There has been for the last ten months a comparative quiet in European political affairs. Garibaldi's repulse in Italy serves to delay the hostile complications which then threatened. But the lull of battle has not been unimproved in preparations for new and more terrific outbreaks. From an article in the April number of Lippincott's Magazine, written by Louis Blanc, one of the most observant, thoughtful, and impressive writers in Europe, we have a statement of the present status of public affairs on the eastern side of the Atlantic, which shows an oppressive condition of the political atmosphere there, presaging an unprecedented and sweeping hurricane from one quarter or another. France is saddled with an army bill confessedly intended to make the French army an irresistible engine of destruction. The term of service has been increased from seven to nine years—five years to be spent under the colors, and four in the reserve. 800,000 men will be called upon to enable France to “hold her head up in Europe.” In addition to this, a movable National Guard is created, with a view to garrison all the country in war-time, and strengthen, by 400,000 men, the fighting resources of the empire. Thus the army bill places 1,200,000 drilled soldiers at the disposal, not of the people, mark you, but of one man. And this is not meant only to provide for remote contingencies: no; it is well understood that the provisions of the bill are to come into operation at once. The young men hitherto exempted from military service, and now doomed to form part of the movable National Guard, which Marshal Niel significantly declared to be “destined to have a great future,” are all available. They can be drilled within a few months—can be summoned to their respective battalions immediately. Fortresses have been repaired. The artillery is in a perfect state. Twenty thousand cavalry horses, purchased in Hungary, have been forwarded to Trieste, and thence to Marseilles. Gun-makers are busy manufacturing those Chassepot rifles which did, at Mentana, such fearful execution, and are expected to meet with advantage the Prussian needle guns. But a few days ago a placard was posted on the walls of the Ministry of Finance, in Paris, announcing that, in a few weeks' time, the government will be prepared to receive tenders for the supply of 2,588,800 powder-boxes. Nor are warlike preparations confined to the land forces. The greatest activity prevails in the French maritime arsenals. Thirty-nine ships of different sizes are at present in course of construction. When they are built, the fleet ready for sea—which already comprises three hundred and forty-eight man-of-war steamers, and one hundred and sixteen sailing ships—will amount to five hundred and three vessels. It is asserted by the Kronstadt Wiestnik—the official organ of the Russian admiralty—that every arrangement has been made at Toulon to embark forty thousand men. So much for the naval forces. As to the land forces, France before long will be armed to the teeth, and Napoleon III will have at his command a more formidable army than that which, under his great uncle, invaded Russia. Now, what are they doing on the other side of the Rhine? Baron von Beust is said to have sent to foreign governments a circular informing them that “Prussia was effecting considerable and threatening increase in her armament.” It is also given out that she is sending needle-guns and officers of instruction to St. Petersburg. At all events, one may safely infer, from the eagerness with which Count Bismarck strives to tighten the bonds of German unity—as shown by his sharp remonstrance to the Government of Hesse Darmstadt on its separate acceptance of a European conference—that the German Premier clearly foresees a stout contest, and that he intends to make ready for it. Russia could not remain behind her neighbors in preparing for battle. She also found it necessary to improve her guns, and the Invalid Russe took care to acquaint the world with the fact that the Russian Government had decided on adopting the Karl breech-loader—a weapon the accuracy of which, we are told, is not impaired by thirty thousand shots. The truth is, that the love of aggrandizement—a passion certainly not unknown to our forefathers, but at no period so deep-seated, so wide-spread as it appears now—has become the common malady of all the nations of Europe. And for this the establishment of the second empire must be held responsible. The attempt of Napoleon to lord it over the continent, the better to keep under the French people, awakened that feeling of indignant anxiety, and wounded pride which make all Germany sing once more, “No wave shall turn a Frenchman's mill, no drop of our own river,” and supplied Bismarck with the lever he wanted. The prodigious aggrandizement of Prussia, besides disquieting the French people, and provoking their anger, could not fail to spur on the ambition of Russia; a new impulse given to the Pan-Slavonic agitation. But then it would have been the height of imprudence for any minor state to act upon the principle of a quiet, hopeful, unsuspecting policy. Every government had to prepare for the worst—to strain its resources. And so, through a concatenation of causes traceable to the establishment of a Second Empire in France, Europe happens to have been transformed into a vast barrack, and bristles with bayonets. Surely it is bad enough that the inevitable consequences of such a state of things should be waste of human energies, depression of trade, contraction of credit, scarcity of employment, smouldering hatred, looming bankruptcy, and general impoverishment; but that is not all. Cæsarism, no longer content with feeding on the flesh of France, is now hovering, like a bird of prey, over the whole continent of Europe. Germans need to beware. Nothing is better calculated to favor the soaring of Cæsarism than the new-fangled doctrine of the fusion of races, when put forth to cloak a spirit of encroachment. Struggles for independence, and struggles for empire are, of course, two very different things. It is quite right that oppressed nationalities should shake off the yoke, as Greece did, and Poland attempted to do. But the theory of the fusion of races, if understood in the sense of the formation of the gigantic States, rendered as formidable as possible by the concentration of their forces in the hands of a military despot, is a snare which crafty statesmen lay for the people they are determined to enslave. And this system politicians and thinkers will do well to study in connection with the present distracted situation of Europe, not forgetting that it is the system of modern Cæsarism inaugurated by the Napoleons, and with which there may still be a different destiny for Napoleon III, than that which some predict for him in the present overclouded condition of his prestige.—Prophetic Times.