"On aurait besoin de types comme toi dans la presse littéraire parisienne.. Hélas, elle est aux mains des cuistres !"

Handwritten letter dated and signed, 26 lines from Alphonse Boudard to his great friend and companion of boozy lunches, the Brussels journalist André Tillieu, who was, like Alphonse Boudard, a great friend of Georges Brassens but also of Jean Giono.
A fold mark inherent to the folding of the letter for mailing, envelope included.
"old friend,
magnificent your piece on Louis's book! (Louis Nucéra) It is written with friendship and competence... and then the one on Arland... bravo! We would need people like you in the Parisian literary press.. Alas, it is in the hands of pedants! I'm out of the woods... I'm getting back on my feet... a few more bandages and it will be completely fine... I've already taken up the felt-tip and blank sheet again, but for TV... my series which should be shot in March if all goes well... looking forward to seeing you soon, I give you five fraternal handshakes. 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 irreverent Parisian writer very quickly showed his friendship, considering him as one of the rare critics to understand him perfectly to the point of explaining clearly in his chronicles what he himself expressed only incompletely and sometimes confusedly in his books.
André Tillieu therefore 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.