The French Embassy to the Department of State.

[Memorandum.—Translation.]

The Government of the Republic has informed the French embassy at Washington of a protest presented by Mr. Tourgée, United States consul at Bordeaux, in consequence of circumstances which may be stated as follows: Mr. Tourgée, whose official residence is at Bordeaux, where his office and his private dwelling are situated, No. 52 Public Garden avenue, has rented on an oral lease and for a period of eight months a villa situated at Arcachon. In consequence of a difficulty with the owner with regard to this lease, Mr. Tourgée is said to have refused to pay on the 1st of April last the amount due of the rent agreed upon. On the demand of the proprietor, who claimed that Mr. Tourgée owed him 1,400 francs, the president of the civil court of Bordeaux issued an order authorizing him to levy an execution against Mr. Tourgée in the city of Arcachon. When Mr. Rousse, the bailiff, appeared on the 10th of April, carrying an order, Mr. Tourgée refused to pay and refused to allow the bailiff to enter his villa, which he said was inviolable under Article III of the consular convention between France and the United States of the 23d of February, 1853. The bailiff, having been ordered to secure the execution of an order of the court, was obliged to apply for assistance to the commissary of police of Arcachon. Mr. Tourgée, who in the meantime had displayed the American flag on his balcony, persisted in his determination not to allow the bailiff to enter the villa, in spite of the advice given him by the commissary of police to go and advocate his view before the president of the court, who was to decide as referee. At last, after some particularly difficult conversation, because Mr. Tourgée does not hear well and speaks French hardly at all, the bailiff and the two witnesses entered the house, went over it, but always respecting a room which was used by the consul as his office. They then retired to the garden, where a minute of the proceedings was drawn up stating that there were no effects. The furniture of the villa, in fact, belonged to the owner, and Mr. Tourgée had only some personal effects there, the value of which was thought by the bailiff insufficient to secure the expenses of an execution.

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Mr. Tourgée immediately presented a protest to the prefect of the Gironde, in which he protests, referring to Article III of the consular convention before mentioned, against this attempt to carry out the order of execution issued against him. He adds that Mr. Rousse, the bailiff, had uttered words of contempt for the American flag, and that notwithstanding his positive prohibition, he had examined his consular papers.

From the investigation to which the prosecuting attorney of the Republic at Bordeaux received orders to proceed, this part of the complaint of the United States consul can only be explained by his not speaking French. The bailiff asserts in the most positive manner, and the witnesses to the proceedings corroborate his assertion, that he did not at any time use offensive words toward the American flag, nor any word referring to it, and that no search or inspection was made of the papers which Mr. Tourgée may have had in his villa. As the United States consul at Bordeaux seems to wish to give this matter an aspect which gives an entirely false impression of it, it seems desirable that the Department of State should be informed of the incorrectness of the assertions contained in his protest presented to the prefect of the Gironde. Whatever may be his desire to tell the truth, Mr. Tourgée does not appear to have considered that the bailiff and the commissary of police of Arcachon confined themselves to securing the execution of a judicial judgment which it was at the option of the United States consul to endeavor to have revoked by the court if he thought it contrary to the provisions of the French-American consular convention.

In this connection, the Government of the Republic is desirous to know the construction given by the Federal Government to Article III of the said convention, and also the American jurisprudence in matters of the inviolability of the residences of French consuls in the United States. Does that inviolability apply only to the dwelling which the French consul occupies in the city designated by the exequatur as being that where he is permitted to reside; or, on the other hand, does it apply also to the dwelling in which such consul may reside temporarily, for his own pleasure and without any official reason, outside of such city but still within the limits of its jurisdiction?