Mr. O'Donnell asked, on Monday night, the Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs whether the M. Challemel-Lacour spoken of as the French Ambassador Designate to England was the Citizen Challemel-Lacour who, as one of the Prefects of the Provisional Government of September 4th, 1870, ordered the mas- sacre of Colonel Carayon Latour's battalion, in the telegram " Fusillez-moi cos gens-la," contained in the report of the Com- mission of the National Assembly on the subject, and who had since been condemned by a Court of justice in France to pay some £3,000 compensation for his share in the plunder of a convent during the same period. Sir Charles Dile replied that M. Challemel-Lacour denies having used any such phrase as " Paites-moi fusilier ces gens-lii," and that the telegram spoken of had never been produced. The damages which he was condemned to pay were given in a suit brought against him as head of the department, and not in his private capacity, and the plunder was perpetrated by volun- teers quartered in the convent. M. Challemel-Lacour VMS at the time virtually a prisoner at Lyons, and quite unable either to initiate or prevent the act of plunder; and the National Assembly, which was by no means prejudiced in his favour, rejected a motion censuring him, in favour of the order of the day. He had been cordially received as ambassador in Switzer- land, and the British Government had been assured by the German Ambassador that had he ever been appointed Ambas- sador in Berlin, he would have been cordially received by the German Government.
