Now, about the time when Oscar came to the office, during the first six months of Desroches’ installation, on a winter evening when the work had been got through more quickly than usual, and the clerks were warming themselves before the fire preparatory to departure, it came into Godeschal’s head to construct and compose a Register “architriclino-basochien,” of the utmost antiquity, saved from the fires of the Revolution, and derived through the procureur of the Chatelet-Bordin, the immediate predecessor of Sauvaguest, the attorney, from whom Desroches had bought his practice.  The work, which was highly approved by the other clerks, was begun by a search through all the dealers in old paper for a register, made of paper with the mark of the eighteenth century, duly bound in parchment, on which should be the stamp of an order in council.  Having found such a volume it was left about in the dust, on the stove, on the ground, in the kitchen, and even in what the clerks called the “chamber of deliberations”; and thus it obtained a mouldiness to delight an antiquary, cracks of aged dilapidation, and broken corners that looked as though the rats had gnawed them; also, the gilt edges were tarnished with surprising perfection.  As soon as the book was duly prepared, the entries were made.  The following extracts will show to the most obtuse mind the purpose to which the office of Maitre Desroches devoted this register, the first sixty pages of which were filled with reports of fictitious cases.  On the first page appeared as follows, in the legal spelling of the eighteenth century:—­

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so be it.  This day, the feast of our lady Saincte-Geneviesve, patron saint of Paris, under whose protection have existed, since the year 1525 the clerks of this Practice, we the under-signed, clerks and sub-clerks of Maistre Jerosme-Sebastien Bordin, successor to the late Guerbet, in his lifetime procureur at the Chastelet, do hereby recognize the obligation under which we lie to renew and continue the register and the archives of installation of the clerks of this noble Practice, a glorious member of the Kingdom of Basoche, the which register, being now full in consequence of the many acts and deeds of our well-beloved predecessors, we have consigned to the Keeper of the Archives of the Palais for safe-keeping, with the registers of other ancient Practices; and we have ourselves gone, each and all, to hear mass at the parish church of Saint-Severin to solemnize the inauguration of this our new register.

In witness whereof we have hereunto signed our names:  Malin, head-clerk; Grevin, second-clerk; Athanase Feret, clerk; Jacques Heret, clerk; Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, clerk; Bedeau, youngest clerk and gutter-jumper.

  In the year of our Lord 1787.

  After the mass aforesaid was heard, we conveyed ourselves to
  Courtille, where, at the common charge, we ordered a fine
  breakfast; which did not end till seven o’clock the next morning.