NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MHE Emperor of the French, in spite of all the official denials, has, it is clear, been ill, and ill in a way which alarmed France. The first surgeons in the Empire have been at his bedside, an operation has been necessary, and there has been pain sufficient to cause repeated fainting fits. The precise nature of the illness is carefully concealed, but the symptoms reported all point to a disease which requires the use of instruments, and which is most dangerous to the old. According to the latest accounts, the Emperor is better, but he has been ill enough to set all Europe speculating as to the probable consequences of his death. It might comfort him to know the universal conclusion, that it would be a calamity, but that he is a little too able to feel that form of conso- lation. The ambition of men placed as he has been is to construct systems so strong that men themselves may disappear without being missed, to found, and this Napoleon has not done. He is his system, and it must perish with him,—a striking testimony to his genius, but not to his ability.
