Under such conditions the People's Chosen formed his Ministry (26 June), and nerved himself to face the people. Every preparation for his entry into the capital had been made. Nothing remained but to fix the hour. But this he evaded doing in a manner which puzzled and exasperated the French General. It was the goal towards which they had moved steadily and methodically, step tracing step, through so many weary months--the crown of their joint adventure. Why, then, did he not seize it? Why did he shrink from possession? What did he mean by it? The General did not know. But he felt that it would not do. "M. le President," he said to him, incisively, "Here you are in power; it is up to you to assume the responsibility. I have the force in my hands, and it is my business to secure your installation in Athens. But I must have your instructions. Tell me what measures you want me to take." The request was a command. M. Venizelos thanked the General effusively, pressing his hands. "After all," he said, "it is certain that people will always say that I did not return to Athens but with the support of the Allies." Finally it was arranged that he should land in the forenoon of 27 June. An ordeal which could not be avoided ought not to be postponed. At the appointed hour the French troops entered Athens with their machine-guns and occupied the principal points along the route by which M. Venizelos was to proceed, while the vicinity of the Royal Palace where he was to take the oath of office and the interior of it were watched by 400 Cretan gendarmes, his faithful bodyguard, come from Salonica. Notwithstanding all these precautions, M. Venizelos and his Ministers, modestly averse from exposing themselves to the enthusiasm of their fellow-citizens, motored at top speed straight to the Palace, eschewing the central thoroughfares, and thence to the Hotel Grande Bretagne, in the corridors of which also Cretan stalwarts mounted guard. Thanks to this vigilance, as General Regnault observes, the assassins whom the Premier and his friends feared to see rise from every street corner, and even in the passages of the Palace and hotel, had not materialized. But M. Venizelos, where his own life was concerned, took no chances: a Cretan regiment {205} from Salonica landed that afternoon to replace the foreign battalions.[14]