History shows that General Allard married the Maharaja's niece, Banu (according to a plaque outside the tomb, Allard's wife was a princess of the royal family of Chamba).
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| Tomb of General Allard / Curry Garden |
History shows that General Allard married the Maharaja's niece, Banu (according to a plaque outside the tomb, Allard's wife was a princess of the royal family of Chamba).
The story begins in 1815 when the French forces led by Napoleon Bonaparte were defeated by the British forces at Waterloo in present day European country Belgium and they were dispersed. Napoleon was imprisoned in St. Helena, but many of his best generals, who had bravery in their blood, did not sit idly by and spread to different regions to keep their profession alive, including General Francis Allard.
General Francis Allard was born in 1785 in Saint Tropez, France. He also fought in the wars of Italy and Spain during Napoleon's reign. Fearing political exile, he flew from France to Persia (present-day Iran), where he met General Ventura, who had come from France.
Yes, while learning Persian, the two generals joined the royal court.
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| Tomb of General Allard / Curry Garden |
But when the British asked the Persian king to arrest the French soldiers in return for heavy aid, they fled. Around 1822, they reached Kabul, crossed the Khyber Pass, fled to the Punjab via Peshawar, and appeared at the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The Maharaja first saw him as a British spy and kept him under strict surveillance for two or three months.
Since Ranjit Singh was in grave danger from the British East India Company, he wanted to equate his forces with them. Assigned to training.
General Allard was promoted to cavalry, and General Ventura to infantry.
The uniform of this army was made exactly in the style of Napoleon's French forces. The best people were recruited and excellent horses were also arranged for the army. The Khalsa Army was so well trained that even the British General of India, Edward, was compelled to call it "the best fighting force in Asia". Perhaps that is why Punjab was the last region to come under British rule.
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| Tomb of General Allard / Curry Garden |
Allard remained loyal to the Maharaja in every way and guarded the borders of the Punjab, whether it was to defeat the Muslim tribes in Peshawar and Dera Jat in 1825 or to suppress the jihad of Syed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi in 1827 and 30. All this brought him closer to the Maharaja.
During the reign of Ranjit Singh, General Allard was given a salary as well as various estates.
General Allard and Ventura built the best accommodation on the Lower Mall and also set up their headquarters there. The same office was occupied by Henry Lawrence, a British officer in 1847 and today it is the office of the Chief Secretary of Punjab which we know as the Civil Secretariat. Many of the buildings of this secretariat are made of French.
History shows that General Allard married the Maharaja's niece, Bano (according to the plaque outside the tomb, Allard's wife was a princess of the Chamba royal family) and moved out of the Secretariat building.
This area later became a cantonment and then became a new cantonment called Anarkali.
On this site General Allard built a large garden, in the middle of which was his residence. In 1827, one of the general's daughters, Mary Charlotte, died at an early age and decided to bury her in the garden.
Since then, the place has been renamed "Kari Ala Bagh" in the local language, which is then called Kuri Bagh or.
In 1834, General Allard returned to France on a long vacation, where he was captured. The French government, considering the general's ability, decided to send him as its representative in the Sikh government of the Punjab, and in 1836 the general left France with his family to serve the Maharaja.
The Maharaja sent him to the tribal areas to assist General Ventura, but he fell ill on his way there, and in 1839 his last visit was to Peshawar. His coffin was brought from Peshawar to Lahore with full military honors and was saluted in every major city along the way.
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| Tomb of General Allard / Curry Garden |
General Allard was buried with his daughter in Kadi Bagh, where the Maharaja ordered the construction of a beautiful Sikh-style mausoleum.
The garden is located near the FBR office in Old Anarkali where Kapurthala House used to be. Formerly known as Curry Garden, it is now the only tomb of General Allard and his daughter.
Today, Kadi Bagh is a small field of grass in the crowd of tall buildings in Anarkali, with a large red brick platform in the middle.
On this platform, there is another octagonal platform of red brick on which a beautiful white domed mausoleum is built. It also has eight square medium-sized minarets.
Inside the tomb are two marble tombs with an inscription in the middle of the wall behind them.
It has these French words on it;
"This tomb was built in 1827 on the Order of the Chevalier General Allard Sahib Bahadur for the daughter of Marie Charlotte who died to support her paradise.."
This tomb was built in 1827 on the orders of General Allard Sahib Bahadur for his daughter Marie Charlotte.
Thanks to our eternal indifference, this place was also in turmoil, but thanks to the French government and the funds of the French Consulate, its restoration was completed and this historic place is in the best condition before us today.