So along with appeals to Lord Derby to make up his mind like a man to Reform, we find repeated and even more urgent appeals to England to keep up the Channel Fleet. The imposing display of force at Cherbourg by Louis Napoleon in the autumn of 1858 only enhanced _Punch's_ misgivings and prompted the suggestion of an alliance with the United States. _Punch_ greeted Sir Francis Head's renewed scare-mongering about a French invasion with ridicule, but he was more seriously impressed by French pamphleteers and novelists who spoke of war with England as inevitable. The defeat of the Derby-Disraeli Government over their Reform Bill in the spring of 1859 brought back Palmerston and Russell at a critical time in the history of the struggle for Italian unity. Of that cause both these statesmen were true friends, but the sympathy of England was impaired by distrust of Louis Napoleon, and this nervousness and anxiety as to his intentions is repeatedly illustrated in the pages of _Punch_. Victor Emmanuel is shown as the Piedmontese farmer between the two Eagles, Austria and France. Again the French Emperor's phrase "_L'Empire c'est la paix_" is satirized in a cartoon showing him as a porcupine bristling with bayonets. England's line should be one of extreme watchfulness: "We'll keep our powder dry." On the eve of the outbreak of the war between France and Austria _Punch_ gives his "Neutral Advice" in the following lines:-- Let France delight to go and fight If 'tis her folly to: Let Austria cry for "territory!" With that we've naught to do. Our shout must be "Neutrality!" To England peace is sweet; But, friends, that she may neutral be, LET'S MAN OUR FORTS AND FLEET. [Illustration: THE FRENCH PORCUPINE "L'empire c'est la paix" He may be an inoffensive animal, but he don't look like it.] [Sidenote: _Napoleon III and Cavour_] After Magenta the share in the fighting between Italy and France is symbolized in the fable of the Giant and the Dwarf: Victor Emmanuel was to do all the fighting while France, forsooth, claimed half the honours of war. No opportunity was lost of putting the worst construction on Louis Napoleon's patronage of Savoy. His pacific statements are constantly contrasted with his policy of aggrandisement. In the autumn _Punch_ quoted the _New York Herald's_ tribute: "We are seriously of opinion that if Louis Napoleon were not Emperor of the French, he would have made a first-rate newspaper editor. His style is like that of the American papers." The report that Cavour had retired in disgust inspired a bitter attack on the two Emperors in July:--