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Little more than a dozen years have elapsed since there were witnessed in Europe events so stirring that they constitute one of the most remarkable epochs in the history of the world. Since then France has undergone three revolutions—the fall of the constitutional monarchy, the stormy interlude of a democratic republic, and the restoration of a military empire. The old rulers of Lombardy, of Tuscany, and of Naples have disappeared, and the map of the world has been altered in order to admit of the introduction of the kingdom of Italy. Austria, long the haughtiest representative of the principle of absolute monarchy, has commenced the experiment of constitutional government, and Russia has laid the foundation of a new political and social existence in recognising the value of free labour, and abolishing the institution of serfdom. China has opened her ports to our merchants and her capital to our ambassadors. We ourselves have twice gone through the calamities of war in the siege of Sebastopol and the suppression of the Indian revolt, and we have been twice reminded this evening that the great republic which boasted a superb exemption from the perils and the evils which beset ancient states and monarchical forms of government, has been violently rent in twain, and whatever may be the issue of that struggle in which we see at present only a lavish expenditure of blood and treasure, still there is no dispassionate bystander who can believe that the union can ever be restored, and no far-sighted politician who can suppose that the curse of slavery can long survive that separation of which it is the most ostensible, though not the only, nor perhaps the most powerful cause. Such important events, all leading to effects so vast and so permanent in their relation to the advancement of the human race, have probably never before occurred within so short a space of time.—Speech of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

We may supplement the above by the following strange passage in the career of Louis Napoleon, three-and-twenty years since:

A correspondent of The Reader writes:—“It was at Vimereux, the site of the old camp of Boulogne, that Charles Louis Bonaparte, now Emperor of the French, landed on his famous adventure of the 5th of August, 1840. I was in Boulogne when he reached that town, at about 5.30 a.m., with about sixty followers. In proceeding to the beach to bathe, I was startled by the appearance of a rabble, some of whom were clothed as English footmen and grooms, and some as French soldiers. In the midst of this somewhat boozy battalion the then pretender, now the Emperor of the French, marched, closely encircled by adherents. I followed him and them to the barracks; and never did I see a more careworn or crestfallen set of conspirators. In all fifty-six persons, eight horses, and two carriages had embarked at Margate aboard the steamer, which was now cruising in the offing of Boulogne after landing its human freight. When the enterprise at the barracks failed, the present Emperor of the French, with eleven of his adherents, got into a boat with a view to escape; but they allowed the oars to be taken from them by one Guillaume Tutelet, a bather. The boat subsequently capsized, and the present Emperor of the French swam for the steamer, the City of Edinburgh, which was at some distance. In this attempt he failed, and was forced to cling to a buoy till he was picked up and placed in safety by the English captain. But he did not long remain thus, for the Lieutenant du Port collected his force, and boarded the steamer, bringing her, with his prisoner, close to the Quai la Douane.”