Documents associated with: law
Record 278 of 280
System Number: 00102
Date: [30 January/April 1902][1]
Author: JW
Place: Bath
Recipient: Clifford Addams[2]
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler A101
Document Type: ALS[3]
7. Marlborough Street Bath
Here then are the papers -
Now the chief points are these:
1st. You must make Olivier[4] understand the sort of interviews - There are your own, which you know were little more than slight conversation - taking little of their time though much of your own -
The interviews with the ladies were few and of the most hurried nature -
[p. 2] Every little detail he has forced into the bill for the purpose of bulk only - Useless telegrams! repeating letters & what not! without, as you say, any price attached until we come upon the abrupt sum of 700 fs!!! at the end - quite unaccounted for, and all so bold in its insolence -
It is important that you should get from Olivier quite clearly whether we may wait, in silence, until Kelly[5] takes any further proceeding against us - or whether, according to French law, we must have his bill "taxed" by the proper authority within a specified or limited time? This Mr Webb[6] wants to know at once - - Olivier is not to be told the names of the lawyers - You see that they have been supplanted by initials - You will [say] that they are an English firm, to whom (of much pretension!) to whom I took the case instead of going to Monsieur Ratier[7] my own lawyer, because of facilitating the communications from Messrs. Webb - - Also explain to Olivier that it is quite proper for him to attend to this matter for me rather, than my going with it to Ratier -
Mr. Olivier was his head clerk for years & brought up in his office -
What I want then is for him to fix approximately the prices of K-s bill, bringing [p. 3] down to say somewhere about a couple of hundred francs - so that we may afterwards have it "taxe[d][8]" as is provided by the Code.
Say that the preposterous & grotesque pretention of the English lawyers practising in Paris has enraged and provoked me to this! -
This must rush that it may be registered -
With kindest regards -
J McN Whistler
Olivier's address remember
24 Rue Vignon[9]
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [30 January/April 1902]
Dated from the address, and by the context; this was probably written immediately after #00097.
2. Clifford Addams
Clifford Isaac Addams (1876-1942), etcher [more].
3. ALS
The paper has a narrow mourning border.
4. Olivier
Etienne Olivier, clerk to Antoine Ratier [more].
5. Kelly
Kelly, lawyer, partner in Boddington and Kelly a Parisian legal firm. This relates to some counterfeit lithographs that were offered to the Addams in Paris. See JW to I. Addams, #00085. Kelly was also involved in JW's attempt to pursue Carmen Rossi, model, proprietess of the Académie Carmen [more], whom he suspected had been pilfering works from his studio (see R. Birnie Philip to JW, 4 November 1901, #04824).
6. Mr Webb
William Webb (b. ca 1851), of G. and W. Webb, lawyer [more].
7. Monsieur Ratier
Antoine ('Antony') Ratier (b. 1851), lawyer and politician [more].
8. taxe[d]
A small tear in the page partly obscures this word.
9. Vignon
'Olivier's address remember ...Vignon' written in the left margin of p. 4, at right angles to the main text.