Of what will, some day, be the neutral's fate.
"Do right and fear not" must be England's stay,
As it has been, let wrath say what it will.
So with love's unthanked labour let us pray,
And do our best to ease war's weight of ill!
"VAE VICTIS!"
Paris, March 1st, 1871.
1871—and its Sequel
In the autumn the consideration shown by some German troops in Champagne is welcomed; by the end of the year the reply of Göttingen University to an appeal protesting against the threatened destruction of the scientific and art treasures of Paris—a document breathing the familiar spirit of unctuous rectitude—roused Punch to indignant satire in "A Deutscher Dove-Coo," the name of the principal signatory being Dove. So a month later the pseudo-Walpolian letters issued as "Strawberry Leaves" reflect the popular disgust with which German brutality was viewed, but at the same time the popular dislike of England's participating in the war. When the siege of Paris ended at the close of the month, Punch congratulated Thiers on his statesmanship, but rebuked the Parisians for their fickleness in heaping insult on their fallen Emperor. The Germans entered Paris, but in the cartoon of March 11, and the accompanying verses "Vae Victis" a warning was addressed to Germany which has turned out to be a true prophecy. The triumph is admitted, but the sequel is clearly foreshadowed:—