NEWS OF THE WEEK.
As the struggles of the animalcules in a drop of water are mag- nified by the solar microscope on the sheet which serves as the registering surface, into a scene of perfectly tragic and gigantic convulsions, so every rheumatic twinge in the French Emperor's blood, every impatient groan of the invalid as he has wearied with the long hours and sighed over his undesired food, has been de- veloped by the magic of rumour and fear into the tragic writhings, convulsions, and mutual devourings of hundreds of tormenting and tormented animalculm on the Paris Bourse. On Monday, when it was found that the Emperor had not presided at the Council of Ministers on Saturday, as it was announced that he would do, and that the Session of Friday had so fatigued him as to cause an access of indisposition, the scene of agitation on the Bourse was indescribable. Rentes fell 14 per cent., while the buzz of white fear and terror-stricken expectation corresponding to that fall of lj per cent. was such that observers unversed in Stock-Exchange matters, and not appreciating what a fall of 14 per cent. means, would have conjectured they had fallen 50 per cent, at least. Indeed, it was said in mathematical language, that as that fall of 14 per cent, on the Bourse was to the agitation and excitement manifested, so would a fall of 10 per cent, have been to a Reign of Terror. However, the Emperor had only been over-fatigued, so as to cause a slight relapse in his very slow and gradual convalescence; he was able to preside at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, and sat there an hour and a half. He was able to drive in the Parks of St. Cloud and Villeneuve on Wednesday and Thursday, aud the Bourse of course has rallied, and was at the last advices. emulating his Majesty in being "very firm."
