Francis CARCO (1886-1958). L.A.S., Villefranche July 1, 1911, to Robert de La Vaissière, at the "Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale"; 7 pages in-8 on Chambre des Députés letterhead, envelope. 2 L.A.S. enclosed: April 25, 1938 Lovely, long, friendly, literary letter from the young Carco to his former classmate and friend at the Lycée d'Agen... Carco fears he has "made a blunder" by leaving Paris too soon: "My friends are closing several salons to me with their perfidious praise. The scoundrels! They say that my "thin lips" and my "roguish smile" hide a beautiful cow ready for anything. I'm deeply convinced of it myself, but it's not a lot to go on when I'm not around. There will be reprisals, for God's sake! And it all stems from that damned Revue" where he dressed up as an Apache. He thinks he'll be back soon to sort things out... He mentions a "thin intrigue", with "the sister of someone who has a useful salon from which the comrades seek to debunk me [...] To be twisted... I'm the friend with whom you don't sleep but who allows you to forget the husband etc.". In short, this charming child is perhaps going to restore everything by getting me the order for a Revue de rentrée [...] Naturally, the gossip will be the mistress of the house. The buddies will play the dangerous roles, the little troublemakers the innuendos. We'll have a good laugh"... He has other projects in the pipeline, including a small anthology with Pellerin and Tristan Derème, and a preface by Hirsch: "Les copains vont la boucler! With them, he also hopes to "launch a leaflet on the boulevard", in which he proposes to his friend a rather biting column, "for example Les Morts Vivants, you'd be learning your journalism", or echoes: "With five or six of us, we could have an organ of great scope for Paris. The paper would be written exclusively by us. We'd miss out on literary prizes by giving them out in advance. [...] In each issue, a bas-bleu bashing, theaters, novels, a feature article on us (of course) and nasty things like Les Morts Vivants"... He proposes the title Paris l'hiver, 5 centimes an issue, shouted out on the Boulevards and at newsstands; with a boulevard café as the newsroom: "We need to create a boulevard café for our generation, rather than neighborhood attics. The whole thing would be kept secret. I think it's feasible. From there we could easily move into journalism, which pays and makes people known"... La Vaissière could thus perhaps give up his job at the bank, where his uncle had placed him... 2 L.A.S. enclosed: April 25, 1938, refusing an invitation, taken "by my film in which I have committed myself to shooting"... April 10, 1945, to Jean Réande, authorizing him to "reproduce the IVth chapter of Nostalgie de Paris in the book you are preparing"...