[Translation.]
Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys to Mr. Mercier.
Department of Foreign Affairs,
Political Division, Paris,
April 23, 1863.
Sir: Events in Poland have awakened
pre-occupations common to all the cabinets.
Whether in fact the strife which has burst out be looked upon from the
stand-point of humanity, or from that of political interests, it must
fix the solicitude of the powers. The disturbances which are
periodically renewed attest the permanence of difficulties which time
has not smoothed away, and demonstrated once again the dangers they
involve. Alike involved with these considerations, the courts of France,
of England, and of Austria have opened conferences with the view of
presenting in concert to the cabinet of St. Petersburgh the reflections
which this state of things suggests; and they have at once agreed to
address to their representatives near his Majesty the Emperor Alexander,
despatches which they have simultaneously remitted to the Russian
government.
You will find herewith a copy of our communication. Those of England and
Austria are conceived in the same sense.
In preparing this document our aim has been to make ourselves as much as
possible the faithful interpreters of general opinion. We have refrained
from every order of ideas which had been peculiar to us; we have not
offered any observation which the other courts could not appropriate as
theirs. We believe, therefore, that we have reason to hope that the
views developed by the Emperor’s government will obtain the assent of
all the cabinets, and that they will voluntarily support the
manifestation near the court of St. Petersburgh.
[Page 830]
I request you, therefore, to give a reading of the present despatch to
Mr. Seward, and leaving at the same time in his hands a copy of that
which I send you annexed. We call for the official adhesion of the
different governments, and we like to be persuaded that they will
willingly defer to the wish which we express to them, either by
addressing to the court of Russia a communication similar to ours, or by
presenting to it analogous considerations. The good relations which
exist between the government of the United States and the court of
Russia cannot but give greater weight to counsels presented in a
friendly form; and we rely entirely on the cabinet of Washington to
appreciate the measure in which it will be able most satisfactorily to
open its views to the Russian government.
Accept, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.
Mr. Mercier, Minister of
the Emperor at Washington.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Duke of
Montobello, ambassador of France at St. Petersburgh.
Duke: The insurrection of which the kingdom
of Poland is at this moment the theatre has awakened in Europe
lively preoccupations in the midst of a repose which no near event
seemed likely to disturb. The deplorable effusion of blood of which
this strife is the occasion, and the melancholy incidents which
characterize it, excite at the same time an emotion as general as it
is profound.
The government of his Majesty obeys, therefore, a duty in expressing
to the court of Russia the reflection which this state of things is
of a nature to suggest, and in calling its solicitude to the
inconvenience and the delays which it draws along with it.
That which characterizes the agitations of Poland, Mons. le Due,
which causes their exceptional importance, is that they are not the
results of a passing crisis. Effects which are reproduced, almost
invariably, in each generation, cannot be attributed to causes
purely accidental. Convulsions that are become periodical are
symptoms of an inveterate disease; they attest the powerlessness of
the combinations thus far imagined to reconcile Poland to the
situation made for it. On the other hand, these too frequent
perturbations are, every time they break out, a subject of
uneasiness and alarm. Poland, which occupies a central position on
the continent, cannot be agitated without the various States
situated in the neighborhood of its frontiers suffering an agitation
the recoil of which makes itself felt throughout Europe. This has
happened at every epoch when the Poles have resorted to arms. These
conflicts, as may be judged by that of which we are at this moment
witnesses, have not only as their consequence the excitements of
mind in a disquieting manner; in their prolongation they disturb the
relations of cabinets, and provoke the most regretable
complications. It is the common interest of all powers to see
definitively set aside dangers which are constantly reviving.
We like to hope, Mons. le Due, that the court of Russia will receive,
in the feeling which has dictated them to us, considerations so
worthy of its attention. It will prove itself to be animated, we
trust, by liberal dispositions, of which the reign of his Majesty
the Emperor Alexander has already given such striking testimonials,
and will recognize, in its wisdom, the opportunity to devise means
for placing Poland in conditions of lasting peace.
You will please to remit a copy of this despatch to his excellency
the Prince Gortschahoff.
Accept, &c.,
