France to take henceforth an acute interest in the valley of the Nile, an interest which on several occasions brought her dangerously near rupture with a Power even more earnestly concerned with the Egyptian Question. In 1827 the Dey of Algiers (a country which remained under nominal Turkish suzerainty), insolent beyond measure in his treatment of Europeans, because hitherto all European states had failed to subdue his pretensions, signalised some difference of opinion with the French Consul by striking him in the face with a fly-whisk. France brooded over the insult for three years, when the tottering government of Charles X sought to prop up the Bourbon dynasty by a successful military expedition, and in June 1830 landed 37,000 infantry, and a force of cavalry and artillery at Sidi Ferruj, near Algiers. Considering their renown as fierce fighters, the Algerians do not seem to have made a very sturdy resistance; though perhaps in the lapse of time since their last war with a European power the superiority of European artillery began to be felt. At any rate, three weeks after the French landed they had taken the town of Algiers and the Dey had surrendered. A week afterwards the Dey was banished to Naples. Great Britain then asked for information as to French projects, and was assured that within a very short time the French forces would be withdrawn when reparation had been made. But these assurances were as well meant and as valueless as Russian assurances in Central Asia, and our own repeated and unsolicited declarations that we hoped to be able to leave Egypt in six months. The government of Charles X fell, and the new Orleanist dynasty could hardly draw down on itself the odium of a withdrawal. But an unwise policy nevertheless was pursued towards the Arabs, a policy dictated by ignorance. The inhabitants of Algeria had not taken a very strong part in the defence of the Dey, who in their eyes was a Turk and a foreigner; but when they began to realize that their country was about to be taken possession of by Christians, and Christians who at that time did nothing to soothe their religious susceptibilities, they found a leader in a princely man, Abd al Kader[124]. From 1835 to 1837 the French sustained defeat after defeat at his hands. In 1837 however a truce was made, by which Abd al Kader was recognized by the French as Sultan over a large part of western and central Algeria. Two years after war broke out again between the French and Abd al Kader. An army under Marshal Bugeaud attacked Abd al Kader with unwavering energy—perhaps with some cruelty. In 1841 the national hero had lost nearly every point of his kingdom, and fled into Morocco, from which country he afterwards returned with a large army, only to be again and again defeated,