l her difficulties by
diplomacy.

Meantime the new sultan, or his vizier, having offended the Capitan
Pasha (or Admiral of the Fleet), that officer thought proper to
carry the ships under his command over to Mehemet Ali.

It was a proud day for the viceroy when the Turkish ships sailed
into the harbor of Alexandria. This defection of the fleet so
discouraged Abdul Medjid that he offered his vassal terms of peace,
by which he consented to Mehemet's hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt,
and Ibrahim Pasha's hereditary possession of the pashalik of Syria.

But the Great Powers would not consent to this dismemberment of the
Turkish Empire. A fierce struggle in diplomacy took place between
France and England, which might have resulted in an open rupture,
had not Louis Philippe and Marshal Soult (then Minister for Foreign
Affairs in France) been both averse to war. The old marshal had
seen more than enough of it, and Louis Philippe felt that peace
alone could strengthen his party,--the _bourgeoisie_. Mehemet Ali,
his rights and his wrongs, seem to have been entirely overlooked
in the tempest of diplomacy.

After some weeks of great excitement the Five Great Powers agreed
among themselves that Mehemet Ali should become the Khedive, or
hereditary viceroy, of Egypt, but that he must give up Syria. To
this he demurred, and the allied troops attacked Ibrahim Pasha.
Admiral Sir Charles Napier bombarded his stronghold, St. Jean d'Acre,
and forced him into submission. The triumph of Lord Palmerston's
policy was complete; as Charles Greville remarked: "Everything
has turned out well for him. He is justified by the success of
his operations, and by the revelations in the French Chambers of
the intentions of M. Thiers; and it must be acknowledged he has
a fair right to plume himself on his diplomacy."

After the death of Talleyrand, only M. Thiers remained of the four
great men who had assisted Louis Philippe to attain supreme power.
M. Thiers was not insensible to the advantage it would be to his
History of the Consulate and Empire, if he could add to it a last
and brilliant chapter describing the restoration to France of the
mortal remains of her great emperor. Therefore in the early part
of 1840, before any disturbance of the _entente cordiale_, he made
a request to the English Government for the body of Napoleon, then
lying beneath a willow-tree at Longwood, on a desolate island that
hardly seemed to be part of the civilized world.