The sky is gray, the atmosphere icy.
In addition to the several dozen journalists present, a large handful of anonymous people are posted in front of the Saint-Roch church, in the heart of the capital.
They wait patiently in the bitter cold.
Intrigued by this crowd, a passerby stops to ask what the hell is going on.
They are not extras and it is a very bad film which is played in this setting of stones.
“It's Claude Brasseur's funeral
,” replies a worker in construction uniform, who came with his colleague to pay a last tribute to the actor.
To read also: Claude Brasseur, popular actor
In more than sixty years of career, the actor capable of taking on all roles brilliantly will have marked several generations of spectators.
“
I've seen it since I was young, I watched
Vidocq
on TV when I was a kid,
” says Michel, a young retiree.
For Isabelle, the same age as Sophie Marceau, it was in
La Boum
that she discovered the actor.
It was forty years ago.
It was yesterday.
"We keep an image of him as a bon vivant"
, she says, also referring to "
the man of the theater
" and his last popular roles in the cinema, in
Camping
in
particular.
"
He left to join his friends in paradise
", finally slips Didier, another faithful hidden behind the photographer's parterre.
He obviously evokes the film by Yves Robert that Brasseur had almost refused.
"
Actors too often have career plans,"
he lamented.
My agent had urged me to refuse. An elephant that deceives a lot.
He thought it would displease my customers!
I told him he was mistaking me for a grocer and fired him.
There are too few good movies to miss.
"
"
These are generations that we will never find again
", he regrets with a touch of nostalgia, as if a whole part of his past suddenly held between his four boards which come out of the hearse in a leaden silence.
Whereas, for him, Claude Brasseur, son of Pierre, was above all a "
banter
", an "
old-fashioned character
" with "
a voice that you can hear at the end of the world and that you will recognize
" .
A good living.
The actor had followed the advice of his father, the great Pierre, to choose the directors with whom to shoot.
"If you want to go have a drink with him, you can go,"
he told her.
Claude Brasseur was a child of the ball.
But by accident.
A child of chance as he said after having discovered in the memories of his mother, Odette Joyeux, that she did not want a child.
Chance would have it...
His head hidden under a black felt fedora and blue ribbon, Alexandre Brasseur discreetly arrives with the imposing hearse carrying the coffin of his late father.
The crackle of the cameras breaks this fragile moment as Christophe would say.
His ex-wife, Juliette Brasseur, and his children Louis and Jeanne accompany him.
Pandemic forces, the guests are not numerous.
The famous cinema family is reduced to its simplest device.
But we can still distinguish behind the masks several personalities of the cinema.
The actor Jean-Paul Rouve who played twice with Claude Brasseur in 2011 and 2012, Fabien Onteniente, the director of the
Camping
trilogy
, Daniel Russo, Danièle Thompson, Nicole Calfan or even Jean Benguigui and Jean-Marie Bigard who are arriving one after the other.
“You told me that your only small ambition would be to be part of the nostalgia for tomorrow.
I believe that all of us here already have nostalgia for yesterday ”
Alexandre Brasseur
A few minutes before the start of the ceremony, the security offers admirers who wish to enter the place of worship. About a hundred of them accepted the invitation, with good grace. From the steps of the "
artists
'
church
" to under the magnificent dome decorated by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre, the coffin is escorted by the family, Michèle Cambon, the actor's last wife, and mother of Alexandre, on your mind. Accompanied by notes of the organ, the emotion is intense. Father Luc Reydel leads the mass, first leaving the floor to Alexandre. “
Death is sad but life is beautiful. And God knows he loved her shamelessly,
”he is moved, leaving little pauses between each sentence. “
You told me that your only small ambition would be to be part of the nostalgia for tomorrow. I believe that all of us here are already nostalgic for yesterday. Thank you dad! We love you
”. His son Louis, heir to a long line of actors, succeeded him at the desk to read
Jacques Prévert's
Happiness
to the assembly
. After a sober service, lasting less than an hour, in memory of Claude Brasseur, the church empties. And applause accompanies the release of the remains of Claude Brasseur. Remained outside during mass, the former driver René Metge, with whom Claude Brasseur - a great car enthusiast - traveled the tracks of the Paris-Dakar for three years, also came to say "
a last goodbye
" to him. In frost and tears, the hearse sets off towards the Père-Lachaise cemetery, where the actor will rest with his father, Pierre.