Sometime ago you wrote:
"When I left Cambridge, Frank Smithies, possibly responding to my deeply
frivolous approach to mathematics, gave me a copy of a wedding invitation
(rather a 'fare-part', French style) to the wedding of Betti, daughter of
Monsieur et Madame Bourbaki, to Hector Petard, pupil of Monsieur Ersarz
Stanislas Pondiczery. It's stuffed with bad puns, of which I'm sure I only
understand a small fraction. I have no idea when it was composed, or by
whom -- has anyone else heard of it?"
Below I type out the invitation:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Monsieur NICOLAS BOURBAKI, Membre Canonique de l'Acade/mie Royale de
Polde/vie, Grand Mai^tre de l'Ordre des Compacts, Conservateur des
Uniformes, Lord Protecteur des Filtres, et Madame, ne/e BIUNIVOQUE,
ont l'honneur de vous faire part du mariage de leur fille BETTI
avec Monsieur HECTOR PE/TARD, Administrateur-De/le/gue/ de la
Socie/te/ des Structures Induites, Membre Diplo^me/ de l'Institute
of Class-field Archaeologists, Secre/taire de l'OEuvre du Sou du Lion.
Monsieur ERSATZ STANISLAS PONDICZERY, Complexe de Recouvrement de
Premie\re Classe en retraite, Pre/sident du Home de Re/e/ducation
des Faiblement Convergents, Chevalier des Quatre U, Grand Ope/rateur
du Groupe Hyperbolique, Knight of the Total Order of the Golden
Mean, L.U.B., C.C., H.L.C., et Madame, ne/e COMPACTENSOI, ont
l'honneur de vous faire part du mariage de leur pupille HECTOR
PE/TARD avec Mademoiselle BETTI BOURBAKI, ancienne e/le\ve des
Bienordonne/es de Besse.
L'isomorphisme trivial leur sera donne/ par le P. Adique,
de l'Ordre des Diophantiens, en la Cohomologie principale de
la Varie/te/ Universelle, le 3 Cartembre, an VI, a\ l'heure
habituelle.
L'orgue sera tenu par Monsieur Modulo, Assistant Simplexe
de la Grassmannienne (lemmes chante/s par la Scholia Cartanorum).
Le produit de la que^te sera verse/ inte/gralement a la maison
de retraite des Pauvres Abstraits. La convergence sera assure/e.
Apres la congruence, Monsieur et Madame Bourbaki
recevront dans leurs domaines fondamentaux. Sauterie
avec le concours de la fanfare du 7e Corps Quotient.
Tenue canonique
(ide/aux a\ gauche a la boutonnie\re). C.Q.F.D.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"The manuscripts they [the police] found [in November 1939] appeared
suspicious - like those of Sophus Lie, arrested on charges of spying
in Paris, in 1870. They also found several rolls of stenotypewritten
paper at the bottom of a closet. When I said these were the text of a
Balzac novel, the explanation must have seemed far-fetched. There was
also a letter in Russian, from Pontrjagin, I believe, in response to
a letter I had written at the beginning of the summer regarding a
possible visit to Leningrad; and a packet of calling cards belonging
to Nicolas Bourbaki, member of the Royal Academy of Poldavia, and even
some copies of his daughter Betti Bourbaki's wedding invitation, which
I had composed and had printed in Cambridge several months earlier in
collaboration with Chabauty and my wife."
[Weil, Andre: "The Apprenticeship of a Mathematician", Basel-Boston-Berlin:
Birkhaeuser Verlag, 1992. Cf. p. 133]
Greetings from Montevideo,
Julio GC