Mr. Washburne to Mr. Fish
Sir: I have not been to Versailles since I came from there on Thursday last. Even if the state of my health had not prevented. I should have deemed it my duty to have remained here, as there is still a great deal to do in the way of protection to the persons and property of our countrymen as well as the Germans. The alarm among all classes of persons is daily increasing, and nearly every one is leaving, or preparing to leave, as soon as possible. There has been a great deal of difficulty within the last few days in regard to passports, the insurgent authorities having refused to recognize our passports unless issued or vised on the very day on which it is presented. The applications for passports and for certificates of the ownership of the property of Americans, and which we call “protection papers,” have been very numerous in the last few days. The state of things existing here at this time produces strange results. By a decree of the commune, all Frenchmen between the ages of nineteen and forty are liable to do military duty, and hence no Frenchman is permitted to go out of the gates of Paris. There are a great many people who belong to Alsace and Lorraine between those ages, and within the last week no less than four hundred and fifty have applied to me for laissez-passer as citizens of the Empire of Germany. On exhibiting to me satisfactory evidence that before the war they were citizens of Alsace and that portion of Lorraine incorporated into the German Empire by the late treaty, I have not hesitated to give each one a special laissez-passer.
A case has been brought to my attention to-day of a Catholic priest, a native of Alsace, who has been arrested and cast into Mazas along with many of his order. I shall, to-morrow, make an officious application to the commune for his release as a German subject. Domiciliary visits, arrests, and perquisitions are becoming more and more numerous. All refractory national guards are seized and either cast into prison or put into the front rank in the attack. Two days ago a very respectable man living near the legation was torn from his family, sent to the front, and the next day slain in battle. The invasion of houses is no longer confined to those of official persons, or of persons particularly obnoxious on account of their relations to the empire. Many private residences have already been pillaged, and among them those of the Périere Brothers, and Charles Lafitte, the bankers. The house adjoining my own residence in the avénue de l’impératrice was pillaged on Saturday night last, and even the personal effects of the concierge were carried off. My own house was probably spared the same fate by my personal occupation of it. The invasion and violation of the Belgian legation on Sunday last, by a battalion of the national guards, is a fact of peculiar gravity. While the official organ of the commune denounces this act, and says that an investigation will be immediately ordered, and the accused parties sent before a council of war, the trouble is that the commune wields no sufficient authority to punish any outrage or suppress any violence.
There is no knowing what legation will be next invaded. The first indication for confiscation of private property on a magnificent scale appears in a decree of the commune this morning. It is a practical seizure of the work-shops of Paris, which are to be turned over to the [Page 330] various co-operative working societies. The farce is to be gone through with of a jury of arbitration to fix upon the amount of indemnity to be paid to the owners of property. Of course, such owners are not represented on the jury, and have no voice whatever in the matter. The commune has adopted a measure fraught with very serious consequences to all property-holders in Paris, and of course involving the interests of all Americans who are unfortunrte enough to hold property here at this time. It is the levying of a new tax to go into the coffers of the commune. When the time comes around, if it ever do come, for the collection of this tax, there will be but few if any Americans here to determine for themselves what they will do in the premises. I shall tell all that the tax is without the semblance of legal authority, and advise them not to pay it. What will be the result in all this business, if the insurrection shall not be speedily put down, it is impossible to tell. There is no improvement in the situation since the date of my last dispatch. I can as yet see nothing that leads me to believe that the insurrection is to be speedily put down. All the talk that has been made that some arrangement was to be arrived at between M. Thiers and the commune amounts to nothing. All the concessions which it was signified would be made to the insurgents have been spit upon. It is one month to-day since this insurrection broke out, and here we are daily going from bad to worse. Day after day passes and nothing is done. MacMahon accomplishes no more than Vinoy. Paris continues to be left at the mercy of the commune, and now a siege is threatened, which, considering the actual situation, can only be contemplated with horror. The military situation is not much changed. At Asnieres yesterday the insurgents were badly beaten, but with that exception the fighting for the last few days has amounted to but little, although there has been a great deal of powder and ball wasted. Direct communication with London by the Northern Railroad is still open, and I hope to be able to forward this dispatch to London to-night.
I have, &c.,