John A. Dix to the Marquis de Moustier, September 30, 1868

Mr. Dix to the Marquis de Moustier

Sir: It has been reported to me that Philip Brailly, a citizen of the United States, naturalized on the 23d of August, 1858, has been condemned by le premier consul de guerre of Paris to six months’ imprisonment for insoumission, and that he is now detained at the prison Rue du Cherche-Midi, No. 37.

The naturalization papers of Brailly are in possession of this legation, and they show him, as above stated, to have been a citizen of the United States more than 10 years.

His condemnation is so directly at variance with the principle by which similar cases have been decided by the imperial government, that I deem it only necessary to call your excellency’s attention to the subject to insure immediate action with a view to redress the wrong which has been committed.

In your excellency’s dispatch of 27th June, 1867, concerning a case then pending, you said: “Mr. Karcher having lost the quality of a Frenchman for more than three years, the offense with which he is charged is now covered by prescription. The minister of war has, therefore, considered it his duty to direct that this individual, who, moreover, has been up to this time provisionally at large, and who has not been subjected to any judicial process, should be merely erased from the list of delinquents at the recruiting, depot of the lower Rhine.”

Your excellency will not be surprised, in view of the assurance conveyed by this decision, that the course of the consul de guerre in Brailly’s case should be a source of extreme sensibility, and that your prompt interposition should be most earnestly invoked.

I avail myself of the occasion to renew the assurances of the very distinguished consideration with which I am, &c.,