AHMED BEY PALACE

Hadj Ahmed, one of the now mythical heroes of the anti-colonial resistance, had this palace built between 1826 and 1835, sometimes called the Divisional Palace because it was the headquarters of the French military command. You enter through a corridor leading to a pretty patio, bordered by the colonnades of the women's galleries (some 390, according to legend!), which lead to several courtyards and interior gardens. Napoleon III planted a cedar of Lebanon here in 1865, during his visit to the city. Of particular interest are the frescoes covering more than 2,000^m2, restored as long ago as 1860. Not to be missed: the pilgrimage from Constantine to Mecca, showing all the ports of the Ottoman-dominated Mediterranean: Algiers, Tunis, La Goulette, Tripoli, Alexandria, Cairo, Candia, Rhodes, Jeddah and Medina, with captions and illustrations of the dwellings, palm trees and deciduous trees according to the different climates represented, different types of ships, cannons, sabres, and so on. The fresco depicting Charles V's defeat of Algiers (1541), which earned the city its nickname of "the well-guarded", is also worth a look. These frescoes are impressive for their historic character at the end of the Ottoman period and the beginning of the colonial era.

Once occupied by the French army, the palace was much admired by visiting artists, as shown by this description by painter Horace Vernet, who visited it in 1837: " Imagine a delightful opera decoration, all white marble and paintings in the most vivid colors, in charming taste, water flowing from fountains shaded by orange trees and myrtles... Finally, a dream of a thousand and one nights This dream was sustained by the size of the palace (5,610^m2), its courtyards and its paradisiacal Spanish-style gardens, featuring galleries, fountains, earthenware tiles (nearly 47,000!), pillars and marble parterres. The palace's architecture is a blend of Moorish and late Baroque. To build it, craftsmen and artists often used materials taken from old mansions or nearby Roman ruins. For example, there are 247 columns, either imported directly from Italy in exchange for wheat shipments, or from other ancient dwellings.

Defeated by the French, Ahmed Bey fled to the Aurès, from where he managed for a time to organize resistance in the east. He surrendered in 1848 and died in 1850 in Algiers, where he lived under house arrest.