Mr. Washburne to Mr. Fish
Sir: In the way in which things go on in Paris, I am afraid that in writing about them so frequently I may be in danger of repeating myself. No one could have supposed when this insurrection broke out, on the 18th ultimo, that nearly five weeks would have rolled around without any prospect of its immediate suppression. I am certain that I never believed that it would fall to my lot to live, with my family, in a city of two millions of people in a state of insurrection for such a length of time as the present one has already lasted. I should be too happy if I could advise you that I could see any prospect of a termination of the terrible state of things existing here. Nothing comes to us from Versailles that can be relied on, to show that effective measures are soon to be taken to expel the insurgents from power and to re-establish the authority of the government in Paris. To be sure we hear rumors of attack and [Page 331] assault in great and overpowering force, and then other rumors of a siege; but day after day passes away without particular results further than heating still hotter the blood and inflaming still further the existing hatreds and animosities. * * * * * *
Men in the assembly and out of the assembly are becoming impatient, yet can effect nothing. There is a great deal of fighting going on, always in the same places—that is, in the direction of Asniéres, Neuilly, and Courbevoie. The same shelling of the city continues, and beneficial results are always wanting to the attacking forces. So far as we may be able to judge, and this thing has continued for nearly three weeks, but little has been accomplished, for the government troops have not yet reached the walls of the city. An attack in force may, however, take place at any day, of which you may be advised before this dispatch shall reach you.
An election took place here on Sunday last to fill vacancies in the commune, and although great efforts had been made to induce people to vote, there was a very general and significant abstention. Cluseret was a candidate in one of the arrondissements, and, out of 21,360 votes inscribed, he obtained only 1,968 votes; and yet the commune, in contempt of a law that has always been respected, which declares that no candidate be elected without receiving one-eighth of all the votes inscribed, has declared his election good. The suppression of the journals still continues. The official journal of the commune of yesterday morning announced that the following papers were suppressed: Le Bien Public, La Cloche, Le Soir, L’Avenier National. Two of these papers, however, have appeared to-day, in spite of the order of suppression, Le Bien Public and L’Avenier National.
It seems useless for me to speak of the condition of Paris at the present moment. Fortune, business, public and private credit, industry, labor, financial enterprise, are all buried in one common grave. It is everywhere devastation, desolation, ruin. The physiognomy of the city becomes more and more sad. All the upper part of the Champs Elysées, and all of that portion of the city surrounding the Arc of Triumph, continues to be deserted, in fear of the shells. In coming from my residence to the legation it seems like a city of the dead; not a carriage, and hardly a human being, in the streets. Immense barricades are still going up at the Place de la Concorde. The great manufactories and work-shops are closed. Those vast stores, where are to be found the wonders and marvels of Parisian industry, are no longer open. The cafés now close at ten o’clock in the evening; the gas is extinguished; and Paris, without its brilliantly-lighted cafés, with their thronging multitudes, is Paris no longer.
A dispatch-bag arrived from London this morning, bringing Washington dates to the 7th, and New York papers to the 8th instant. As I propose leaving for Versailles to-morrow morning I shall not have the honor of writing you further to go by the dispatch-bag which leaves for London to-morrow night.
I have, &c.,