CHAPTER XI 
THE REOCCUPATION OF NORTHERN AFRICA 
TUNISIA 
As early as 1824, France had secured by treaty a recognized 
position for her nationals in Tunis and a favorable commer- 
cial agreement. In 1830, she persuaded the Bey to renounce 
privateering and to admit foreign consuls into his capital. 
After the occupation of Algiers and Constantine by the 
French, the boundaries of their colonial possessions in north- 
ern Africa were contiguous with those of Tunis; and it 
became necessary for the French authorities to protect the 
frontier of their new colony and its trade, as well as their 
own interests in the regency of Tunis itself. By right of 
concessions secured from the Bey Mohammed-es-Sadok, 
through the instrumentality of their able and astute agent in 
Tunis, Léon Roches, in 1859 and 1861, the French built two 
telegraph lines, one from the city of Tunis to the frontier of 
Algeria and the other from the same center to Sousse and 
Sfax, and connected them with her own Algerian system. 
She was further given permission to join any part of the 
Tunisian system with European cables, although the Bey re- 
served the right to make a similar grant to any other govern- 
ment. 
During the next ten years the pacification of Algeria, ac- 
companied as it was by frequent insurrections, occupied 
completely the attention of the French. Then came the 
Franco-Prussian War and the troubles and disorders accom- 
panying the establishment of the Third Republic, which 
precluded any further colonial expansion for the moment. 
During the seventies, however, a constant intercourse be-