Nothing, indeed, was better calculated to excite to the highest degree the passions fermenting against the Allies than an insistence on total disarmament at a moment when M. Venizelos at Salonica and his partisans at Athens were arming. Fortunately a mediator appeared in the person of M. Benazet, a French Deputy and Reporter of the War Budget, who was passing through Athens on his way to Salonica to inspect the sanitary condition of the Army. His connexions had brought him into touch with the most influential leaders of both Greek parties; and with the sanction of M. Briand, procured through M. Guillemin, who, himself no longer received at Court, saw an advantage in reaching it by proxy, he undertook to negotiate an amicable arrangement between King Constantine and the Entente. M. Benazet's idea was to obtain from the King not only tangible pledges which would eliminate all possibility of danger from the Allies' path, but also positive reinforcements for them in arms and men; and as a price he was prepared to guarantee to Old Greece her neutrality, her liberty in the management of her internal affairs, and her immunity from aggression on the part of M. Venizelos. Young, eloquent, and refined, the spokesman brought into an environment corrupted by diplomatic chicanery a breath of candour. His manner inspired and evoked confidence. The King readily agreed, besides the reduction which he had already offered, to transfer the remainder of his army to the Peloponnesus, to hand over to the Allies a considerable stock of guns, rifles, and other war material, and to allow all men who were released from their military obligations, and all officers who first resigned their commissions, to volunteer for service in Macedonia. M. Benazet, on his part, made himself guarantor for the French Government as to the pledges which the King required in exchange.[17] This agreement met, at least in appearance, with the approval of M. Briand, who sent a telegram of congratulations {127} to M. Benazet,[18] and with that of M. Guillemin, who was at last received by the King. Both the French Premier and his representative at Athens expressed themselves enchanted with the new turn of affairs, and even the fire-breathing Head of the French Secret Service declared that the result of the negotiation surpassed all hopes. As to Admiral Dartige, he could not but rejoice at an arrangement so consonant with his own ideas.[19] Thus all outstanding differences seemed happily settled, and the removal of mutual misunderstandings was celebrated by inspired pens in Paris and London.[20]