John A. Dix to William H. Seward, June 18, 1867

Mr. Dix to Mr. Seward

Sir: As the telegraph and the newspapers have already informed you, the Emperor of Russia was shot at in the Bois de Boulogne on the 6th instant, while returning from the review of troops given in his honor. The Emperor of France was seated by his side in the carriage, in which they were returning, and in the crowd and confusion the danger to each was about equal.

The accounts you have received are as near the truth as those which are given by different eye-witnesses of the same scene usually are. There is in this, as in other occurrences of a like character, the customary diversity of representation. I cannot add to it, as I preceded the Emperor on the same route by a few minutes, and did not see them again until some ten minutes after the shot was fired.

Our countrymen, participating in the general horror occasioned by this murderous attempt, and feeling it more strongly, perhaps, than the people of France, from their vivid remembrance of the unhappy success of a similar act of atrocity which so recently clad our own country in the habiliments of mourning and sorrow, expressed to me a wish to present an address to the Emperor of Russia, congratulating him on his escape. I communicated their wish to the Baron de Budberg, the ambassador of Russia, and received from him the written note which is first in the enclosed series. The address very properly referred to the danger to which both Emperors were exposed, and contained the same expression of thankfulness for the preservation of the lives of both.

The correspondence is itself a complete account of what took place in regard to the address. Though not strictly official, I thought it right to communicate a copy of the address to the Marquis de Moustier, and to say, as I ventured to do, that the preservation of the life of the Emperor of France, as well as that of the Emperor of Russia, would be a source of unfeigned gratification to the government and people of the United States. As all the governments of Europe were communicating similar expressions of good feeling through their representatives here, I thought I should not incur the disapproval of my own by uniting in them and saying what I was sure would be felt at home. The final notes of the Baron de Budberg and the Marquis de Moustier addressed to me show that the assurance I gave were received with great gratification in both quarters.

Trusting that I shall have the approval of the government in what I have done, I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,