MATADOR.

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JUPITER BELLICOSUS.

Truly, PUNCHINELLO, this is an age of progress.  Wars of succession are no more.  Absolutism must forever hang its head.  Fling a glance at France; peer into Prussia, Vox populi is the voice of the King, and the voice of the king is therefore vox Dei.  When a king speaks for his people he must speak sooth; what he says of other peoples must be taken with a grain of salt.  Bearing this in mind, the apparent inconsistency between the regal rigmarole and the Imperial improvisation (these epithets are a tribute to the Republic) which I have received by our special wire from Europe were addressed by the monarchs to their respective armies before the grand “wiring in” which is to follow.

WILHELM KOENIG VON PRUSSEN.

Soldaten:  The Gaul is at our gates. Vaterland is in danger:  my weiss is then for war.  France, led by a despot, is about to desecrate the Rhine.  His imperial bees are swarming, but we shall send him back with his bees in his bonnet, and a bee’s mark (BISMARCK) on the end of his nasal organ.  France wars for conquest; Prussia never.  When FREDERICK the Great captured Silesia from a Roman without any apparent pretext, was he not an instrument of Providence?  When, in company with Austria, we beat and bullied Denmark out of Schleswig-Holstein, were we not victorious, and is not that sufficient justification?  When we afterwards beat this Austria, did it not serve her right?  And when we absorbed Hanover, &c., was it not to protect them?  Yes, our present object is the defence of our country and the capture of Alsace and Lorraine, which mere politeness prevented us from claiming hitherto.  On, then, soldiers of Deutchland.  Let our law reign in Lorraine, for what is sauce for the Prussian goose should be Alsace for the Gallic gander.  The God of battles is on the side of our just cause; Leipsic is looking at us, Waterloo is watching us.  GOTT und WILHELM, sauerkraut und schnapps.  Vorwarts.

NAPOLEON, EMPEREUR DES FRANCAIS.

Soldats: True to your trust in me, I am about to lead you to slaughter. L’Empire c’est la paix.  Prussia would place a poor and distant relative of mine on the throne of Spain, therefore must we recover the natural frontier of France, which lies upon the Rhine.  The rhino is ready, and we are ready for the Rhine.  Let my red republican subjects recall Valmy and Jemappes, and their generals KELLERMANN and DUMAURIOZ.  Let every Frenchman kill a Prussian, every woman too kill her man.  They did much for la patrie in those days, but do more ye to-day.  France wars for ideas only; Prussia for rapine.  We have heard this Rhine-whine long enough; it has got into our heads at last.

The spirit of my uncle has its eye upon you.  Ambition was no part of his nature.  His struggles were all for the good of France, “which he loved so much,” as he himself said at his country-seat at St. Helena.  Marshal, then, to the notes of the Marseillaise, which I now generously permit you to sing.