Nothing is known about Albert's education. In 1828, however, he moved to Paris and became a schoolteacher, precariously supporting himself, his mother and his sister after the death of his father. In sharp contrast to the Bourbon loyalties of his father, Albert Laponneraye, as he preferred to call himself, was by this time an ardent republican, an admirer of Maximilien Robespierre. Through the writings of Philippe Buonarroti, Laponneraye was introduced to the utopian Jacobin communism of François-Noël 'Gracchus' Babeuf and his 'Society of the Equals', who had tried to overthrow the Directory at the end of the French Revolution. In 1830, Laponneraye took an active part in the July Revolution, which overthrew the Restauration Bourbon king Charles X and replaced him with Louis Philippe, the duke of Orléans. Laponneraye and his republican associates were disappointed by this outcome and continued their revolutionary activities. Before long, Laponneraye was arrested; in 1831 he was imprisoned at Sainte-Pélagie, where his fellow inmates included François-Vincent Raspail and Armand Marrast (both late prominent republicans who participated in the Revolution of 1848).