So, ere threescore more years have sped,
The woe thou work'st thy sons may feel.
"Who smite with sword by sword shall fall,"
Holds for kings as for subjects true;
God's mills grind slow, but they grind small,
And he that grinds gives all their due.
The courtesy of Germany in coming to an amicable settlement over the loss of some British colliers sunk in the Thames is acknowledged; but anxiety as to her further aggressions was not allayed by her desire to possess Heligoland, and was undoubtedly enhanced by the publication of that brilliant realistic romance, The Battle of Dorking, while the fratricidal tragedy of the Commune, and the ruthless measures of suppression employed, augured ill for the recovery of France from the abasement of defeat. These events and the lessons they conveyed to England were not overlooked by Punch; they served to temper his light-heartedness with moods of misgiving. Yet the wonderful elasticity—due, as even official Republican historians admit, to the industrial prosperity created under the Second Empire—which enabled France to pay off what in those days seemed a crushing war indemnity long before the time fixed, emboldened Punch in the spring of 1873 to indulge once more in a prophecy of the reversal of the verdict of 1870. When the German occupation ended, France is shown undauntedly confronting Germany with the words: "Ha! We shall meet again."
"AU REVOIR!"
Germany: "Farewell, Madame, and if——"