" Nous laissons à Maison Rose, une servante, qui vient d'accoucher - et allons trouver, à Lourmarin, une autre servante, Geneviève, qui se prépare à en faire autant. La France se repeuple. Il n'y a rien au monde que je craigne tant. "

Autograph letter signed by Henri Bosco addressed to his friend and summer neighbor Georges Raillard (40 lines in blue ink on a recto-verso sheet) from his home in Nice.
Fold mark inherent to envelope insertion, envelope included.
The author of Mas Théotime is leaving for two summer months at his property in Lourmarin and is concerned about not having been entirely reimbursed for his expenses generated by the lectures he gave in Cadiz, Georges Raillard being mandated to inquire about this pecuniary problem.
Henri Bosco reproaches himself for having accepted too many requests: "... j'ai accepté trop d'obligations, et comme le dit le mot, cela me lie et m'agace" ["... I have accepted too many obligations, and as the word says, this binds me and annoys me"] and this is why he now imposes a complete refusal: "... je refuse donc colloques, préfaces, postfaces, articulets - à quoi je suis inégalissime. J'attends quelques assauts à Lourmarin..." ["... I therefore refuse symposiums, prefaces, postfaces, brief articles - at which I am most unequal. I expect some assaults at Lourmarin..."]
When he stays at Lourmarin, he will watch over the health and physical integrity of the beloved donkeys of his Luberon: "Autre affaire, on reprend T.V. Âne. Réapparition du jeune Goldenberg, qui avait malmené ce petit quadrupède. Il jure de réparer tout cela, cet été. J'ai été sévère. J'attends. Je me méfie." ["Another matter, we resume T.V. Donkey. Reappearance of young Goldenberg, who had mistreated this little quadruped. He swears to repair all this, this summer. I have been severe. I wait. I am wary."]
Henri Bosco finally evokes the ancillary births surrounding him: "Nous laissons à Maison Rose, une servante, qui vient d'accoucher - et allons trouver, à Lourmarin, une autre servante, Geneviève, qui se prépare à en faire autant. La France se repeuple. Il n'y a rien au monde que je craigne tant." ["We leave at Maison Rose, a servant, who has just given birth - and are going to find, at Lourmarin, another servant, Geneviève, who is preparing to do likewise. France is repopulating itself. There is nothing in the world I fear so much."]