Friends, dear friends
by Bernard Pivot
Allary Éditions, 162 p., €17.90.
Bernard Pivot is gone. Two years ago, he submitted his final work, an ancient treatise on friendship as well as a debt of gratitude to his dear elected officials whose presence was a wealth for him. In the exercise of his profession, the chamberlain of “Apostrophes” had imposed a rule of conduct on himself. Maintain a certain distance, stick to esteem and admiration. He agreed to lift this barrier for a few writers, few in number. In this testamentary work, he only grants the title of true friend to a dozen people, including Jorge Semprun, Jean-Claude Lattès, Robert Sabatier, Jean Chalon, Jérôme Garcin, Michel Piccoli, François Périer, Pierre Perret.
Before describing what linked their affinities, Bernard Pivot composed the vade mecum which distinguishes friendship from love, taking up certain characteristics (attraction, evidence, affection, attachment, trust) . The impulses, comparable to foreplay, are tinged with curiosity, sympathy, admiration. It evokes the ups and downs, the periods of relaxation, the quarrels, the false friends. And the unexpected reversals of inclination: an argument with Jean d’Ormesson which led to his departure from the Figaro turns, over time, into true friendship, or this unpredictable turn towards Régis Debray who had crucified him and whose company he enjoyed as a table neighbor at the Académie Goncourt.
Optimism and cheerfulness
” Ultimately, he asks himself, what is a true, total friendship? How do we recognize true friends? » For him, optimism and cheerfulness cement its foundations.
From childhood, he only kept his friend Paul, a pastry chef, with whom he continued to share silent fishing trips and his specialty, the Mâconnais ideal. (“meringue crusts filled with crushed nougatine buttercream”…).
Nothing, according to him, seals this reciprocal attachment better than a good bottle of wine which loosens tongues and confidences. In the manner of La Bruyère, he also paints concise and varied portraits, encouraged by the vulgarities of Sacha Guitry or the implacable demands of Voltaire.
Many would undoubtedly have liked to be this man’s friend, to break bread with him, to clink glasses, to share certain moments, to unceremoniously unwind the ball of long conversations… Did Bernard Pivot take away in death, like a talisman for the afterlife, this privileged link which helped him get through life? “Friendship pushes the walls, broadens the perspective, lengthens the arm, the step and the time. »
