FRANK MOORE, Assistant Secretary of Legation to E. B. Washburne stands for Elihu Benjamin Washburne, March 22, 1871

Mr. Frank Moore to Mr. Washburne

Sir: Following your instructions, I have the honor to submit a report of what I personally saw at the collision which took place this afternoon in the rue de la Paix, between a body of insurgent national guards and a large crowd of persons belonging to the law-and-order party of this city.

At half past one o’clock, as I turned the corner of the rue Neuve des Capucines entering the rue de la Paix, I saw a large body of men, composed about equally of persons in the uniform of the national guard and civilians, coming into the last-named street, at its junction with the Place de l’Opéra. The crowd appeared to be led by a few under-officers of the national guard and about twenty or thirty armed soldiers. Whether the latter belonged to the insurgents, and were being driven before the crowd, I was unable at the moment to determine, but it is now understood that they formed a part of the law-and-order party. The civilians and unarmed soldiers carried ordinary walking sticks in most instances. Fearing the consequences of remaining in the crowd, I entered a jeweler’s shop, No. 10 rue de la Paix, from which I could see all that transpired in that thoroughfare between the rue Neuve des Capucines and rue Neuve des Petites Champs, but was unable to look into the Place Vendôme, where a considerable body of the insurgent national guard was posted. Across the rue de la Paix a line of the insurgents was drawn at the junction of the rue Neuve des Capucines, and two cannon were stationed immediately in their rear. As I entered the jeweler’s store the crowd pressed by, making loud cries of “Arm, arm yourselves!” and “Vive la république!” the soldiers loading their guns and the others brandishing their canes high in the air, as they surged on toward the Place Vendôme. In a moment more the crowd seemed to come to a stand, when I went through a rear door of the store and entered the courtyard of the premises. Finding the door of the main entrance to the rue de la Paix partly open I went to it, and discovered on the sidewalk General Chetlain, the American consul at Brussels, among the crowd. I beckoned him in, as another forward movement of the law-and-order party had then commenced, and returned to the jeweler’s store. The crowd pressed on more furiously than before, filling the air with cries of “Vive la république!” “Vive l’ordre!” and “Arm, army ourselves!” In about two minutes a single gun was fired, and in a moment more a general firing of small arms-commenced, which continued about ten minutes. The firing was very irregular, and did not appear to be by platoon. The cannon were not fired. Looking from the store in which I was, I saw seven men fall to the pavement, two of whom were killed instantly. A person in citizen’s dress who attempted to succor a wounded man was shot down and killed. About two minutes after the general fusilade had ceased a single shot was fired immediately in front of my position. General Chetlain tells me that this shot was fired at a man already wounded, and who was crawling up on the sidewalk. As soon as quiet had somewhat returned I again went into the court-yard and ascended to the first story of the apartment, from which I could look up and down the rue de la Paix its entire length. In the window of the parlor of Lieutenant General Sheridan, at the Westminster Hotel, immediately opposite, I discovered General Merritt and Mr. Paul S. Forbes, who must, from their position, have been able to see all that was going on. Immediately after I saw General Chetlain safe and inside the court-yard into which I had called him at the moment of the second advance of the crowd, and he joined myself and a friend. We remained in the first story of the apartment about fifteen minutes, during which time we saw the dead bodies of two men lying on the opposite sidewalk. Both of these bodies were carried inside the insurgent lines at the Place Vendôme. General Chetlain informed me that a young man who was standing in the rue de la Paix, a few feet from him, was shot through the arm and had his wound dressed in the rear court-yard of the building in which we had taken refuge. Comparative order having been restored, General Chetlain, my friend, and myself left the house and soon gained the boulevards, from which place we experienced no difficulty in returning home. As we passed No. 12 rue de la Paix, we saw the body of a dead old man, whose head had been terribly mutilated by a shot, and who had evidently been shot down on the edge of the sidewalk, for the marks of his crawling to the place where he died gave sufficient proof of that fact.

I have, &c.,