POPE AND POLE.

Punch’s prescience is infallible. The ex-Pole M.Walewski, impatient of the Napoleonic attack on priestly despotism, has resigned. And truly, resignation, with two estates and £5000 a year, as a parting gift, is an easy martyrdom. Besides which, all the decorations with which a courtier’s coat can be spangled are M.Walewski’s. As A Pope, but not his, says-

“Stars unnumbered gild the glowing Pole.”

And now perhaps M. Walewski, making way for M. Thouvenel as the Emperor’s Foreign Minister, will betake himself to Rome, in whose cause he has suffered thus terribly, and receive the blessing of the Holy Father of Perugia. Touching that blessed parent, it may be mentioned that Mr. Layard (Punch is glad to welcome him to work again) has just disinterred the fact that while the Austrians were occupying Bologna, and committing all the cruelties that their priests applaud, the Pope interfered once only. Was it to save life? Was it to restrain brutality? Why, we are speaking of Pius IX. An Austrian officer had slaughtered a boy of seventeen, and as there was a rule that boys must be eighteen before Austrians could lawfully slaughter them, the Pope came forward with a Pardon to the butcher who had been a little too zealous in the service of the Faith. Will M. Walewski mention to his friend in the Vatican, that this little characteristic of the amiable Pontiff is now circulated throughout the world, and add Mr. Punch’s best regards, and assurances, that none of Pio Nono’s good deeds shall be forgotten by Puncho Primo? But if, as not improbable, the whole Walewski affair is merely a shuffle of cards, we shall one day see the great French acrobat again balancing his Pole, and in the mean time we may leave the Pole to balance his exceedingly comforting books. Never did renegadism rule higher in the market.

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