It is necessary in a matter involving such grave consequences that there should be no misunderstanding, the two categories demanding a line of conduct entirely different the one from the other.

In the first, he can take no directions or follow no suggestions but those given by his own Government, which he has been sent here to represent.  The recall of the minister of France on the grounds alleged could not have been anticipated.  Of course no instructions have been given to the undersigned on the subject, and he will not take upon himself the responsibility which he would incur by a voluntary demand of his passports, although made on the suggestion of His Majesty’s Government.  If this be the sense of the passage in question, the duty of the undersigned can not be mistaken.  He will transmit the note of His Excellency the Comte de Rigny to his Government and wait its instructions.  Widely different will be his conduct if he is informed that the conclusion of the Comte de Rigny’s note is intended as a direction that he should quit the French territory.  This he will without delay comply with on being so informed and on receiving the passports necessary for his protection until he shall leave the Kingdom.

Leaving the responsibility of this measure where it ought to rest, the undersigned has the honor to renew to His Excellency the Comte de Rigny the assurance, etc.

EDW’D LIVINGSTON.

Mr. Livingston to Mr. Forsyth.

No. 73.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,

Paris, January 16, 1935.

Hon. J. FORSYTH, etc.

SIR:  The wind being unfavorable, I hope that this letter may arrive in time for the packet.

By the inclosed semiofficial paper you will see that a law has been presented for effecting the payment of 25,000,000 francs capital to the United States, for which the budgets of the six years next succeeding this are affected, and with a condition annexed that our Government shall have done nothing to affect the interests of France.  It would seem from this that they mean to pay nothing but the capital, and that only in six years from this time; but as the law refers to the treaty for execution of which it provides, I presume the intention of the ministry can not be to make any change in it, and that the phraseology is in conformity to their usual forms.  At any rate, I shall, notwithstanding the situation in which I am placed in relation to this Government, endeavor to obtain some explanation on this point.

The packet of the 16th arrived, but to my great regret brought me no dispatches, and having received none subsequent to your No. 43, and that not giving me any indication of the conduct that would be expected from me in the event of such measures as might have been expected on the arrival of the President’s message, I have been left altogether to the guidance of my own sense of duty under circumstances of much