king's son… to give you the passage to Alexandria or Saint Jean d' Acre. We will not take you somewhere else’.
Gracious in defeat, the Emir harboured no resentment, no bitterness. His surrender was made official to the Duke of Aumale who had been appointed Governor-General of Algeria. Abdel el-Kader symbolically handed the Duke his war-horse.
The Duke was not able to enjoy his status as Governor for long. His father, Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate just five months later and the family went into exile in England. The French government broke its promise. In the winter of 1848 Abdel el-Kader and his retinue were taken to Château Amboise. The Emir was allocated what had once been the royal apartments. Guarded day and night, he was not allowed outside.
General Bugeaud, who had once threatened to burn the Emir’s villages, wrote to him: I want you to decide to adopt France as your country, and to ask the Government to make you a grant of property, with right of descent to your heirs. You would thus have a position equal to that of our most influential men, and be able to practise your religion and bring up your children according to your wishes. If they were able to work on your estate, they would lead a happy life. They would enjoy cultivating the soil; they could hunt. In agriculture they would find something new to interest them every day, there is no better cure for depression than the sight of Nature….’
The Emir replied: ‘If all the treasures in the world could be laid in the skirt of my burnous and set in the balance against my liberty, I would choose my liberty’.
A turret on the Garconnet Tower was converted into a minaret. Locals were rather startled when they first heard the muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. Repeated five times a day for the next four years they got used to it.
El-Kader became a cause célèbre. Lord Londonderry was reluctantly granted permission to visit the Emir but was kept waiting outside the Chateau, then inside the cold chapel, then in a store room filled with ancient furniture, bird-cages and books. Finally he was led across the garden, through tall cypress trees, until they reached Abdel el-Kader’s room. ‘Upon this door being thrown open’ wrote Londonderry, ‘the interesting old warrior stood before us. His burnous is as white as the driven snow — his beard as black as jet — his projecting huge eyebrows of the same hue, with teeth like ivory, and most expressive dark eyes...His stature is tall and commanding; his gesture, softness and amiability of expression almost inexplicable. Upon my approaching him, the Emir held out a very large, bony, and deep brown hand’.
Londonderry reported back to the English parliament and wrote to his friend Louis-Napoléon (Napoleon III in waiting) saying the Emir should be given his freedom.
Not long afterwards he and members of his retinue were allowed outside. The Emir received many invitations from the nobility to their chateaux along the Loire and became an honoured guest at Chenonceau and Chaumont.
When the young men left the Château to explore Amboise, the young women from the town were intrigued and, so the story goes, not entirely impervious to exotic charm.
The Emir became close friends with Father Louis Rabion, the parish priest of St. Denis who was restoring the ancient church after years of neglect following the French Revolution. Much of its present beauty is thanks to him.
On 16 October 1852 President Elect Louis-Napoleon told the Chateau to send carriages to conduct him, his Ministers, his Generals and the rest of his entourage from Amboise station to the Château. What a sight for sore eyes that must have been for the station master and his staff and people who lived along the route.
The Emir was not told about the visit but the sudden bustle aroused his curiosity. Going to a window he saw the cortège winding its way to the Château. When Louis-Napoleon received the Emir he said: ‘Abdel el Kader, I have come to set you at liberty’.
When Louis-Napoleon left, the Emir watched the carriages until they disappeared from view then went into the room which served as a mosque to thank God for his deliverance. The Emir left Amboise on December 11 1852 leaving regrets among the local population. Before he left he made gifts to local charities to benefit the inhabitants and visited his old friend Father Louis Rabion at St. Denis to present him with a magnificent crystal chandelier for the church.
Abdel el-Kader, after five years of exile, set foot on home ground. Settled in Damascus, he devoted himself to theology, philosophy and writing.
During his confinement in the Château, three of his sixteen children died as did his brother, two sons, two servants and seven women including two of his wives. One, Marie Riahi, a Christian, was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Amboise.
In 1853 the people of Amboise paid for the monument surmounted by a crescent in the Château grounds to honour the twenty-five members of the Emir's suite who died here.
In 1860 the Emir warned the French that violent anti Christian riots were imminent. When they broke out, over three thousand Christians were slaughtered in Damascus alone and a further seven thousand in surrounding areas. He sheltered large numbers of Christians, including the heads of foreign consulates and religious groups such as the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy, in his house. His eldest sons were sent into the streets to offer Christians his protection. Abdel el-Kader himself was, said survivors, personally instrumental in saving them.
His basic goodness brought him recognition, honours and awards from all over the world. He received the Grand Cross of the Redeemer from Greece, the Order of the Medjidie, First Class from Turkey and the Order of Pope from the Vatican. Abraham Lincoln sent him a pair of inlaid pistols and the UK sent a gold-inlaid shotgun. The French government increased his pension and bestowed on him the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur. From being an enemy of France he became a "friend of France". In 1865 the Emir visited Paris at the invitation of Napoleon III and was greeted with official and popular respect.
Before he left France he said he wanted to see Amboise again. The inhabitants gave him an unforgettable welcome. On boarding the train which took him back to Paris, the Emir, clearly moved, declared to the crowd on the platform: "I am leaving, but am leaving my heart with you!"
In 1871, during an insurrection in Algeria, he disowned his son who was arousing the tribes against Christians.
Emir Abdel el-Kader died in Damascus in 1883. His remains were re-interred in 1965 in Algiers. In 2005, Chateau Amboise commissioned Rachid Koraïchi, an Algerian artist, to landscape the memorial garden. Twenty-five stone stones carved in Syria are engraved with extracts from the Koran.
Algerians look upon Emir Abdel el Kader as the greatest hero of their people.
By Pamela Shields
