In 1830, there was no Bonapartist party, but a strong Bonapartist spirit existed throughout the country. Veneration for the memory of "the man"[1] constituted the whole political philosophy of many thousands of Frenchmen. It was to the Bonapartist element that the Liberal party owed its chief strength and influence. Notwithstanding that the Liberals had opposed the Emperor during the Hundred Days, and had insisted upon his abdication after Waterloo, their alliance with the Bonapartists was cemented in the early days of the second Restoration. A common hatred of the Bourbons was the bond of union between them. In the Masonic and _Carbonari_ lodges the bolder spirits of the two parties plotted together against the monarchy. When the reigning dynasty should have been overthrown, the conspirators proposed to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and to declare once more the tricolour the national flag. Then, and not till then, could France regain her "natural frontiers."[2] It was the practice of these military democrats invariably to assert that the Bourbons were responsible for all the misfortunes of 1814 and 1815. They believed, or professed to believe, that the loss of territory, which France had sustained, was the price which the Bourbons had agreed to pay for their restoration. So long as a Bourbon was upon the throne Waterloo must go unavenged and France must submit to be deprived of her natural boundaries. It was this spirit which had animated the combatants in the Revolution of July. Men who understood and cared nothing for constitutional questions took up arms, believing that a victory over Charles' guards would be a first defeat inflicted upon the allied sovereigns, and that a successful invasion of the Tuileries would be followed by a great national war upon the Rhine.[3]