The title of this episode, "The Eagle and the Bee", is a reference to the symbols of the House of Habsburg, the ruling house of Austria, and the House of Bonaparte, now the ruling house of France. The symbol of the House of Habsburg was a two-headed eagle, as it had been for centuries. The Bonapartes, having only recently risen to prominence, had adopted the industrious honey bee, as a complement to the traditional French eagle. And the conflict between these two, the eagle and the bee, is what this episode is leading into.