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FEDERAL RULES OF CIVIL
PROCEDURE
Stephen C. Yeazell
David G. Price and Dallas P. Price Distinguished
Professor of
Law Emeritus
University of California
Los Angeles
Joanna C. Schwartz
Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Professor
of Law
University of California
Los Angeles
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CONTENTS
Preface
Note on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Selected Provisions from United States Code, Title 28: Judiciary and
Judicial Procedure
PREFACE
The federal procedural system flows from four major sources of law: (1)
the Constitution of the United States, (2) the Federal Rules (of Civil
Procedure and Appellate Procedure), (3) the Judiciary Code (collected in
Title 28 of the United States Code), and (4) cases applying and
interpreting these three bodies of law. This supplement contains
examples of the first three sources. This volume is intended to serve as a
rules supplement for any civil procedure course. The statutes and rules
reflect amendments through December 1, 2018.
Stephen C. Yeazell
Joanna C. Schwartz
November 2018
NOTE ON THE FEDERAL
RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern the conduct of civil trials in
federal courts. Their authority comes from Congress, but, unlike the
Judicial Code (Title 28 of the United States Code, found at page 199 of
this supplement), the Rules are not a product of direct congressional
legislation. Instead Congress has enacted 28 U.S.C. §2072 (the Rules
Enabling Act), which authorizes the Supreme Court to promulgate rules
of procedure.
Although the Rules Enabling Act gives the Supreme Court power to
promulgate the Rules, the Justices do not in practice do the actual
drafting. That process instead occurs in committees of the Judicial
Conference, a supervisory and administrative arm of the federal courts.
In 1988 a set of amendments to 28 U.S.C. §§2072-2074 formalized this
committee process. Under these provisions the Judicial Conference
appoints a standing committee on rules of practice, procedure, and
evidence. This standing committee screens all recommendations for
consistency. The Judicial Conference may also appoint committees with
a more defined jurisdiction—for example, civil rules, rules of evidence,
bankruptcy rules. Judges, practitioners, and scholars are appointed to
these advisory committees. Each advisory committee considers proposals
for amendments to the Rules, circulates drafts of proposed amendments
to members of the bench and bar, holds public hearings and revises in
light of the comments received, and then transmits the revised proposals
to the Committee on Practice and Procedure, which reports to the
Judicial Conference, which in turn recommends changes to the Supreme
Court. In recent years the process surrounding Rules amendments has
become more “transparent”—open to public and professional comment
—and simultaneously slower and more contested.
The Court, if it concurs with the proposals, officially promulgates the
revised Rules by May 1, to take effect on December 1 of the same year if
Congress does not act in the meantime. The Court has rarely rejected
outright a Rules amendment recommended by the Judicial Conference
(although several Justices have on occasion dissented from the
promulgation of various sets of amendments).
Like the Supreme Court, Congress has usually acceded to the
recommendations of the Judicial Conference. As with the Court,
however, there have been exceptions. In the instance of the 1993
amendments, Congress came very close to exercising its power of
disapproval in connection with the discovery rules; a bill that would have
blocked the implementation of those proposals passed the House of
Representatives and died in the Senate only when that body adjourned
without having acted on it.
The original Rules were promulgated in 1938. Since then there have
been significant revisions in 1948, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1983, 1985,
1987, 1991, 1993, 1995, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2015 (with
technical amendments in 1971, 1975, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002,
2005, 2009, and 2010). The most important changes in the past 50 years
have been:
the 1966 amendments, which revised the rules for joinder of claims
and parties;
the 1970 amendments, which revamped discovery procedures;
the 1983 amendments, which strengthened judicial control over the
pretrial process and stiffened sanctions provisions;
the 1993 amendments, which changed the conception of service of
process and discovery and revised the sanctions provisions of Rule
11;
the 2000 amendments, which further altered the rules for discovery
and rewrote the Supplemental Admiralty Rules;
the 2003 amendments, which revised Rule 23, governing class actions,
and rewrote the rules governing jury instructions and special
masters;
the 2006 amendments, which rewrote the discovery rules to deal with
the special challenges of discovery in a digital environment; and
the 2015 amendments, which rewrote both the basic discovery rules
and further addressed discovery sanctions in a digital environment.
During the past decades, as the amendment process changed different
rules at different times, the Committee on Practice and Procedure
became concerned that the rules were not as clear stylistically as they
might be. From this concern came a thoroughgoing stylistic revision that
became effective in December 2007. This stylistic revision changed both
the language and the appearance of scores of rules, but, pursuant to the
committee’s charge, is not supposed to work any substantive change
except where one is specifically noted. In its report to the Chief Justice
(recall that the Court officially promulgates amended rules), the
Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure summarized the
principles underlying the restyling project:
TABLE OF RULES
I. Scope of Rules; Form of Action
Rule
1. Scope and Purpose
2. One Form of Action
Rule
3. Commencing an Action
4. Summons
(a) Contents; Amendments
(b) Issuance
(c) Service
(d) Waiving Service
(e) Serving an Individual Within a Judicial District of the United States
(f) Serving an Individual in a Foreign Country
(g) Serving a Minor or an Incompetent Person
(h) Serving a Corporation, Partnership, or Association
(i) Serving the United States and Its Agencies, Corporations, Officers, or
Employees
(j) Serving a Foreign, State, or Local Government
(k) Territorial Limits of Effective Service
(l) Proving Service
(m) Time Limit for Service
(n) Asserting Jurisdiction over Property or Assets
4.1 Serving Other Process
(a) In General
(b) Enforcing Orders: Committing for Civil Contempt
5. Serving and Filing Pleadings and Other Papers
(a) Service: When Required
(b) Service: How Made
(c) Serving Numerous Defendants
(d) Filing
5.1. Constitutional Challenge to a Statute—Notice, Certification, and Intervention
(a) Notice by a Party
(b) Certification by the Court
(c) Intervention; Final Decision on the Merits
(d) No Forfeiture
5.2. Privacy Protection for Filings Made with the Court
(a) Redacted Filings
(b) Exemptions from the Redaction Requirement
(c) Limitations on Remote Access to Electronic Files; Social-Security Appeals
and Immigration Cases
(d) Filings Made Under Seal
(e) Protective Orders
(f) Option for Additional Unredacted Filing Under Seal
(g) Option for Filing a Reference List
(h) Waiver of Protection of Identifiers
6. Computing and Extending Time; Time for Motion Papers
(a) Computing Time
(b) Extending Time
(c) Motions, Notices of Hearing, and Affidavits
(d) Additional Time After Certain Kinds of Service
Rule
7. Pleadings Allowed; Form of Motions and Other Papers
(a) Pleadings
(b) Motions and Other Papers
7.1 Disclosure Statement
(a) Who Must File; Contents
(b) Time to File; Supplemental Filing
8. General Rules of Pleading
(a) Claim for Relief
(b) Defenses; Admissions and Denials
(c) Affirmative Defenses
(d) Pleading to Be Concise and Direct; Alternative Statements; Inconsistency
(e) Construing Pleadings
9. Pleading Special Matters
(a) Capacity or Authority to Sue; Legal Existence
(b) Fraud or Mistake; Conditions of Mind
(c) Conditions Precedent
(d) Official Document or Act
(e) Judgment
(f) Time and Place
(g) Special Damages
(h) Admiralty or Maritime Claim
10 . Form of Pleadings
(a) Caption; Names of Parties
(b) Paragraphs; Separate Statements
(c) Adoption by Reference; Exhibits
11. Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers; Representations to the Court;
Sanctions
(a) Signature
(b) Representations to the Court
(c) Sanctions
(d) Inapplicability to Discovery
12. Defenses and Objections: When and How Presented; Motion for Judgment on the
Pleadings; Consolidating Motions; Waiving Defenses; Pretrial Hearing
(a) Time to Serve a Responsive Pleading
(b) How to Present Defenses
(c) Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings
(d) Result of Presenting Matters Outside the Pleadings
(e) Motion for More Definite Statement
(f) Motion to Strike
(g) Joining Motions
(h) Waiving and Preserving Certain Defenses
(i) Hearing Before Trial
13. Counterclaim and Crossclaim
(a) Compulsory Counterclaim
(b) Permissive Counterclaim
(c) Relief Sought in a Counterclaim
(d) Counterclaim Against the United States
(e) Counterclaim Maturing or Acquired After Pleading
(f) [Abrogated]
(g) Crossclaim Against a Coparty
(h) Joining Additional Parties
(i) Separate Trials; Separate Judgments
14. Third-Party Practice
(a) When a Defending Party May Bring In a Third Party
(b) When a Plaintiff May Bring In a Third Party
(c) Admiralty or Maritime Claim
15. Amended and Supplemental Pleadings
(a) Amendments Before Trial
(b) Amendments During and After Trial
(c) Relation Back of Amendments
(d) Supplemental Pleadings
16. Pretrial Conferences; Scheduling; Management
(a) Purposes of a Pretrial Conference
(b) Scheduling
(c) Attendance and Matters for Consideration at a Pretrial Conference
(d) Pretrial Orders
(e) Final Pretrial Conference and Orders
(f) Sanctions
IV. Parties
Rule
17. Plaintiff and Defendant; Capacity; Public Officers
(a) Real Party in Interest
(b) Capacity to Sue or Be Sued
(c) Minor or Incompetent Person
(d) Public Officer’s Title and Name
18. Joinder of Claims
(a) In General
(b) Joinder of Contingent Claims
19. Required Joinder of Parties
(a) Persons Required to Be Joined if Feasible
(b) When Joinder Is Not Feasible
(c) Pleading the Reasons for Nonjoinder
(d) Exception for Class Actions
20. Permissive Joinder of Parties
(a) Persons Who May Join or Be Joined
(b) Protective Measures
21. Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties
22. Interpleader
(a) Grounds
(b) Relation to Other Rules and Statutes
23. Class Actions
(a) Prerequisites
(b) Types of Class Actions
(c) Certification Order; Notice to Class Members; Judgment; Issues Classes;
Subclasses
(d) Conducting the Action
(e) Settlement, Voluntary Dismissal, or Compromise
(f) Appeals
(g) Class Counsel
(h) Attorney’s Fees and Nontaxable Costs
23.1 Derivative Actions
(a) Prerequisites
(b) Pleading Requirements
(c) Settlement, Dismissal, and Compromise
23.2 Actions Relating to Unincorporated Associations
24. Intervention
(a) Intervention of Right
(b) Permissive Intervention
(c) Notice and Pleading Required
25. Substitution of Parties
(a) Death
(b) Incompetency
(c) Transfer of Interest
(d) Public Officers; Death or Separation from Office
Rule
26. Duty to Disclose; General Provisions Governing Discovery
(a) Required Disclosures
(b) Discovery Scope and Limits
(c) Protective Orders
(d) Timing and Sequence of Discovery
(e) Supplementing Disclosures and Responses
(f) Conference of the Parties; Planning for Discovery
(g) Signing Disclosures and Discovery Requests, Responses, and Objections
27. Depositions to Perpetuate Testimony
(a) Before an Action Is Filed
(b) Pending Appeal
(c) Perpetuation by an Action
28. Persons Before Whom Depositions May Be Taken
(a) Within the United States
(b) In a Foreign Country
(c) Disqualification
29. Stipulations About Discovery Procedure
30. Depositions by Oral Examination
(a) When a Deposition May Be Taken
(b) Notice of the Deposition; Other Formal Requirements
(c) Examination and Cross-Examination; Record of the Examination;
Objections; Written Questions
(d) Duration; Sanction; Motion to Terminate or Limit
(e) Review by the Witness; Changes
(f) Certification and Delivery; Exhibits; Copies of the Transcript or Recording;
Filing
(g) Failure to Attend a Deposition or Serve a Subpoena; Expenses
31. Depositions by Written Questions
(a) When a Deposition May Be Taken
(b) Delivery to the Officer; Officer’s Duties
(c) Notice of Completion or Filing
32. Using Depositions in Court Proceedings
(a) Using Depositions
(b) Objections to Admissibility
(c) Form of Presentation
(d) Waiver of Objections
33. Interrogatories to Parties
(a) In General
(b) Answers and Objections
(c) Use
(d) Option to Produce Business Records
34 . Producing Documents, Electronically Stored Information, and Tangible Things, or
Entering onto Land, for Inspection and Other Purposes
(a) In General
(b) Procedure
(c) Nonparties
35. Physical and Mental Examinations
(a) Order for an Examination
(b) Examiner’s Report
36. Requests for Admission
(a) Scope and Procedure
(b) Effect of an Admission; Withdrawing or Amending It
37. Failure to Make Disclosures or to Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions
(a) Motion for an Order Compelling Disclosure or Discovery
(b) Failure to Comply with a Court Order
(c) Failure to Disclose, to Supplement an Earlier Response, or to Admit
(d) Party’s Failure to Attend Its Own Deposition, Serve Answers to
Interrogatories, or Respond to a Request for Inspection
(e) Failure to Preserve Electronically Stored Information
(f) Failure to Participate in Framing a Discovery Plan
VI. Trials
Rule
38. Right to a Jury Trial; Demand
(a) Right Preserved
(b) Demand
(c) Specifying Issues
(d) Waiver; Withdrawal
(e) Admiralty and Maritime Claims
39. Trial by Jury or by the Court
(a) When a Demand Is Made
(b) When No Demand Is Made
(c) Advisory Jury; Jury Trial by Consent
40. Scheduling Cases for Trial
41. Dismissal of Actions
(a) Voluntary Dismissal
(b) Involuntary Dismissal; Effect
(c) Dismissing a Counterclaim, Crossclaim, or Third-Party Claim
(d) Costs of a Previously Dismissed Action
42. Consolidation; Separate Trials
(a) Consolidation
(b) Separate Trials
43. Taking Testimony
(a) In Open Court
(b) Affirmation Instead of an Oath
(c) Evidence on a Motion
(d) Interpreter
44 . Proving an Official Record
(a) Means of Proving
(b) Lack of a Record
(c) Other Proof
44.1 Determining Foreign Law
45. Subpoena
(a) In General
(b) Service
(c) Place of Compliance
(d) Protecting a Person Subject to a Subpoena; Enforcement
(e) Duties in Responding to a Subpoena
(f) Transferring a Subpoena-Related Motion
(g) Contempt
46. Objecting to a Ruling or Order
47. Selecting Jurors
(a) Examining Jurors
(b) Peremptory Challenges
(c) Excusing a Juror
48. Number of Jurors; Verdict; Polling
(a) Number of Jurors
(b) Verdict
(c) Polling
49. Special Verdict; General Verdict and Questions
(a) Special Verdict
(b) General Verdict with Answers to Written Questions
50. Judgment as a Matter of Law in a Jury Trial; Related Motion for a New Trial;
Conditional Ruling
(a) Judgment as a Matter of Law
(b) Renewing the Motion After Trial; Alternative Motion for a New Trial
(c) Granting the Renewed Motion; Conditional Ruling on a Motion for a New
Trial
(d) Time for a Losing Party’s New-Trial Motion
(e) Denying the Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law; Reversal on Appeal
51. Instructions to the Jury; Objections; Preserving a Claim of Error
(a) Requests
(b) Instructions
(c) Objections
(d) Assigning Error; Plain Error
52. Findings and Conclusions by the Court; Judgment on Partial Findings
(a) Findings and Conclusions
(b) Amended or Additional Findings
(c) Judgment on Partial Findings
53. Masters
(a) Appointment
(b) Order Appointing a Master
(c) Master’s Authority
(d) Master’s Orders
(e) Master’s Reports
( f) Action on the Master’s Order, Report, or Recommendations
(g) Compensation
(h) Appointing a Magistrate Judge
VII. Judgment
Rule
54. Judgment; Costs
(a) Definition; Form
(b) Judgment on Multiple Claims or Involving Multiple Parties
(c) Demand for Judgment; Relief to Be Granted
(d) Costs; Attorney’s Fees
55. Default; Default Judgment
(a) Entering a Default
(b) Entering a Default Judgment
(c) Setting Aside a Default or a Default Judgment
(d) Judgment Against the United States
56. Summary Judgment
(a) Motion for Summary Judgment or Partial Summary Judgment
(b) Time to File a Motion
(c) Procedures
(d) When Facts Are Unavailable to the Nonmovant
(e) Failing to Properly Support or Address a Fact
(f) Judgment Independent of the Motion
(g) Failing to Grant All the Requested Relief
(h) Affidavit or Declaration Submitted in Bad Faith
57. Declaratory Judgment
58. Entering Judgment
(a) Separate Document
(b) Entering Judgment
(c) Time of Entry
(d) Request for Entry
(e) Cost or Fee Awards
59. New Trial; Altering or Amending a Judgment
(a) In General
(b) Time to File a Motion for a New Trial
(c) Time to Serve Affidavits
(d) New Trial on the Court’s Initiative or for Reasons Not in the Motion
(e) Motion to Alter or Amend a Judgment
60. Relief from a Judgment or Order
(a) Corrections Based on Clerical Mistakes; Oversights and Omissions
(b) Grounds for Relief from a Final Judgment, Order, or Proceeding
(c) Timing and Effect of the Motion
(d) Other Powers to Grant Relief
(e) Bills and Writs Abolished
61. Harmless Error
62. Stay of Proceedings to Enforce a Judgment
(a) Automatic Stay; Exceptions for Injunctions, Receiverships, and Patent
Accountings
( b) Stay Pending the Disposition of a Motion
(c) Injunction Pending an Appeal
(d) Stay with Bond on Appeal
(e) Stay Without Bond on an Appeal by the United States, Its Officers, or Its
Agencies
(f) Stay in Favor of a Judgment Debtor Under State Law
(g) Appellate Court’s Power Not Limited
(h) Stay with Multiple Claims or Parties
62.1 Indicative Ruling on a Motion for Relief That Is Barred by a Pending Appeal
(a) Relief Pending Appeal
(b) Notice to the Court of Appeals
(c) Remand
63. Judge’s Inability to Proceed
Rule
64. Seizing a Person or Property
(a) Remedies Under State Law—In General
(b) Specific Kinds of Remedies
65. Injunctions and Restraining Orders
(a) Preliminary Injunction
(b) Temporary Restraining Order
(c) Security
(d) Contents and Scope of Every Injunction and Restraining Order
(e) Other Laws Not Modified
(f) Copyright Impoundment
65.1. Proceedings Against a Security Provider
66. Receivers
67. Deposit into Court
(a) Depositing Property
(b) Investing and Withdrawing Funds
68. Offer of Judgment
(a) Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer
(b) Unaccepted Offer
(c) Offer After Liability Is Determined
(d) Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer
69. Execution
(a) In General
(b) Against Certain Public Officers
70. Enforcing a Judgment for a Specific Act
(a) Party’s Failure to Act; Ordering Another to Act
(b) Vesting Title
(c) Obtaining a Writ of Attachment or Sequestration
(d) Obtaining a Writ of Execution or Assistance
(e) Holding in Contempt
71. Enforcing Relief For or Against a Nonparty
Rule
71.1. Condemning Real or Personal Property
(a) Applicability of Other Rules
(b) Joinder of Properties
(c) Complaint
(d) Process
(e) Appearance or Answer
(f) Amending Pleadings
(g) Substituting Parties
(h) Trial of the Issues
(i) Dismissal of the Action or a Defendant
(j) Deposit and Its Distribution
(k) Condemnation Under a State’s Power of Eminent Domain
(l) Costs
72. Magistrate Judges: Pretrial Order
(a) Nondispositive Matters
(b) Dispositive Motions and Prisoner Petitions
73. Magistrate Judges: Trial by Consent; Appeal
(a) Trial by Consent
(b) Consent Procedure
(c) Appealing a Judgment
74. [Abrogated]
75. [Abrogated]
76. [Abrogated]
Rule
77. Conducting Business; Clerk’s Authority; Notice of an Order or Judgment
(a) When Court Is Open
(b) Place for Trial and Other Proceedings
(c) Clerk’s Office Hours; Clerk’s Orders
(d) Serving Notice of an Order or Judgment
78. Hearing Motions; Submission on Briefs
(a) Providing a Regular Schedule for Oral Hearings
(b) Providing for Submission on Briefs
79. Records Kept by the Clerk
(a) Civil Docket
(b) Civil Judgments and Orders
(c) Indexes; Calendars
(d) Other Records
80. Stenographic Transcript as Evidence
Rule
81. Applicability of the Rules in General; Removed Actions
(a) Applicability to Particular Proceedings
(b) Scire Facias and Mandamus
(c) Removed Actions
(d) Law Applicable
82. Jurisdiction and Venue Unaffected
83. Rules by District Courts; Judge’s Directives
(a) Local Rules
(b) Procedure When There Is No Controlling Law
84. [Abrogated]
85. Title
86. Effective Dates
(a) In General
(b) December 1, 2007 Amendments
These rules govern the procedure in all civil actions and proceedings
in the United States district courts, except as stated in Rule 81. They
should be construed, administered, and employed by the court and the
parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every
action and proceeding.
As amended Dec. 29, 1948, eff. Oct. 20, 1949; Feb. 28, 1966, eff.
July 1, 1966; Apr. 22, 1993, eff. Dec. 1, 1993; Apr. 30, 2007, eff. Dec. 1,
2007; Apr. 29, 2015, eff. Dec. 1, 2015.
Language: English
MCMXXIII
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
Set up, electrotyped, printed and bound by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N.Y.
Paper furnished by W.F. Etherington & Co., New York.
MY MOTHER,
Peter.
This letter, I may say, astonished me. I think it would astonish
anybody. A profound and enveloping melancholy succeeded to this
feeling of astonishment. At the time, I was engaged in putting the
finishing touches to The Tiger in the House and I postponed
meditation on Peter's affair until that bulky volume could be
dispatched to the printer. That happy event fell on March 15, 1920,
but my anthology, Lords of The Housetops, next claimed my
attention, and then the new edition of Interpreters, for which I had
agreed to furnish a new paper, and the writing of this new paper
amused me very much, carrying my mind not only far away from
cats, which had been occupying it for a twelvemonth, but also away
from Peter's request. At last, Interpreters was ready for the printer,
but now the proofs of The Tiger began to come in, and I may say that
for the next three months my days were fully occupied in the
correction of proofs, for those of Lords of The Housetops and
Interpreters were in my garret when the proofs of The Tiger were not.
Never have I corrected proofs with so much concentrated attention
as that which I devoted to the proofs of The Tiger, and yet there were
errors. In regard to some of these, I was not the collaborator. On
Page 240, for instance, one may read, There are many females in
the novels of Emile Zola. My intention was to have the fourth word
read, felines, and so it stood in the final proof, but my ambition to
surmount the initial letter of Zola's Christian name with an acute
accent (an ambition I shall forswear on this present page), compelled
the printer to reset the line, so that subsequently, when I opened the
book at this page, I read with amazement that there are many
females in the novels of Emile Zola, a statement that cannot be
readily denied, to be sure, but still it is no discovery of which to
boast.
It was not until September, 1920, that I had an opportunity to
seriously consider Peter's request and when I did begin to consider
it, I thought of it at first only as a duty to be accomplished. But when I
began searching my memory for details of the conversations
between us and had perused certain notes I had made on various
occasions, visited his house on Beekman Place to look over his
effects and talk with his mother, the feeling of the artist for inevitable
material came over me and I knew that whether Peter had written
me that letter or not, I should sooner or later have written this book
about him.
There was another struggle over the eventual form, a question
concerning which Peter had made no suggestions. It seemed to me,
at first, that a sort of haphazard collection of his ideas and
pronunciamentos, somewhat in the manner of Samuel Butler's Note-
Books, would meet the case, but after a little reflection I rejected this
idea. Light on the man was needed for a complete understanding of
his ideas, or lack of them, for they shifted like the waves of the sea. I
can never tell why, but it was while I was reading William Dean
Howells's Familiar Spanish Studies one day in the New York Public
Library that I suddenly decided on a sort of loose biographical form,
a free fantasia in the manner of a Liszt Rhapsody. This settled, I
literally swam ahead and scarcely found it necessary to examine
many papers (which was fortunate as few exist) or to consult
anything but my memory, which lighted up the subject from obscure
angles, as a search-light illuminates the spaces of the sea, once I
had learned to decipher the meaning of the problem. What it is all
about, or whether it is about anything at all, you, the reader, of
course, must decide for yourself. To me, the moral, if I may use a
conventional word to express an unconventional idea, is plain, and if
I have not succeeded in making it appear so, then I must to some
extent blame you, the reader, for what is true of all books, is perhaps
truest of this, that you will carry away from it only what you are able
to bring to it.
Chapter I
One of my friends, a lady, visited Venice alone in her middle age. It
was late at night when the train drew into the station, and it was
raining, a drizzly, chilling rain. The porter pushed her, with her bag,
into a damp gondola and the dismal voyage to the hotel began.
There were a few lights here and there but she had the impression
that she was floating down the Chicago River in a wash-tub. Once
she had reached her destination, she clambered unsteadily out of
the black barge, wobbled through a dark passageway, inhaling great
whiffs of masticated garlic, and finally emerged in a dimly lighted
lobby. At the desk, a sleepy clerk yawned as she spoke of her
reservation. Tired, rather cross, and wholly disappointed, she
muttered, I don't like Venice at all. I wish I hadn't come. The clerk
was unsympathetically explanatory, Signora should have visited
Venice when she was younger.
A day or so later, the lady recovered her spirits and even her sense
of humour for she told me the story herself and I have always
remembered it. The moment it passed her lips, indeed, I began to
reflect that I had been lucky to encounter the Bride of the Adriatic in
my youth. Paris, too, especially Paris, for there is a melancholy
pleasure to be derived from Venice. It is a suitable environment for
grief; there is a certain superior relish to suffering there. Paris, I
sometimes think, smiles only on the very young and it is not a city I
should care to approach for the first time after I had passed forty.
I was, as a matter of fact, in my twenties when I first went to Paris—
my happiness might have been even greater had I been nineteen—
and I was alone. The trip across England—I had landed at Liverpool
—and the horrid channel, I will not describe, although both made
sufficient impression on me, but the French houses at Dieppe
awakened my first deep emotion and then, and so many times since,
the Normandy cider, quaffed in a little café, conterminous to the
railroad, and the journey through France, alive in the sunlight, for it
was May, the fields dancing with the green grain spattered with
vermilion poppies and cerulean cornflowers, the white roads, flying
like ribbons between the stately poplars, leading away over the
charming hills past the red-brick villas, completed the siege of my not
too easily given heart. There was the stately and romantic
interruption of Rouen, which at that period suggested nothing in the
world to me but Emma Bovary. Then more fields, more roads, more
towns, and at last, towards twilight, Paris.
Railroads have a fancy for entering cities stealthily through
backyards and the first glimpses of Paris, achieved from a car-
window, were not over-pleasant but the posters on the hoardings,
advertising beer and automobile tires, particularly that of the Michelin
Tire Company, with the picture of the pinguid gentleman, constructed
of a series of pneumatic circles, seemed characteristic enough.
Chéret was dead but something of his spirit seemed to glow in these
intensely coloured affiches and I was young. Even the dank Gare
Saint Lazare did not dismay me, and I entered into the novel
baggage hunt with something of zest, while other busy passengers
and the blue porters rushed hither and thither in a complicated but
well-ordered maze. Naturally, however, I was the last to leave the
station; as the light outside deepened to a rich warm blue, I
wandered into the street, my porter bearing my trunk, to find there a
solitary cocher mounted on the box of his carious fiacre.
An artist friend, Albert Worcester, had already determined my
destination and so I gave commands, Hotel de la Place de l'Odéon,
the cocher cracked his whip, probably adding a Hue cocotte! and we
were under way. The drive through the streets that evening seemed
like a dream and, even later, when the streets of Paris had become
more familiar to me than those of any other city, I could occasionally
recapture the mood of this first vision. For Paris in the May twilight is
very soft and exquisite, the grey buildings swathed in a bland blue
light and the air redolent with a strange fragrance, the ingredients of
which have never been satisfactorily identified in my nasal
imagination, although Huysmans, Zola, Symons, and Cunninghame
Graham have all attempted to separate and describe them.
Presently we crossed the boulevards and I saw for the first time the
rows of blooming chestnut trees, the kiosques where newsdealers
dispensed their wares, the brilliantly lighted theatres, the sidewalk
cafés, sprinkled with human figures, typical enough, doubtless, but
who all seemed as unreal to me at the time as if they had been
Brobdingnags, Centaurs, Griffins, or Mermaids. Other fiacres, private
carriages, taxi-autos, carrying French men and French ladies,
passed us. I saw Bel Ami, Nana, Liane de Pougy, or Otero in every
one of them. As we drove by the Opéra, I am certain that Cléo de
Mérode and Leopold of Belgium descended the steps. Even the
buses assumed the appearance of gorgeous chariots, bearing
perfumed Watteauesque ladies on their journey to Cythera. As we
drove through the Tuileries Gardens, the mood snapped for an
instant as I viewed the statue of Gambetta, which, I thought at the
time, and have always thought since, was amazingly like the portrait
of a gentleman hailing a cab. What could more completely symbolize
Paris than the statue of a gentleman perpetually hailing a cab and
never getting one?
We drove on through the Louvre and now the Seine was under us,
lying black in the twilight, reviving dark memories of crime and
murder, on across the Pont du Carrousel, and up the narrow Rue de
Seine. The Quartier Latin! I must have cried aloud, for the cocher
looked a trifle suspicious, his head turned the fraction of an inch.
Later, of course, I said, the left bank, as casually as any one. It was
almost dark when we drove into the open Place, flanked by the
Odéon, a great Roman temple, with my little hotel tucked into one
corner, as unostentatiously as possible, being exactly similar to
every other structure, save the central one, in the Place. I shall stop
tonight, I said to myself, in the hotel where Little Billee lived, for,
when one first goes to Paris when one is young, Paris is either the
Paris of Murger, du Maurier, or the George Moore of the
Confessions, perhaps the Paris of all three. In my bag these three
books lay, and I had already begun to live one of them.
The patron and a servant in a long white apron were waiting,
standing in the doorway. The servant hoisted my trunk to his
shoulder and bore it away. I paid the cocher's reckoning, not without
difficulty for, although I was not ignorant of the language, I was
unaccustomed to the simplicity of French coinage. There were also
the mysteries of the pourboire to compute—ten per cent, I had been
told; who has not been told this?—and besides, as always happens
when one is travelling, I had no little money. But at length the
negotiations were terminated, not to the displeasure of the cocher, I
feel certain, since he condescended to smile pleasantly. Then, with a
crack of his whip, this enormous fellow with his black moustaches,
his glazed top-hat, and his long coat, drove away. I cast a long
lingering look after him, apparently quite unaware that many another
such teratological specimen existed on every hand. Now I followed
the patron into a dark hallway and new strata of delight. He gave me
a lighted candle and, behind him, I mounted the winding stairway to
the first floor, where I was deposited in a chamber with dark red
walls, heavy dark red curtains at the windows, which looked out over
the Place, a black walnut wash-hand-stand with pitcher and basin, a
huge black walnut wardrobe, two or three chairs of the same wood,
upholstered with faded brocade, and a most luxurious bed, so high
from the floor that one had to climb into it, hung with curtains like
those at the window, and surmounted by a feather-bed. There was
also another article of furniture, indispensable to any French
bedroom.
I gave Joseph (all men servants in small hotels in Paris are named
Joseph, perhaps to warn off prospective Potiphar's wives) his vail,
asked for hot water, which he bore up promptly in a small can,
washed myself, did a little unpacking, humming the Mattchiche the
while, changed my shirt, my collar and my necktie, demanded
another bougie, lighted it, and under the humble illumination afforded
by it and its companion, I began to read again The Confessions of a
Young Man. It was not very long before I was interrupted in the midst
of an absorbing passage descriptive of the circle at the Nouvelle
Athènes by the arrival of Albert Worcester, who had arranged for my
reception, and right here I may say that I was lodged in the Hotel de
la Place de l'Odéon for fifty francs a month. Albert's arrival, although
unannounced, was not unexpected, as he had promised to take me
to dinner.
I was sufficiently emphatic. Paris! I cried. Paris! Good God!
I see you are not disappointed. But Albert permitted a trace of
cynicism to flavour his smile.
It's too perfect, too wonderful. It is more than I felt or imagined. I'm
moving in.
But you haven't seen it....
I've seen enough. I don't mean that. I mean I've seen enough to
know. But I want to see it all, everything, Saint Sulpice, the Folies-
Bergère, the Musée de Cluny, the Nouvelle Athènes, the Comédie
Française, the Bal Bullier, the Arc de Triomphe, the Luxembourg
Gardens....
They close at sundown. My expression was the cue for him to
continue, They'll be open tomorrow and any other day. They're just
around the corner. You can go there when you get up in the morning,
if you do get up in the morning. But what do you want to do tonight?
Anything! Everything! I cried.
Well, we'll eat first.
So we blew out the candles, floated down the dark stairs—I didn't
really walk for a week, I am sure—, brushing on our way against a
bearded student and a girl, fragrant and warm in the semi-blackness,
out into the delicious night, with the fascinating indescribable odour
of Paris, which ran the gamut from the fragrance of lilac and mimosa
to the aroma of horse-dung; with the sound of horses' hoofs and
rolling wheels beating and revolving on the cobble-stones, we made
our way—I swear my feet never touched the ground—through the
narrow, crooked, constantly turning, bewildering streets, until we
came out on a broad boulevard before the Café d'Harcourt, where I
was to eat my first Paris dinner.
The Café d'Harcourt is situated near the Church of the Sorbonne on
the Boulevard Saint Michel, which you are more accustomed to see
spelled Boul' Mich'. It is a big, brightly lighted café, with a broad
terrasse, partially enclosed by a hedge of green bushes in boxes.
The hands of the clock pointed to the hour of eight when we arrived
and the tables all appeared to be occupied. Inside, groups of men
were engaged in games of checkers, while the orchestra was