De Freycinet to Noyes, April 28, 1880

Mr. de Freycinet to Mr. Noyes.

Sir: By the letter which you did me the honor to write me the 26th of this month, you called my attention to a difficulty which had arisen between Mr. George Walker, consul-general of the United States, and the justice of the peace of the eighth arrondissement in regard to placing the seals, done concurrently by these two authorities, upon the domicile of Mr. Theodore Gentil, an American citizen, deceased at Paris, 9 rue Lincoln, the 3d of April last.

You express to me on this subject the opinion that the intervention of our magistrate was not justified under the circumstances in question, and you ask that measures be taken in order that Mr. Walker may, from this time, and in analogous cases that may arise in the future, be permitted to exercise those functions which the consular regulations of the United States confer upon him upon the death of American citizens in France.

I regret that I am not able to give you as complete a satisfaction upon this point as you might have desired.

In the absence of formal conventional stipulations concerning the regulation of the estates of citizens of the United States dying in France, the American consuls do not possess, by any title, the right of placing seals upon the domicile of one of their deceased countrymen, nor even that of crossing their seals, under such circumstances, with those of the French authorities, this right constituting a privilege accorded only to the consular representatives of nations with which we are bound by special arrangements.

The principle of reciprocity on which this privilege is founded cannot even be invoked, since the estates of Frenchmen dying in the United States are, in the actual state of our relations, regulated exclusively by the American authorities.

The justice of the peace of the eighth arrondissement does not, therefore, appear to me to have exceeded his powers in regard to the Gentil estate, and I cannot in the name of principle have him instructed to modify his conduct in analogous cases in future.

However, and in order to prove to you as far as possible the friendly sentiments which animate us in regard to the United States and their official representatives, I shall confer with the keeper of the seals in order to see if it be not possible to establish a sort of understanding between the justice of the peace and the consul-general of the United States, so that the effects constituting the Gentil estate may be put into the possession of those who have a right to the same without having recourse to the judiciary.

Accept, &c.,