This day, Monday, November 25th, 1822, after a session held yesterday at the rue de la Cerisaie, Arsenal quarter, at the house of Madame Clapart, mother of the candidate-basochien Oscar Husson, we, the undersigned, declare that the repast of admission surpassed our expectations.  It was composed of radishes, pink and black, gherkins, anchovies, butter and olives for hors-d’oeuvre; a succulent soup of rice, bearing testimony to maternal solicitude, for we recognized therein a delicious taste of poultry; indeed, by acknowledgment of the new member, we learned that the gibbets of a fine stew prepared by the hands of Madame Clapart herself had been judiciously inserted into the family soup-pot with a care that is never taken except in such households.

  Item:  the said gibbets inclosed in a sea of jelly.

  Item:  a tongue of beef with tomatoes, which rendered us all
  tongue-tied automatoes.

  Item:  a compote of pigeons with caused us to think the angels had
  had a finger in it.

  Item:  a timbale of macaroni surrounded by chocolate custards.

Item:  a dessert composed of eleven delicate dishes, among which we remarked (in spite of the tipsiness caused by sixteen bottles of the choicest wines) a compote of peaches of august and mirobolant delicacy.

The wines of Roussillon and those of the banks of the Rhone completely effaced those of Champagne and Burgundy.  A bottle of maraschino and another of kirsch did, in spite of the exquisite coffee, plunge us into so marked an oenological ecstasy that we found ourselves at a late hour in the Bois de Boulogne instead of our domicile, where we thought we were.

In the statutes of our Order there is one rule which is rigidly enforced; namely, to allow all candidates for the privilege of Basoche to limit the magnificence of their feast of welcome to the length of their purse; for it is publicly notorious that no one delivers himself up to Themis if he has a fortune, and every clerk is, alas, sternly curtailed by his parents.  Consequently, we hereby record with the highest praise the liberal conduct of Madame Clapart, widow, by her first marriage, of Monsieur Husson, father of the candidate, who is worthy of the hurrahs which we gave for her at dessert.

  To all of which we hereby set our hands.

  [Signed by all the clerks.]

Three clerks had already been deceived by the Book, and three real “receptions of welcome,” were recorded on this imposing register.

The day after the arrival of each neophyte, the little sub-clerk (the errand-boy and “gutter-jumper”) laid upon the new-comer’s desk the “Archives Architriclino-Basochiennes,” and the clerks enjoyed the sight of his countenance as he studied its facetious pages.  Inter pocula each candidate had learned the secret of the farce, and the revelation inspired him with the desire to hoax his successor.