#MD20
1843
Folio (ca. 32x19,5 cm). 1 p. Brown ink on white paper. Signed by four “officials” and with four “official” stamps. Worn and mildly soiled, fold marks, overall a very good document.
A humorous fictional patent given to a young mariner “Pantelm” by “Us, Ministers and Officers of Equatorial parties” allows him to travel like a butterfly (parcourir en papillon) in their domain of legs and other seductive parts. Other paragraphs “enjoin all individuals of female sex between 18 and 26 years old to shelter him properly and to go with him with or without a candle”; and “pray the janissaires les regime to let the bearer of this certificate to circulate freely in our cities”.
The patent is written in “Our fortress of the Line and sealed on March 1843”. The “Officials” are: “Minister-protector of pregnant women and orphans” (La Chaleur), “Chief Intendant of the Pleasures of the Line” (Lajoie); “Extraordinary courier, the Chief of country roads the Line” (Brule pave), and “Monsier en chef of the Line” (Pousse moulin).
A very unusual document.
