"Paris, August 26, 1861.
"I announced to you by a telegraphic despatch of the 91st of this month the grave incident which occurred in the evening of the 18th in the French village of Ville-la-Grand, contiguous to the canton of Geneva.
"The reports of the Prefect of the Haute-Savoie and of the Pro- cureur-Gineral of Chambery, of which I annex copies, and the de- spatches of our Consul at Geneva, will make known to you how the events occurred, and will permit you to draw up inprecise terms the demands which you will have to address immediately to the Federal Council.
" As you will see from these different documents, it appears,-1, that the Swiss gendarmes and gardes raised the pretension of posing a tax on public games established on French territory ; 2, that a person named Longet, who simply pointed out the flagrant illegality of this .pretension, was violently struck by a garde-c pitre in a Swiss inn, situate on the other side of the frontier, and was afterwards arrested, as was also his father, who hastened to demand that he should be given np ; 3, that the inhabitants of the village of Ville-la-Grand, moved by an arrest for which there was so little justification, went to the inn in which were detained the two Longets, father and son, to obtain their release, were not only driven back by the Swiss gendarmes, but pursued on the French territory. Some stones having been thrown at the gendarmes, they fired with- out any previous summons, and three of the inhabitants of Ville-la- Grand were wounded, one in the very gravest manner. " On the whole, Sir, the first cause of the deplorable incident of which I have noticed the principal features must be ascribed to an abusive pretension of the Swiss agents, constituting a violation of French territory, and an encroachment on our sovereign rights. The events which followed were only the consequence of it, and if the in. habitants of Ville-la-Grand made demonstrations easy. to understand in presence of the ill-treatment inflicted on Longet, junior, and the deteution of that young man and his father, nothing can justify the swiss gendarmes for having crossed the frontier, and having, without being able to invoke any necessity of making use of their arms, and, at all events, without previous summons, fired on people who had no means of defending themselves. The Emperor's Government takes pleasure in not doubting the disposition of the Federal Council to accord it the satisfaction it has the right to expect in such a grave affair, and which in its eyes can only consist in the severe punish- ment of all the agents who took part in the violation of our territory, and in the grant of a sufficient and equitable indemnity to the French subjects who were wounded by the Swiss gendarmes. You will be kind enough to present officially to the President of the Federal Council a copy of the present despatch and of the annexed documents. Accept, &c. THOUVENEL." The negotiation, which might at any moment become a delicate one, is still pending.
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