Pageot's mission, therefore, had done little to advance the question of Isabella's marriage. Meanwhile, Count Toreno, Christina's confidential adviser in Paris, had, on several occasions, sought out Lord Cowley, the British ambassador, for the express purpose of informing him that the Queen-Mother would prefer to see her daughter married to a Coburg rather than to a Bourbon prince.[735] At the same time Espartero was known to be engaged in attempting to negotiate her marriage with the third son of the King of Bavaria. Louis Philippe, for his part, was more than ever determined to restrict her choice of a husband to the Bourbon candidates, and, in Lord Cowley's opinion, had serious thoughts "of supporting his pretensions by an armament."[736] It was, however, by more indirect methods that he proposed to attain his ends. All through the spring and summer of 1842 the Spanish malcontents, both in Paris and upon the frontiers, displayed renewed activity. The Carlists and the _Christinos_, having concluded an alliance based upon the marriage of Isabella with a son of the Pretender, openly prepared for united action against their common enemy, the Regent Espartero.[737] This compact was, doubtless, the reason of the seeming approval, given by Louis Philippe, to Metternich's utterly impracticable plan for settling the Spanish difficulty.[738] Neither the representations of the Spanish government nor a strong protest from Lord Aberdeen[739] had any effect in inducing the French authorities to place any check upon the proceedings of the conspirators.