media. Both however endorsed the unionist cause, explicitly so from 1855, when Crețulescu lobbied the Palmerston cabinet and Napoleon III for a unified Romania, governed from Bucharest and possibly ruled upon by Știrbei. In such proposals, Știrbei also insisted that Wallachia preserve its dominant role, and campaigned against moving the capital to Iași. He found an ally in Ioan Maiorescu, the former revolutionary, who drafted a unionist project stressed the need for a Wallachian on the throne, and also promised to draw the resulting state into Austria's sphere of influence—though both regarded the latter proposal as unrealistic. Știrbei and Maiorescu's vision was endorsed by some of the more conservative exiles, including Gheorghe Magheru and Ion Heliade Rădulescu; others, including the Romanian Revolutionary Committee of Paris, militated both against Știrbei and for unification. Another wing of the unionist movement was a "bourgeois group", clandestinely formed during autumn 1854 to support Alexandru II Ghica's return on the throne. Its members included Ion Ghica, Constantin Bosianu, economist Gheorghe Costaforu, and banker Cristache Polihroniadi, who together sponsored the newspaper Timpul. As noted by diplomat Henry Stanley, the Wallachians were also divided along geopolitical priorities. Boyars, who were especially fearful of land reform, included "many Russian partizans ", while the middle classes were mostly against Russia, with students and peasants generally pro-Ottoman. While still present in the Principalities, Austrian envoys gave some endorsement to the more radical projects for peasant emancipation. According to historian Alexandru Lapedatu, they did so in order to stoke social conflict, as the unionist nationalism embraced by boyars raised the issue of irredentism among the Romanians of Transylvania and Bukovina. Although he welcomed constitutionalism, Viscount Palmerston rejected the proposal to make Wallachia and Moldavia a condominium of the West and the Ottomans, regarding them as inalienably Ottoman. He remained agnostic about union, although Villiers of Clarendon and Napoleon came to support the idea. Napoleon, "eager as he was to dismantle the creation of the 1815 Vienna treaties", also envisaged a foreign dynasty for the new state, moving either Francis of Modena or Robert of Parma to the new throne. Știrbei, who emerged as the Austrian favorite in a close race with Bibescu, continued to preserve an ambiguous, "extremely prudent", course. In 1855, seeking to curtail the Ghicas' influence, he repressed Timpul and encouraged radical unionists to publish a more left-wing paper called Patria. During September, members of this group, led by