A Memorandum was drawn up on 9th of August, embodying some arrangement of this sort, but Walewski refused to sign it, upon the ground, says Sir T. Martin, “that the Emperor’s Government desired to keep the satisfaction to be obtained from the Porte and the arrangement subsequently to be made respecting the Principalities distinct from each other, and, also because, were he to sign the Memorandum, it would appear that France had made a concession on the latter point for the purpose of inducing the Sultan to agree on the former.” He also appears to have stated that it was not necessary to sign the document, because “amongst men of honour writing was unnecessary.” In May, 1858, at the second Congress of Paris, it was discovered that writing in this case was extremely necessary. When the British Plenipotentiaries contended that the French Emperor had yielded on the point of the union of the Principalities, His Majesty denied that he had done anything of the sort. The only concession he ever made, according to his account, was that he would not insist on their being ruled over by a foreign prince--a detail of secondary consequence. It seems also to have been admitted on our side that we had agreed to recognise the administrative union of the provinces, so that the misunderstanding may have arisen out of a quibble over the terms “administrative” and “political” union. During this visit, Lord Malmesbury tells us that extraordinary precautions were taken by the Queen for the Emperor’s protection. “Eighty detectives were sent down from London, besides French police. The strictest guard was kept round the Palace and over the island. Besides this, a number of men-of-war’s boats guarded the shore, and did not allow a single boat to approach.”[326] From a memorandum of their conversations which Prince Albert drew up, it is obvious that the settlement of the question of the Principalities was not the sole object of Napoleon’s journey to Osborne. He broached a great many insidious proposals for a redistribution of European territory, also for a revision of the Treaties of 1815, but they were all coldly and sceptically received. He even suggested a wild scheme for converting the Mediterranean into an European lake. “Spain might have Morocco, Sardinia a part of Tripoli, England Egypt, Austria a part of Syria--_et que sais je_,” writes Prince Albert, in describing this suggestion;[327] the first step being a friendly understanding with England on the subject. As his Majesty had told the Prince he was soon to have an interview with the Russian Czar, it need hardly be said that no encouragement was given by the Queen to these extraordinary projects. In truth, neither the Queen nor her Ministers were at this moment in a mood for entering on an adventurous foreign policy. The Indian Empire had been shaken to its centre by the revolt of the Bengal Army, a revolt known in history as the great Indian Mutiny, and the causes of which must now be traced.