"Versailles, le 17 Décembre, '70.
"Mon Cher Colonel,—Merci de votre amusante lettre. Le menu qu'elle contenait m'a complètement tranquillisé, et la solidité de votre repas me fait espérer que vous jouissez encore des forces physiques nécessaires pour que je puisse me permettre de vous prier de vouloir bien vous charger de la distribution des lettres que j'ai l'honneur de vous envoyer cijoints. Mille amitiés de votre très-discipliné,
"F. Solms."
"Paris, le 25 Décembre, '70.
"Mon Cher Comte,—J'ai reçu votre billet du 17, et je me suis hâté d'envoyer les lettres y incluses. Quelques-unes j'ai livrées moi-même; les autres je les ai mises à la poste.
"Depuis le repas dont la solidité a tant frappé votre esprit, je suis heureux de vous dire que j'ai mangé quelques-uns encore plus solides. Que pensez-vous de lard salé aux haricots—pas verts? Je me suis trouvé transporté aux premiers jours de notre petite guerre en Kansas, au Grand-Ouest, il y a 16 ans.
"Nous avons une nouvelle idée à Paris, une idée tout-à-fait parisienne. Connaissez-vous la cause de la guerre? Evidemment non. Eh bien, la Providence a trouvé que les vieilles races d'Europe commencent à se dégénérer. Elle désire les mélanger un peu. Il y a probablement 350,000 soldats français prisonniers en Allemagne; il y a peut-être 600,000 soldats allemands sur le territoire français. Vous voyez, ou plutôt vous verrez, les résultats. Voilà l'idée que j'ai entendu développée avec beaucoup d'éloquence par la belle marquise de —— à une petite soirée où j'ai eu l'honneur d'assister il y a quelques jours. Je la livre, gratuitement bien entendu, au George Bancroft de l'avenir—'La cause et les résultats de la guerre de 1870.'
"Vous voyez que nous tâchons de nous amuser encore à Paris.
"Agréez, etc., etc., etc."
To be in exclusive receipt of news during a siege is gratifying to one's vanity, but it has its decidedly disagreeable side. I doubt if the siege were to begin again if Mr. Washburne would accept a bag containing any thing but his official dispatches and his family letters. If we gave the Parisians news, they said that we gave them only bad news. If we withheld it, they said that we were withholding the news of French victories. I speak of what was said in the workmen's clubs, and by the inferior press; the better classes and the more respectable newspapers found no fault. Then General Moltke complained that we abused our privilege. His scouts had intercepted a balloon letter, in which the writer spoke of the facility of receiving letters through the Legation, and instructed her correspondent to write under cover to me. That clever writer, too, Labouchère, "The Besieged Resident," told in the columns of the Daily News how small a matter it was to be shut up in Paris. "Go to the Legation of the United States on any day, and there you find the latest London journals lying on the table." All this was nuts to General Moltke, for he had opposed our receiving our bag, but had been overruled by the King on the request of Count Bismarck. Bismarck wrote to Mr. Washburne, calling his attention to Moltke's complaint. Washburne replied. After stating the circumstances under which I had authorized a letter to be sent under cover to me, for an American lady whose daughter was sick with the small-pox at Brussels, he proceeded to say that both he and I had endeavored honorably to discharge our duties as neutrals; that we had acted according to the best of our judgments under this sense of duty; that we proposed to continue to act as we had done; and that if the German authorities could not trust us, they had better stop the bag altogether, with the exception, of course, of the dispatches from our Government. At the same time he sent back nearly five hundred letters which had been sent us without authority, and which had not been delivered, as the best possible proof that he had not abused his privilege. Washburne's letter concluded as follows: