Mr. Porter to Mr. Hay.
Paris, March 16, 1899.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 566, of March 3, concerning the case of Gendrot. No further steps seem to have been taken in the matter since my writing you on February 24. But Gendrot will surely call one of these days to say that his civil suit is fixed for a certain day and to ask that legal assistance be given him. He does not seem to realize that under the circumstances it would have been better for him to abstain from visiting France; he insists that he is a native-born American citizen and as such claims the protection of our Government. If properly assisted, the French civil court might possibly recognize his American title, because his case differs from the others in this important particular, that he has not committed the offense of renouncing French citizenship and of assuming another nationality of his own volition, an offense specially mentioned in the law of June 26, 1889. In his case the presentation of naturalization papers would have weakened his position. Besides, Gendrot holds that he is a native-born citizen and does not want to change his status as such for that of a naturalized citizen. The case is an interesting one and deserves the attention of the embassy.
I have, etc.,