Mr. Washburne to Mr. Fish
Sir: I went to Versailles on Saturday last, to relieve Mr. Hoffman for two or three days, and returned on Monday evening. The situation there seems always to be the same. They are continually on the point of coming into Paris. It was so four weeks ago, and it was so last Monday. The day for the “supreme effort” evidently draws nigh, but I will have more to say on this subject in a later dispatch. In Paris I found there had been no particular change in things on my return. The work of the demolition of the house of Mr. Thiers in the Place St. Georges progresses. The hatred and rage of the commune against the chief of the executive powder surpasses all bounds. The insurrectionist Journal Officiel of this morning has another decree in relation to the subject, providing that all the linen found in the house should be sent to the hospitals; that all the objects of art and valuable books should be sent to the Bibliotheque and National Museums; that the furniture should be sold at public auction, after being exposed in the sales-rooms, and that the products of the sale should go to the widows and orphans of the victims of the war, and the same destination should also be given to the proceeds of the sale of the materials of the house; and, lastly, that “upon the site of the hotel of the parricide should be established a public square.” Mr. Thiers had lived in this house for nearly half a century, and it was there that he composed his great works and prepared the speeches which he had delivered at the French tribune, and there he had received the most celebrated political persons and savans of the age. There he had gathered the rarest works of art, books, and manuscripts that were to be found in all Europe. Such vandalism is without a parallel in the history of civilization. The national convention decreed the destruction of the house of Buzot, the Girondist, who had fled from Paris after the days of the 31st of May and 2d of June, when the convention placed him, among others, in accusation, but the destruction of the plain home of a deputy, not enriched by associations and historic souvenirs, was as nothing to the vandalism exhibited in the demolition of the house of the head of the French nation. As I write, 5.30 p. m., word comes to the legation that the “Column Vendome” has just fallen. Notice had been given from day to day that it was to fall at a stated hour, and immense crowds have been awaiting the moment of its overthrow. The Journal Officiel of the commune this morning announced that it would be thrown down precisely at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, [Page 342] and as I drove along the boulevard, at the head of the Rue de la Paix at half past 2, the crowd of people collected in that place and in the Rue Castiglione was immense. Great numbers in this crowd were hoping that this splendid work of art would continue to resist all the appliances used to tear it down, until the arrival of the Versailles troops, but by far the greater number were waiting with intense anxiety for the moment when it might finally fall before a spirit of hatred and revenge which could see a triumph in the destruction of a work that had excited the wonder and admiration of the world. While the authorities of the commune had some time since protested that no Germans remained in prison, not a day passes but that it is made known to me that more or less of them are still incarcerated. The whole time of Mr. McKean, who acts as my private secretary, is taken up in visiting the prisons, and procuring the release of these persons. General Fabrice wrote me, a few days since, that four of the Sisters of Charity who were at the convent of Picpus, about which there has been so much scandal, were Germans, and that they had been arrested and imprisoned. He desired that I would have them immediately released. Mr. McKean addressed himself to the subject yesterday, and visited the delegate to the ministry of justice in relation to it. The delegate alleged that an examination disclosed that murders had been committed in the convent, and that those particular sisters, with others, were held until it could be ascertained how far they were involved. The delegate in person took Mr. McKean to the convent, and explained to him the horrors that had been there enacted. While there he saw many things that were suspicious, as explained to him, he seems incredulous in regard to the confinement of the insane women in the little boxes, about which so much has been said, and which has created such an intense feeling.
The commune has now commenced its “perquisitions” for arms and men, taking the city by arrondissements. The national guards, under arms, surround the arrondissements, and keep all persons from going in or coming out. They then make an entry into each house, and go into every apartment and every room. If a door is not opened, it is immediately forced by a locksmith who always accompanies the guard. All arms, of whatever nature, are seized and carried off. If a man is found, they demand of him “pourquor vous n’etés pas de la Garde Nationale?” If he does not prove that he is a foreigner, or that he does not owe service, by reason of age or infirmity, he is dragged away to some depot. There he is put into the uniform of a national guard, a musket placed in his hand, and then he is at once sent to the front.
The decrees and action of the commune are becoming more and more outrageous, and I might say ridiculous, every day. One of the last performances is a decree providing that every citizen shall be supplied with a “carte d’identité,” giving his name, age, profession, domicile, &c. The manner of obtaining this card is prescribed, and any man who is not the bearer of one, is to be arrested and kept in arrest until he can regularly establish his identity. It is the duty of all national guards to require the exhibition of this card. This decree is in poor imitation of 1793, when, during the reign of terror, every person was required to have his “Certificate of ciyism.” The reason given by the commune for this decree is, that the government of Versailles is seeking to introduce its secret agents into Paris, charged with the mission of making an “appeal to treason.” The decree has been very badly received by the population of Paris, and even the most violent of the commune journals criticise it severely. If it should be attempted to [Page 343] carry it into execution, it would tend to put an end to all circulation in the city, for every man would be liable to be called upon by some over-zealous national guard to show his papers at about every step.
The suppression of newspapers still goes on. Six or seven have been suppressed since my last dispatch. The Siecle, that old republican journal, which was the only one left of the papers which you had directed to be sent to the Department, is in the last list of those proscribed. A new paper appears this morning, under the title of Le Bulletin du Jour, and I think it is the Siecle under another name. I send you some numbers of this last.
Scarcely a day passes at our legation here without some singular incident. The man who commanded the whole of the national guard in Paris on the 18th of March, the day of the accomplishment of the insurrection, was Charles Lullier. He is a man of about thirty-two years of age, and was, up to within the last two or three years, a lieutenant in the French navy. He had been traveling in the United States, and only returned to France last October.
In the accomplishment of his purposes to release Germans from prison, Mr. McKean has had occasion to meet Mr. Delescluze, the new delegate at the ministry of war. He represents him as a most perfect type of the Jacobin and revolutionist of 1793. On visiting the war department, he found about forty officers awaiting their turn of admission to the presence of the delegate. He sent in his card, and was immediately admitted, finding Delescluze installed in the same room where we had some three or four weeks before seen Cluseret in all the pride of his power and authority. There sat Delescluge in the same chair.
The wranglings and dissensions continue in the commune. Twenty-two of the members have issued a manifesto, charging that the body has abdicated its power into the hands of a dictatorship, which is called the committee of public safety, and declared itself irresponsible, abandoning the situation to the committee. They consequently state that they will not again appear in the commune until a different state of affairs exists, but will go into the midst of their brothers in the national guard. There is no doubt that the committee of public safety has now absorbed about all the powers of the present insurrectionary government, and has become the authority of the commune greater than the commune itself. A new phase of outrage was developed yesterday. A German, who had a shop in the Rue St. Antoine, had gone from the city, leaving his goods and effects in the charge of an agent. The agent appeared at the legation to-day to ascertain if protection could be given to him. The national guard had been to the premises of which he had charge and forced an entrance. He immediately sought a member of the commune, to protest against this outrage, saying that the proprietor was a foreigner, and that his property was entitled to be respected. The answer was that the property of no man, either a Frenchman or a foreigner, who had left Paris, had any right to be respected, and would not be, but that it would be confiscated to the commune. Satisfying myself that the owner of the shop was a German, who had a right to claim my protection, I gave a paper certifying to that fact, and stating that the property, being that of foreigner, was entitled to be respected and protected; and further, I informed the agent verbally that he might tell all persons who proposed to interfere with the property, that if any damage were done I should deem it my duty to inform General Fabrice of the fact, and he undoubtedly would take all measures necessary in the case. I have no opportunity to send to London to-night, and shall [Page 344] therefore retain this dispatch to go by the bag which. I shall send out on Friday night next.
I have, &c.,