The references to foreign potentates and their relations with the British Court show little abatement of _Punch's_ old distrust and hostility. Of the French Emperor's flying visit to Osborne in 1857 we read that it was "strictly private--none but policemen were admitted." The most friendly allusion to the Empress Eugénie refers to her having ridden in an ordinary hansom cab during a visit to England _incog._ in 1860. For the rest she is repeatedly attacked for her extravagance in dress, for dabbling in spiritualism, and for her interference in politics and support of the Papal pretensions. "Everyone has his oracle," says _Punch_ late in 1862.... "Didn't Numa Pompilius have his Egeria? Why, then, shouldn't Pius have his Eugenia?" In the same year she is abused for attending a bull-fight, and satirized in a cartoon representing the Emperor as Hercules and the Empress as Omphale. _Punch_ waxes indignant at the patronage extended by the Emperor to the variety stage in 1866, and wonders whether the infection will reach our Court. But his imagination entirely failed to forecast the bestowal of decorations on the heroes of the music-hall. We have moved since then. A famous story is told of Queen Victoria in her later years sending an Equerry to inquire the name of a lively air which had been played by her Court band. The Equerry returned to say that it was a popular song of the day. The Queen was dissatisfied and instructed him to find out and let her know the words. The Equerry went back, returned and proceeded to recite the classic stanza:-- Come where the booze is cheaper; Come where the pots hold more; Come where the boss is a bit of a Joss, Come to the pub. next door. There the story unfortunately ends, without the Queen's comment. But in the pages of _Punch_ we read how in 1869, when the Constitutional _régime_ had just been inaugurated in France under Emile Ollivier, the programme of one of the Queen's State concerts included "Heaven Preserve the Emperor, with variations," which prompts _Punch_ to ask, "Would not this do for the French National Anthem?" In 1865 _Punch_ devoted a cartoon to commemorate the completion of fifty years of peace between England and France, and in 1869 another on the centenary of the first Napoleon. With the catastrophe of 1870, Sedan and its sequel of exile and suffering, _Punch's_ hostility changed to compassion, and his _In memoriam_ verses on the Emperor, though too laboured and too frequently disfigured by inversions to attain to the dignity of poetry, form one of the best of contemporary summaries and estimates of the career and character of the dead ruler:-- Already scores of ready penmen draft Of his life's course to power their bird's-eye view, Through poverty and perjury and craft, And redder stains that the blurred track imbrue.