On the morning of the 4th of December the Queen was at Osborne, and there she was informed of the _coup d’état_ in Paris on the 2nd inst. The Prince-President, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, though he had sworn to protect the Republic, had, in concert with a clique of conspirators,[46] long before the 1st of December determined to restore the Empire. The first thing to do was to win over the army. The next to disgust the nation with Parliamentary institutions. The former task was easily accomplished. The latter, however, was somewhat more difficult, and the manner in which the conspirators set about it was most ingenious. Every newspaper that directed attention to the dangerous drift of the Prince-President’s policy was suppressed. He began to conspire, says Alexis de Tocqueville, “from November 10th, 1848. His direct instructions to Oudinot, and his letter to Ney only a few months after his election, showed his determination not to submit to Parliamentary Government. Then followed his dismissal of Ministry after Ministry, until he had degraded the office to a clerkship. Then came the semi-royal progress, then the reviews of Satory, the encouragement of treasonable cries, the selection for all the high appointments in the army of Paris of men whose infamous character fitted them to be tools. Then he publicly insulted the Assembly at Dijon, and at last, in October, we knew his plans were laid. It was then only that we began to think what were our means of defence, but that was no more a conspiracy than it is a conspiracy in travellers to look for their pistols when they see a band of robbers advancing.”[47] Two powerful motives urged the Prince-President forward. The time for the revision of the Constitution was approaching, a fundamental law of which was that he was ineligible for re-election at the expiry of his term of office. This law virtually forced him to choose between usurpation and obscurity, unless he could get it revised in his interests. But it was evident to him that it would not be so revised, unless popular pressure were put upon the Assembly, by some imposing demonstration of the masses in his favour. To win their sympathies he demanded the abolition of the Electoral Law of May 31st, 1850. That law imposed a three years’ residential qualification on the voter, and in practice it reduced the electorate from 10,000,000 to 7,000,000 electors. The electoral law of May 31st was therefore the Prince-President’s moral weapon against the Assembly. The Assembly, however, refused to further his policy on both points, and endeavoured to protect itself against reprisals by authorising its President to exercise such control over the army as he might deem necessary for its protection. This in turn was resented by the Prince-President as an attack on the prerogatives of the Executive, and Cabinet after Cabinet fell in the course of the struggle between the Chief of the State and the Parliament. But the end was within sight when a Bill