The British Occupation 103
Next in order to the religious reformers came the Con-
stitutionalists, headed by Sherif Pasha "el Franzawi"
(the Frenchman). These saw salvation in the adoption
of a Western Constitution, which should incorporate as
far as possible existing Eastern institutions. They did not
much differ from their colleagues and contemporaries in
Turkey under AH Fuad and Midhat. They were mem-
bers, though a minority, of the " Turkish " ruling class,
and had therefore to overcome the growing antagonism
of the native Egyptians to that oligarchy. Moreover, the
old '' Turkish'' reactionaries of this class had entered
into an unholy alliance with the now dominant foreigner.
This made things very difficult for these constitutionalist
progressives. They had to fight, on the one side their
natural associates of the old ruling class, and on the
other side their natural allies, the representatives of
Western Liberalism. Besides this, relations between the
Constitutionalists and the foreign control had been
falsified from the first by Ismail having called the
Constitutionalists to power as part of his conflict with
the foreigner. Another difficulty was that foreign officials
anxious to help the fellaheen were no friends of the
Chamber of Notables, which represented merely the
ruling class. And Foreign Liberals, the Controllers
among them, were more concerned with protecting the
Egyptian peasantry against that class. All these facts
must be remembered before we condemn off-hand the
cavalier treatment of the Constitutionalists by the Dual
Control.
Tewfik on his accession had kept Sherif, who at once
submitted to him a draft Constitution. This the Khedive
rejected, and Sherif thereupon resigned (August 18,
1878). Tewfik explained that he considered the Constitu-
tion a mere Mcor de theatre, and that he intended to