No. 92.
Mr. E. B. Washburne to Mr. Fish.
No. 305.]
Legation of the United
States, Paris, October 18, 1870. (Received November 9,
1870.)
Sir: Many of our countrymen, shut in by the
investment of Paris, having become very anxious to leave the city, I
asked General Burnside to procure, if possible, the permission of the
Prussian authorities to go through their military lines. The general
having advised me that Count de Bismarck had authorized him to say that
he would permit all Americans to go through their lines that I would ask
for, I yesterday made application to the French government for authority
to the citizens of the United States to leave the city, and go through
their military lines. Just as I was about to close my dispatches to send
out early in the morning, I received the letter from Mr. Jules Favre
which I have the honor to send herewith. I must confess that I was very
much surprised and disappointed. If the decision is adhered to in its
full force, the disappointment to large numbers of our countrymen now in
Paris will be
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very great. I
estimate that there are between two hundred and two hundred and fifty
Americans now in Paris, and that about one hundred of them are anxious
to leave. Among this number desirous of going away are found many cut
off from their communications from home, who are without funds, and who
have no means whatever of living. If the siege continues for a long
time, and they cannot get away, their condition must become deplorable
in the extreme. I need not say that matters are becoming very
embarrassing, but I hope we shall get through in some satisfactory way.
I shall look further into this matter of the departure of our people,
and write you by the first opportunity.
Jules Fame to Mr. E. B. Washburne.
Sir and Bear Minister: Conformably to the
desire which you have done me the honor to express to me yesterday,
I transmit to your excellency the letter addressed to the minister
of war, to notify him of the departure of your courier. I beg you to
send it to him at, once, with notice of the precise hour of his
departure.
As regards the permission solicited by a number of your countrymen to
pass our lines to leave Paris, I have asked for it from the only
competent authority, that is to say, from the governor of Paris. He
was of opinion that the difficulties raised by this request, being
political as well as military, the government ought to examine them.
The government has done so, with a strong desire to be agreeable
personally, and to give to your nation a new proof of its sincere
cordiality. But however powerful are these considerations upon our
minds, we have been checked by the absolute impossibility which we
find ourselves in of satisfying the requests of a similar nature
which are constantly made. The number of strangers who have not left
Paris is very great; many of them have asked of us permission to
leave Paris, which we have been obliged to refuse for reasons of
defense, of which your excellency will, without doubt, appreciate
the value. To grant them would be to annul our military operations;
to make exceptions would be to create an unjustifiable privilege. I
have therefore the regret to notify your excellency that the
government is of opinion that permission to leave Paris during the
siege can only be granted to persons clothed with a diplomatic
character.
I beg your excellency to believe that it is extremely painful to me
not to be able to be agreeable to you. It is one of the griefs which
war imposes upon us, and it is one of those to which I can least
easily reconcile myself.
I beg your excellency, &c., &c.,
