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mportance in his day, he relaxed his severity to some extent, and at times at least showed him the respect due to an ally. On other occasions he would relapse into his original practice of violent and scornful attack--to such a point, as is seen elsewhere, as to extort the vigorous protests of Thackeray and Ruskin. "It is a tradition," it is said, "that when, during the _entente cordiale_, the Emperor and Empress paid a visit to Her Majesty in London, two cartoons were suggested at the _Punch_ Table to celebrate the event. The first was heroic, representing Britannia welcoming the nephew of the great Napoleon to her shores; the second, a 'brushed-up,' refugee-looking individual ringing at the front-door bell of Buckingham Palace, with the legend 'Who would have thought it?' The second was selected." The Prince-President as "The Brummagem Bonaparte out for a Ride" (the cartoon which helped to lose Thackeray to _Punch_), galloping a blind horse at a precipice, was certainly in the spirit of English popular feeling; and even the coronation of the prince made for a time but little difference in _Punch's_ demeanour. But when the Russian difficulty came in sight, and "the Crimean sun rose red," Napoleon III. was treated with a certain measure of begrudged courtesy; and when the war broke out, the tone was even cordial, and the sovereign of our allies was actually represented as a not altogether undesirable acquaintance. The close of the war, however, left matters much where they were, for the peace, in spite of all rejoicings, was thought to come too soon, in order to suit the convenience of the Emperor. Once more he was distrusted in his Italian campaign. The sincerity of his intimate letter to the Comte de Persigny, the French Ambassador to England, was received with little credence, and John Bull replies to its tenor thus:-- "What _has_ been _may_ recur. Should a Brummagem Caesar Try a dash at John Bull, after conqu'ring the Gauls, I intend he shall find the achievement a teaser, What with Armstrongs, long Enfields, and stout wooden walls." The visit of the Empress Eugenie to the Queen at Windsor Castle, and the abolition of passports for Englishmen in France (which _Punch_ accepted as a latch-key, "to come and go as he liked"), disposed the paper a little more kindly towards the Emperor; but it was for the Franco-Prussian War to bring out the full strength and the true perspicuity of _Punch's_ judgment.
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