influence of La Fayette, aimed only at the organisation of a general insurrection and a provisionary Government. The General was not arrested ; that was a mistake. He continued to lend his support to other attempts of the kind, and military conspiracies multiplied. They were set on foot in the School of Cavalry at Saumur, in Belfort, and La Rochelle. Their aim was obvious. Napoleon II., brought up in Austria, and deprived of all communication with his country, was an Unknown, all the more dangerous because his reign would have necessitated a regency ; the Duc d’Orléans, who had more or less effaced himself, would not have seemed popular enough for a candidate. Some fanatics who were in communication with the Prince of Orange attempted to thrust him into this position ; he lent himself to their designs very improperly, and later on betrayed them by giving their names to Charles X. As for the Republic, it was not yet possible ; it took years to separate that name from the horrors which at that time it conjured up. The stupefaction of France when the Republic of 1848 was proclaimed shows how remote was that idea from the dreams of 1824. La
