Party informed the Moldavian Mihail Kogălniceanu that "Bucharest is now crisscrossed by committees overseen by the Central committee. This was replicated in just about every district." In Buzău, the Union Committee, formed on March 16, was confronted two days later by the Assembly of Landowners, which rejected the unionist agenda; Stéoa Dunărei reported that the latter only had 6 members, less than half of those who had registered with the Committee. Unionism of various hues was also spread by the Freemasonry. A Masonic Lodge established for this purpose was particularly active in the border town of Focșanii Munteniei, reuniting boyar and bourgeois activists: Alexandru Plagino, Grigore D. Marghiloman, Constantin Robescu, Alecu Sihleanu, and Panaite Tufelcică. Filipescu also contacted Aga Constantin A. Crețulescu, brother of the resigning minister, asking him to sponsor a unionist gazette. Crețulescu refused, reportedly because he disliked the movement's anti-boyar radicalization and "anarchism". By August 1856, Caimacam Ghica, who remained an anti-unionist and "not a man of progress", sought to clamp down perceived unionist cells in the state apparatus. He tried to depose Iancu Marghiloman from his position as governor of Buzău County, but did not consider doing the same for conservative governors who were "persecuting the unionists". He had also split the conservatives by ordering a purge of Știrbeists from the administration; Barbu Știrbei, his son George, and Plagino were all driven into passivity or collaboration with the National Party. Most boyars rallied with yet another conservative-and-unionist faction, which was headed by Bibescu; Ghica sought to counter the trend, outing himself as a backer of Timpul. Filipescu also used this confusion to set up a clandestine Unionist Committee, which branched out into all Wallachian cities and began petitioning foreign governments to obtain a timetable for the unification. The Committee was also behind the enthusiastic welcoming of the French Commissioner, Baron Talleyrand, which doubled as an anti-Ottoman and anti-Austrian demonstration. Some 80 men also greeted Talleyrand in Buzău, asking him to promote the "union of both principalities as a strong state". Over those months, the revolutionary exiles began testing Caimacam Ghica's resolve by making their way back into the country, sometimes with Știrbei's tacit endorsement: Magheru, Alexandru G. Golescu and Grigore Serrurie had regained Bucharest before the end of 1856. Ion Brătianu returned in the early months of 1857. At that stage, authorities began observing that unionist propaganda was already being taken to the streets and the