Envelope included, a fold mark inherent to the letter being placed in the envelope.
"Vieux,
merci de ton petit mot... oui cette soirée était formidable. On va remettre ça dès que tu pointeras ton nez en pays civilisé (c'est à dire à Paris bien sûr) . Le livre (le Corbillard de Jules) a l'air de partir sur les chapeaux de roues... très bons papiers dans l'Express, Fr-soir, Figaro magazine... Je dois avoir "Match" et "le matin week-end" cette semaine. J'ai envoyé le Corbillard à Michèle Cedric... adressé à la R.T.B. peut-être l'a-t-elle reçu ? Dans ce cas préviens-moi, je lui en renverrai un à son domicile... A bientôt j'espère.. ton pote. 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 cheeky Parisian 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 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 trips. As death gradually took away his best friends one by one, André Tillieu would remain one of Alphonse's very last pals.