Under the influence of the revolutionary recollections evoked by the anti-dynastic press, and of the threats of war to be waged upon Jacobinical principles,[611] indulged in by the organs of M. Thiers, public excitement in Paris rose to an alarming pitch. The situation was complicated by a series of strikes in different trades. Bands of men deprived of their employment marched through the streets singing the _Marseillaise_. The secret republican societies fomented the discontent of the working classes and fanned the flame of war. Disturbances took place, and the authorities were apprehensive of an attack by the mob upon the British embassy.
Towards the middle of September the news reached Paris that, in consequence of the Sultan's demands, conveyed to him by Rifat Bey, Mehemet Ali had invoked the protection and mediation of France.[612] Furthermore, at the instance of the Comte Walewski, he had declared his readiness to restore to the Sultan the island of Crete, the Holy Cities and the province of Adana. Although maintaining his claim to the hereditary tenure of Egypt, he had announced that he would be satisfied, as regards Syria, were the government of Tripoli, Damascus and Aleppo to be conferred upon his son Ibrahim for his life. Thiers perceived, at once, that in these proposals lay his last chance of preventing without war the full execution of the Treaty of July 15. Notwithstanding that he still derided the notion that a blockade of the coast would suffice to make Mehemet Ali relax his hold upon Syria, in his heart he was, doubtless, beginning to suspect that he had overestimated the military power of the Pasha. Napier's proceedings at Beyrout and his detention of the Egyptian store ships and transports had not been followed by that vigorous offensive, which, he had always predicted, Ibrahim would assume the moment any act of war was committed against him.
Hitherto M. Thiers, in his intercourse with the British _chargé d'affaires_, with whom he was in private life on very friendly terms, had never made use of those asperities of language and warlike threats which he had sometimes indulged in with Werther and Apponyi. But, on the morning of September 18, when Mr. Bulwer called upon him, he resolved to adopt new tactics. As they paced up and down a long gallery in his house at Auteuil, M. Thiers declared emphatically that he considered the Pasha's last proposals both just and reasonable. If England would agree to join with France in pressing their acceptance upon the Porte and the Powers, there would once more be established the intimate relations between the two governments which the Quadrilateral Treaty had interrupted. But if not, then seeing that Mehemet Ali had made these concessions at the instance of France, she would "be bound to support him." As he concluded he looked Bulwer full in the face and asked him whether he realized the full import of these words. "Perfectly," replied he imperturbably, "you mean to declare for the Pasha and go to war with us in his favour." Before they parted, however, M. Thiers somewhat modified the gravity of his statement, by saying that he had spoken as a private individual, not as the President of the Council.