The Duke of Orleans was too upright and honourable to be involved in this dark and mysterious scheme; he put the letter which he had received into the hands of the King, and acted otherwise with so much prudence, as to destroy all the hopes which the revolutionary party had founded upon him. It was necessary to find out some other central point. Some proposed Eugene Beauharnois as the hero of the projected movement;[92] some projected a provisional government; and others desired that the republican model should be once more adopted. But none of these plans were likely to be favoured by the army. The cry of _Vive la Republique_ had become antiquated; the power once possessed by the Jacobins of creating popular commotion was greatly diminished; and although the army was devoted to Buonaparte, yet it was probable that in a civil commotion in which he had no interest, they would follow the maréchals or generals who commanded them, in opposition to any insurrection merely revolutionary. If, on the contrary, the interests of Napoleon were put in the van, there was no fear of securing the irresistible assistance of the standing army. If he came back with the same principles of absolute power which he had formerly entertained, still the Jacobins would get rid of Louis and the charter, the two chief objects of their hatred; the former as a King given by the law, the latter as a law given by the King. These considerations speedily determined the Jacobin party on a union with the Buonapartists. The former were in the condition of a band of housebreakers, who, unable to force an entrance into the house which they have the purpose to break into, renew their undertaking, and place at their head a brother of the same profession, because he has the advantage of having a crow-bar in his hand. When and how this league was formed--what sanction the Jacobin party obtained that Buonaparte, dethroned as a military despot, was to resume his dignity under constitutional restrictions, we have no opportunity of knowing. But so soon as the coalition was formed, his praises were sung forth on all sides, especially by many who had been, as Jacobins, his most decided enemies; and a great part of the French public were disposed to think of Buonaparte at Elba more favourably than Napoleon in the Tuileries. Gradually, even from the novelty and peculiarity of his situation, he began to excite a very different interest from that which attached to the despot who levied so many conscriptions, and sacrificed to his ambition so many millions of victims. Every instance of his activity, within the little circle of his dominions, was contrasted by his admirers with the constitutional inertness of the restored monarch. Excelling as much in the arts of peace as in those of war, it wanted but (they said) the fostering hand and unwearied eye of Napoleon to have rendered France the envy of the universe, had his military affairs