"J'espère bien aller te saluer un de ces quatre en Bruxellie."

Signed manuscript letter on Bristol card of 8 lines by Alphonse Boudard, on letterhead from his Parisian address in Nouvelle Athènes in the 9th arrondissement, to his great friend and companion of well-watered lunches, the Brussels journalist André Tillieu who was, like Alphonse Boudard, a great friend of Georges Brassens but also of Jean Giono.
Envelope included.
"Merci, vieux pote, de ta bonne lettre. Je sais que tru es un amateur éclairé... alors tout ce que tu me dis me touche dans le mille. J'espère bien aller te saluer un de ces quatre en Bruxellie. Mon amitié. Ab." ["Thank you, old friend, for your good letter. I know that you are an enlightened amateur... so everything you tell me hits the bull's eye. I really hope to go and greet you one of these days in Brussels. My friendship. Ab."]
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 cheeky Parisian writer quickly showed him his friendship, considering him one of the rare critics to understand him perfectly to the point of clearly explaining in his chronicles 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 liked to share hearty well-watered meals and cycling expeditions. As death gradually took away his best friends one by one, André Tillieu would remain one of Alphonse's very last buddies.