"... autour d'une table avec Aline Giono, Louis et Georges le dernier carré des braves..."

Handwritten letter dated and signed, 20 lines by Alphonse Boudard to his great friend and companion of boozy lunches, Brussels journalist André Tillieu who was, like Alphonse Boudard, a great friend of Georges Brassens as well as Louis Nucéra.
Two fold marks inherent to placing the letter in its envelope, envelope included.
"Old friend,
yes indeed, I'm working... screenplays... television... and I no longer have time for friends.. alas! finally I'm releasing "La lanterne magique" in September under the title "Vulcanos" (name of the main character) for "Le gala", it's Balland who republished it. Without success... so he remaindered it. I must have a few copies... If you're in a hurry I'll send you one, otherwise I'll give it to you in person at our next meeting... which shouldn't be long! at least I hope so... around a table with Aline Giono, Louis (Nucéra) and Georges (Brassens) the last square of the brave. all my friendship. Aboudard."
André Tillieu from Brussels, very close friend and biographer of Georges Brassens, maintained an epistolary correspondence with Alphonse Boudard for almost thirty years, from 1972 until the latter's death in 2000.
The witty Parisian writer very quickly showed him friendship, considering him one of the rare critics to understand him perfectly to the point of clearly explaining in his reviews what he himself expressed only incompletely and sometimes confusedly in his books.
André Tillieu thus became part of the small circle of Alphonse Boudard's true friends on the same level as le Gros Georges (Georges Brassens), le Niçois (Louis Nucéra) and René Fallet with whom he loved to share hearty well-watered meals and cycling trips. As death gradually took away his best friends one by one, André Tillieu would remain one of Alphonse's very last pals.