The Duchess of Bassano, and the Duchess of Montebello (widow of Maréchal Lannes,) were warmly engaged in the same cause. At the meetings held in the houses of these intriguing females, the whole artillery of conspiracy was forged and put in order, from the political lie, which does its work if believed but for an hour, to the political song or squib, which, like the fire-work from which it derives its name, expresses love of frolic or of mischief, according to the nature of the materials amongst which it is thrown. From these places of rendezvous the agents of the plot sallied out upon their respective rounds, furnished with every lure that could rouse the suspicious landholder, attract the idle Parisian, seduce the _Ideologue_, who longed to try the experiments of his Utopian theories upon real government, and above all, secure the military--from the officer, before whose eyes truncheons, coronets, and even crowns, were disposed in ideal prospect, to the grenadier, whose hopes only aimed at blood, brandy, and free quarters. [Sidenote: RICHARD LE NOIR.] The lower orders of the populace, particularly those inhabiting the two great suburbs of Saint Marceau and Saint Antoine, were disposed to the cause from their natural restlessness and desire of change; from the apprehension that the King would discontinue the expensive buildings in which Buonaparte was wont to employ them; from a Jacobinical dislike to the lawful title of Louis, joined to some tender aspirations after the happy days of liberty and equality; and lastly, from the disposition which the lees of society every where manifest to get rid of the law, their natural curb and enemy. The influence of Richard le Noir was particularly useful to the conspirators. He was a wealthy cotton-manufacturer, who combined and disciplined no less than three thousand workmen in his employment, so as to be ready at the first signal of the conspirators. Le Noir was called by the Royalists Santerre the Second; being said to aspire, like that celebrated suburban brewer, to become a general of Sans Culottes. He was bound to Buonaparte's interest by his daughter having married General Lefebvre Desnouettes, who was not the less the favourite of Napoleon that he had broken his parole, and fled from England when a prisoner of war. Thus agitated like a lake by a subterranean earthquake, revolutionary movements began to show themselves amongst the populace. At times, under pretence of scarcity of bread or employment, tumultuous groups assembled on the terrace of the Tuileries, with clamours which reminded the Duchess D'Angoulême of those that preceded the imprisonment and death of her parents. The police dispersed them for the moment; but if any arrests were made, it was only of such wretches as shouted when they heard others shout, and no efforts were made to ascertain the real cause of symptoms so alarming.