This was a defiance of Mahmoud Sami, to which he was not disposed to submit. On the 10th May, the Khedive summoned the Consuls-General, and informed them that the President of the Council had insisted that this Decree should be changed by condemning the prisoners to be struck off the strength of the army, and had threatened that his refusal would be followed by a general massacre of foreigners. The significance of this threat coming from Mahmoud Sami, the Minister who was in power when just a month later--namely, on the 11th June--a massacre of foreigners _did_ take place in Alexandria, will probably be remarked. The Chamber of Notables had ceased to sit on the 26th March, when the session closed; but Mahmoud Sami now announced that since the Khedive and his Ministers could not agree, and as it was impossible for the Ministry to resign, they had determined themselves to convoke the Chamber, and to lay the case before it, and that he did not intend to hold any further communication with the Khedive until the difference between them had been decided by the Chamber. He added that in the meantime the Ministry would answer for the public safety. The alarm in Cairo now began to be general. It was open warfare between the Khedive, and his Ministry supported by the army. The National Party made no secret of their intention to depose the Khedive as soon as the Chamber assembled. The Notables, when the day for assembly arrived, began to show a disinclination to support the National Party. They had commenced to realize that they had already gone further than they had intended, and also that they were being merely used as tools by Arabi and his colleagues. At first they refused to meet at all, on the ground that they had not been convoked by the Khedive, but only by the Ministry. They were, however, induced to assemble, and on the 13th May they met at the house of Sultan Pasha, the President of the Chamber. Here Mahmoud Sami read an indictment against the Khedive, charging him principally with not governing through his Ministers, and with compromising the liberties of Egypt. On the 14th the Ministers were so little sure of the support of the Notables, that Mahmoud Sami and Arabi went to the Palace, and, in the names of themselves and their colleagues, offered to resign if the Khedive would guarantee public order. His Highness answered, that such a condition was a most unusual one, and that it would be the business of the Ministry to see that public order was not troubled; he added that the only persons likely to cause trouble were Arabi and his associates. On the 15th, the English and French Consuls-General gave notice to Arabi that if there was a disturbance of public order, he would find Europe and Turkey, as well as England and France, against him, but that if, on the other hand, he remained loyal to the Khedive, his acts and person would be favourably regarded.