of representation. I cite a decision handed down by a Paris court in 1909, to the effect that the wife of the ambassador
of America in Brussels came to Paris to spend a prolonged period of rest, and during this stay bound herself with certain debts toward Parisian creditors; these presented their complaint to recover their due, but the Seine court then decided to excuse the said wife from appearing before it, immunity being present.
As for the immunity of the queen, of the king's wife and daughters, and of the princesses, I hasten to say of it that clearly the first idea that forms itself in the mind of one who studies these cases is that the treatment of the ambassadress or delegate — she being the envoy of the king who holds sovereignty — should be no different from that of the king himself; and that therefore the queen must stand, as regards that immunity, on an equal footing with those she has sent. We have some examples in which the courts adopted the theory of immunity, the first being that famous incident which Queen Christina (Queen of Sweden) ventured to commit during her visit to France, when she gave orders for the killing of one of her retinue; justice was set in motion in France and an inquiry was held, but the courts could not bring themselves to pronounce judgment, holding rather that the queen must remain beyond the grasp of justice in France.
If, then, the princess or the queen is within her right in pleading immunity, it is strange nonetheless that this immunity does not reach the king's wife or the prince's wife, nor her daughters. In this there is an evolution toward narrowing the scope of that immunity.
There is one last question I wish to broach before closing these remarks: to know whether a woman appointed consul in a foreign country, or the wife or daughter of a consul, benefits from immunity or not.
Jurisprudence is unanimous and opinion agreed that the woman
consul — that is, she who discharges the functions of the consulate — and the consul's wife and daughters cannot avail themselves of immunity at all, since the consul himself does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, and nothing prevents even the arrest and imprisonment of a consul in penal actions.
In conclusion of this study I say that it is folly, in our present age, not to hold ourselves bound to the vindication of right, without regard for those stratagems which jurisprudence and the jurists used to offer, sacrificing the authority of justice upon the altars of diplomatic proprieties; and it is a loss to say that the acts of the ambassadress or of the plenipotentiary's wife must all be subject to the theory of immunity, for excess in the use of immunity can destroy in it the very good for which it was created and instituted, so that it becomes an instrument for encroaching upon the rights of men. It was this that led Bonaparte to say, addressing his ministers and the great men of
his state at a special meeting he convened for this purpose: "Why do you wish to do away with the spirit of equality among men? Why do you desire to place the ministers beyond the reach of any hand in the country where they commit their sins and squander other people's money, so that they cannot be compelled to pay?"
All this led the League of Nations to think of a new way of deciding the suits that arise between the holders of immunity and the rest of mankind, drawing inspiration in this from something the kings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had tried — the adoption of arbitration as a means of settling such disputes; but regrettably none of this was destined to succeed. May tomorrow, then, bring a more general reform, and may the states consent to bind some part of their power for the sake of the common benefit and mutual good.
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