"Je suis presque boycoté. Savoir pourquoi ? Le monde des lettres est auu main d'un clan... NRF... Sollers... et quelques autres, et ils savent que la meilleure tactique pour t'éliminer c'est de faire silence. "

Manuscript letter dated and signed, 17 lines from Alphonse Boudard to his great friend and companion of well-lubricated lunches, the Brussels journalist André Tillieu who was, like Alphonse Boudard, a great friend of Georges Brassens but also of Louis Nucéra.
This letter is moreover written from Louis Nucéra's home where Alphonse Boudard spends a few days of summer vacation each year.
A crease mark inherent to folding the letter for mailing.
"vieux
merci de ton envoie du papier de Michel Grodent. Il est effectivement très positif. J'espère que j'aurais d'autres articles dans la presse belge parce qu'ici ce n'est pas folichon. Je suis presque boycoté. Savoir pourquoi ? Le monde des lettres est auu main d'un clan... NRF... Sollers... et quelques autres, et ils savent que la meilleure tactique pour t'éliminer c'est de faire silence. Comme si tu n'existait pas. Fort heureusement j'ai des lecteurs et mon éditeur me soutient assez bien. Je t'espère en bonne forme. Pour "Valsez saucisses" je vais m'en occuper à Paris... Je rentre le 20... Toute mon amitié.. . ABoudard." ["old friend, thanks for sending Michel Grodent's article. It is indeed very positive. I hope I'll have other articles in the Belgian press because here it's not very cheerful. I'm almost boycotted. Why? The world of letters is in the hands of a clan... NRF... Sollers... and a few others, and they know that the best tactic to eliminate you is to remain silent. As if you didn't exist. Fortunately I have readers and my publisher supports me quite well. I hope you're in good shape. For "Valsez saucisses" I'll take care of it in Paris... I'm returning on the 20th... All my friendship... ABoudard."]
André Tillieu the Brusseler, 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 Parisian wisecracking writer very quickly showed him his friendship, considering him as 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-lubricated meals and cycling excursions. As death gradually took away his best friends one by one, André Tillieu remained one of Alphonse's very last buddies.