June 27 Wednesday – Frenchmen were rioting throughout the country, angry over the assassination of President Sadi Carnot on June 24. Sam wrote of a crisis situation at the Grand Hotel in La Bourboule, which had several Italians in their employ.

When we were about to go to bed we heard a good deal of noise about a hundred yards away — shoutings of a great crowd. These continued — burst after burst of shouts — louder & louder — & at last the shouts became furious howlings. We have Italian waiters in the house, & I became uneasy, but I tried to make the family believe it was only a mob of drunken merry-makers. However that assertion soon lost force. The noise approached, & took the form of the Marseilleise. Then stones began to fly. They rattled against our windows, & considerably frightened the family. We put out the lights, & no more stones struck our windows, but a lady in another room went too near her open window & got knocked down by a stone. Then the rioters gathered in front of the hotel & demanded the Italians, proposing to hammer them; but the landlord refused to give them up, & sent them to the upper story for safety. There were but two policemen. These argued with the mob, but were not listened to. Toward mid-night the mob came around under our windows again & began to smash windows on the floor below & there was also a crash of smashing woodwork. It looked serious, then. I was afraid they would fire the house. But they didn’t. They kept everybody up to the small hours with their threats & howlings & cries of “A bas les Italiens!” — then at last they went away saying the Italians must leave next day or the hotel must take the consequences [June 29 to Rogers].