In Vietnamese nationalist writing, Emperor Hàm Nghi (1871–1944, r. 1885–89) often plays the role of the romantic hero. As a boy of fifteen, he was secreted out of the palace under dark of night and fled to the mountains, and in the cần vương (aid-the-king) edict, he implored his subjects to break free from the French and follow him. Betrayed by one of his guards, Hàm Nghi was captured in 1889 and promptly sent to Algeria to live the remainder of his life estranged from the country of his youth.
This is where most histories of Vietnam end his saga, but it is where Amandine Dabat's massive study essentially begins. Dabat's book traces Hàm Nghi's exile from the time he enters the harbor in Algiers as an eighteen-year-old to the time of his death fifty-five years later. Dabat's book is based on documents in Hàm Nghi's personal archive, along with...
