At the time of Punch's birth the Queen had sat four years upon the throne, and had recently entered into happy wedded life, Louis Napoleon was living a life in London not at all upon the Imperial plan; Señorita de Montijo, the future Empress, was a young lady of small expectations in Spain—the daughter of the Comtesse de Montijo, of the Kirkpatrick family; and the Emperor William, who was destined in the fulness of time to crush them both, was a political star of at most the fourth magnitude. Bismarck, Gladstone, and Disraeli were names already known to the public—Mr. Disraeli, indeed, being of those who took part in the debate the result of which was to turn out Lord Melbourne's Government (August, 1841) and send in Sir Robert Peel's, in which Mr. Gladstone took his place as Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint. But, like Punch, they were but beginning life; Mr. Gladstone was a Tory and High Churchman; Free Trade and the Corn Law Repeal were as questions hardly yet "acute;" and neither Bright nor Cobden had entered the House of Commons. Punch, therefore, entered the field at an interesting moment, and began by boldly proclaiming his impartiality:
"POLITICS.—'Punch' has no party prejudices—he is conservative in his opposition to Fantoccini and political puppets, but a progressive Whig in his love of small change."
When Disraeli, equally with his rival, changed his party, the fact was recorded in a happy parody of Hood's well-known verses:—
"Young Ben he was a nice young man,
An author by his trade,
He fell in love with Poly Tics,
And soon an M.P. made.
He was a Rad-ical one day,
He met a Tory crew,
His Poly Tics he cast away,
And then turned Tory too."
Soon he was leader of the little "Young England Party," and was to be seen in Punch's cartoon as a viper gnawing at the "old file," Sir Robert Peel. Then came the triumph of Free Trade, duly celebrated by John Leech in one of his most light-hearted cartoons.
The fatal year of 1848 opened with the memorable letter of the Prince de Joinville, at that time a young man of thirty, which set half Europe looking to their national defences, but which pretended to be aimed only at an invasion of England. There was, of course, a scare, not to say a panic, in official circles; but Punch was one of the few who kept their heads, making capital galore out of the situation. He never tired of deriding the fiery young prince, who was only too glad a little later on to "invade" England in the character of refugee. The French army, he declared (by the pen of Percival Leigh), would land, after suffering all the tortures of sea-sickness, carefully watched by the Duke of Wellington from a Martello tower. Arrived in London, the invaders would arrest M. Jullien, lay siege to 85, Fleet Street, but raise it forthwith on the appearance of Mr. Punch and Toby, who would follow the fugitives in hot pursuit. Although Punch ridiculed the matter thus, he yet proposed the formation of a Volunteer Corps, to be called "Punch's Rifles;" and it is to be observed that he thus forestalled by four years the actual establishment of the Exeter Volunteers. Nevertheless, Punch seriously threatened the movement when it did come with his "Brook Green Volunteer;" yet a few years later, when the idea was revived by the starting of Rifle Clubs, with the subsequent notion of transforming them into regiments, Punch lent his aid. He would chaff them, of course—for it was his business so to do—but he was proud of them all the same, and loudly applauded the spirit that inspired them. The Volunteers, as he told the French, were "the boys who minded his shop;" and more than one of his Staff enrolled themselves in the patriotic cause.
Chartism, though in its programme and aspirations respected by Punch, was despised for its management and mismanagement, and was made the subject of much excellent fooling. But the stormy European outlook gave him far more concern. In one of his cartoons all the Sovereigns are shown in their cock-boats, storm-tossed in the Sea of Revolution, the Pope—still in the full enjoyment of his temporal power—being the only one really comfortable and really popular. As the Champion of Liberty the Pontiff is at various times portrayed as pressing "a draught of a Constitution" on the kings of Sardinia and Naples and the Duke of Tuscany, dealing a knock-down blow to the "despotism" of Austria, and spitting her eagle on a bayonet; altogether justifying his reputation (for how short a time to last!) for stability, magnanimity, and love of progress.
In this same year of 1848 Prince Louis Napoleon made his second descent upon France, and Punch, mindful of the fiasco of the first, prepared to give him a warm reception. His treatment from the beginning of the Pretender and Prince-President was that of an unblushing adventurer and charlatan. In course of time, as the Emperor became of importance 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:—