But in two months (May to June 1857) Marshal Randon made himself master of it, and built in the heart of this country Fort Napoleon (now Fort National), " the thorn in the side of Kabylia," whose batteries commanded all the Kabyle villages of the region.
Randon (1795-1871), named governorgeneral of Algeria after the coup d'etat, had at first to repress in the south a rising of a new " master of the hour," Mahomet ben Abdallah, the sherif of Wargla.