Forty Pilgrims in the Holy Land

Marseille, 23 August 1853: Louis Énault boards the Alexandre with companions brought together by chance. Their destination is Jerusalem, as it has been for pilgrims of every century since the Crusades.

A stop in Malta, a night arrival in Alexandria where war is already in the air, then Jaffa, where a caravan of about a hundred people sets out. In the mountains of Judea, as they emerge from the passes, Sheikh Abu Ghosh appears on his black horse.

In the Holy City, the traveller walks the Holy Sepulchre and the Way of Sorrows, watches the rivalries of Latins, Greeks and Armenians, hears the Friday lamentations and sees the Turkish garrison leave for the Danube. He dines with Abu Nowas, an Arab poet, and discovers the work of Sister Émilie.

Then come the excursions: Bethlehem and its silver star, the monastery of Mar Saba above the Kidron, Bedouin sheikhs with whom passage to the Dead Sea must be bargained, a swim in the waters of Sodom, a fantasia on the plain of Jericho, dawn on the Jordan. Nablus shuts its gates on him, Sepphoris greets him with stones.

Between fervour and a reporter's eye, Énault captures an East at the first rumblings of war. What becomes of faith when it meets the very stones of the Gospel?