France waited three years before avenging the insult. It then presented a useful pretext for Charles X’s regime which, increasingly unpopular, adopted the time-honoured formula of distracting minds from domestic problems by the pursuit of la gloire abroad. There were at once voices raised against the Algerian “adventure”, arguing that it was a deviation from France’s essential interests in Europe (“I would gladly”, declared one deputy, “exchange Algiers for the most wretched hole on the Rhine”). And in fact the Algerian entanglement was to play an important role in bringing down the regime — not for the last time in French history.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 84