Protocol (Procès-verbal de constat). On the 8th of March, before me, Paul Henri Brionne, magistrate of the civil court of Paris, in my office on rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 33, appeared M. ----,[1] of the periodical Fantasio, whose residence is in Paris, boulevard Poissonière, 14, and declared: "Every year there takes place an exhibition of various works of drawing, painting, and sculpture under the name of the Salon of the Independent Artists; "This exhibition is open for all painters, and unfortunately, alongside with productions of high value there figure ridiculous works that have no signs of art; "In order to show to what extent any work can be accepted in that exhibition, to the detriment of the meritorious productions, he intends to send there in the name of Fantasio, a picture the author of which would be a donkey. The picture will be entered in the catalogue under the title Et le soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique, and signed J. R. Boronali; "For said reasons he asks me to be present at the painting of said picture in order to witness the process and draw an official report about it." Having consented to the request, I went in the company of Messrs. ----, the editors of Fantasio, to the cabaret du Lapin Agile, where in front of said establishment Messrs. ---- set up a new canvas on a chair that took the place of an easel. In my presence they arranged paints--blue, green, yellow, and red; to the tail-extremity of the donkey, which belongs to the owner of the cabaret Lapin Agile, was tied a paint-brush. Then the donkey was brought to the canvas, and M. ---- upholding the brush and the tail of the beast allowed her to daub in all directions taking care only of changing the paints on the brush. I assured myself that the picture presented various tones passing from blue into green and from yellow into red without constituting anything definite and resembling nothing. When the work had been finished, in my presence the picture and author were photographed. In testimony of the aforesaid I have written and issued this protocol for legal use. P. BRIONNE. [Footnote 1: The names were not revealed.] From the photograph it may be seen that the donkey had been teased with some appetizing food held before his mouth, to which tantalization the so-called Boronali responded with the wags of his "tail-extremity," according to the phraseology of the solemn document.