The primary object which M. Coste had in view was to persuade Fethi Ahmed Pasha that it was essential for the Porte promptly to conclude a peace with Mehemet Ali. All the powers, he contended, were pursuing selfish ends with the sole exception of France, and she was both resolved not to intervene herself and not to allow any other Power to interfere actively in the Turco-Egyptian dispute. Her hands were free and she was strong enough to enforce her will upon Europe. The perfidy of England's policy was manifest. As in 1839, Great Britain now proposed to incite the Porte to make war upon the Pasha. If she could achieve this object she would, of a surety, encourage Russia to intervene in order to crush the Egyptians, whilst at the same time she would insist at Vienna and in Paris upon the necessity of preventing the occupation of Constantinople by the armies of the Tsar. Should she be enabled to carry out her Machiavellian plan of bringing about a general war she purposed, in the confusion, quietly to lay hands upon Egypt, which she had long coveted for herself. He was sorry to hear that Chekib-Effendi, when passing through Paris, had declared to M. Thiers that it would be better that England should take Egypt, than that it should continue in the possession of a rebellious vassal of the Sultan. Such reasoning was deplorably unsound. "That which England takes she keeps," whereas, in the future, it should be an easy task for the Sultan to compel the descendants of Mehemet Ali to give back the territories which must now be surrendered temporarily. Writing on June 8, M. Coste suggested, as a compromise, that Syria might be given to Ibrahim and Adana to another son of the Pasha. They would certainly quarrel among themselves, and the Porte might avail itself of their dissensions for expelling them altogether. Let the Sultan be assured of the wisdom of the old saying, "_diviser pour regner_."[561] This curious correspondence continued intermittently until the fall of M. Thiers in September. But after the end of June, Coste's communications became less frequent and were less cordially expressed. On July 8 he explained that the silence with which his well-meant advice had been received "had placed him in an awkward position with M. Thiers," whilst to Prince Vogoride, a son of the Prince of Samos, another of his correspondents, he conveyed his surprise and annoyance that his letters, written "_en quelque sorte sous la dictée d'un tres haut personnage_" should have elicited no response.[562]