"We often receive letters from our people in Roumania, Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia, saying 'Why do you not come over and protect us?'" he went on. "If we marched into the stolen territories, the local populations would all rise in our favour. The time will come, but it is not yet. The last word has not been said." That conversation was at the beginning of April, and Karl was actually in Budapest endeavouring in a clumsy way to follow the example of Constantine in Greece and resume monarchical sway. Budapest for a day was all agog with rumour and whispered conversations. Karl was popular, but his failure was sensed by the populace. He had come inopportunely, despite the fact that the great powers seemed not unfavourable. France, by many accounts, had given secret countenance to the return of the Hapsburg, Karl being known as Francophile in policy. "Present us with a _fait accompli_," Briand was reported to have said to Karl, "and we will not oppose your return to power." Evidently part of France favoured the adventure and was not a little annoyed at its failure. As an allied power with Italy and England she had to show a forbidding front to Karl, but as "Le Figaro" said, "_Ce n'est pas sur le Danube que nous menacent des perils mortels, c'est sur le Rhin._" The Allies, however, as they are called, had little power to help or stop ex-Kaiser Karl. It was the little States that stopped him--the Petite Entente of Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-slavia and Roumania, and of these powers chiefly the Czech. As long ago as January Karl's attempt to return was anticipated by the Czechs. They used it as the motive for making a ring round the hostile State. Hungary was the potential enemy of the three States which had taken over ex-Hungarian territory. Hungary, moreover, had had her terrible moment of Bolshevism and had got over it, she had become nationalistic again and had reorganized her army on national lines. To any one of the new States surrounding her she would be a formidable enemy. Hungary, however, would stand little chance against three combined. So with great zest the new combination was formed. Certainly the warmest national friendship in the Near East to-day is that between Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia, and it has been called into being by the common danger of the Magyar.