No. 389.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. Vignaud.
Washington, June 8, 1888.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 608, of the 24th ultimo, has been received. You therein report the case of Mr. W. Lalanne, a person of French origin, holding a certificate of naturalization, granted by the city and [Page 541] county court of Los Angeles, Cal., October 20, 1876, who had applied to your legation for a certificate of “exemption “from French military service, and was informed by you that no such certificate would be issued by your legation, and further “that he could be relieved from his military obligations towards France only by establishing before a French court of justice that he was no longer a French citizen.”
The language you employ in your letter of May 16, 1888, to Mr. Lalanne, is as follows:
I regret to say, sir, that the legation is not in a position to furnish you with a certificate of this kind.
The French Government holds that every natural-born Frenchman is liable to military service until he has produced evidence that he is no longer a French citizen and is therefore disqualified to perform any military service in the French national army. Under the existing rule, it is for you to furnish the evidence, and no other will satisfy the French Government bat a judgment of a French civil court declaring that you have lost your original character.
Your mode of redress is therefore to apply to the “tribunal civil” of your arrondissement for a judgment stating that you are no longer a French citizen. In support of this application you will produce your certificate of naturalization, duly legalized by this legation, and the court will, I have no doubt, grant your request. You will then take a copy of the judgment of the court to the military authorities and they will discharge you.
It appears that you wrote thus to Mr. Lalanne, having before you his statement that he left France in 1874, when eighteen years of age, and a certified copy of his record of naturalization, showing that he was admitted to citizenship October 20, 1876, when he must have resided in the United States less than three years. In view of this you asked Mr. Lalanne for further particulars, which were promptly furnished to you, and which confirm the fact of illegal naturalization.
From Mr. Lalanne’s statements in his letter of May 18, there would seem to be some doubt in his mind whether the certified transcript of his record of naturalization is in fact correct. He says that on the 2d (20th?) day of October, 1876, he applied to the court at Los Angeles in order to make declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and that a certificate of naturalization was forthwith granted to him, which “first certificate” he has lost. The one now submitted appears to be merely a certified transcript.
On the 2d (20th) October, 1876, Mr. Lalanne could lawfully have made declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and complete naturalization would have followed after completing the statutory term of residence of five years. But the transcript furnished is not of the record of Mr. Lalanne’s declaration of intention; it purports to certify his full naturalization on October 20, 1876.
Inquiry will be made of the court at Los Angeles to determine whether the transcript is in error. If it be a correct certificate of the record of the court, and Mr. Lalanne’s statement of his arrival in the United States in April, or perhaps May, 1874, when he was eighteen years old, is also correct, it is clear that Mr. Lalanne has not been lawfully naturalized, end is not a citizen of the United States.
Under all the circumstances known to you, it would have sufficed had you informed Mr. Lalanne that the legation could not intervene in his behalf, because of the evident showing that he could not have been lawfully naturalized.
Your elaborate statement to Mr. Lalanne of the position held by the French Government in regard to proof of loss of French citizenship would therefore appear to have been somewhat superfluous, especially a the point is actually at issue between the two Governments. It is [Page 542] not objectionable if regarded as simply explaining what you understand to be the attitude of the French authorities.
It might, however, be construed as in some measure an acquiescence on the part of the United States Government, through its responsible agent in France, in the very objectionable pretensions of the French Government, touching proof of loss of French status; and, inasmuch as it fails to state the distinct and positive repudiation by this Government of such pretension, as contained in the Department’s instructions No. 298 of 15th of February, 1888, it does not call for special approval.
You will, of course, always be careful not to let it be supposed, even by indirection or implication, that the Government of the United States will ever admit the right of any foreign Government to arrest or detain our citizens if not charged with crime.
I am, etc.,