EPURATION. Exceptional book of autographs by René BOURDILLON "Le coiffeur de Fresnes" containing a collection of dedications, a few poems and drawings, including one by Gui HANRO, from prisoners during what is generally known as the "purge" period. Most of the inmates of Fresnes prison who signed were either senior civil servants, former Vichy ministers such as Marcel PEYROUTON, Jean ACHARD, Louis COLSON, Max BONNAFOUS, Maxime WEYGAND, François LEHIDEUX, Jacques LEROY LADURIE, Yves BOUTHILLIER, Adrien MARQUET, General BERGERET, Georges RIPERT, prefects such as René BOUSQUET, secretary general of the police prefecture, P. BOISSON, Governor General of the Colonies, Gaston BERGERY, Ambassador, police or security officials, journalists or intellectuals such as Jacques BENOIST-MECHIN, Claude JEANTET, HEROLD-PAQUIS (shot in October 1945), career soldiers such as Admiral ESTEVA, General BRIDOUX, soldiers who had served in the French Volunteers Legion (LVF), such as André DEMESSINE, who was shot in March 1945, Pierre GAREL, LVF inspector, agents of the French Gestapo, such as Georges LEDANSEURS, who was shot in April 1945, Doctor MENETREL, Marshal PÉTAIN's personal physician, artists, including TINO ROSSI, who wrote: "It's a pleasure to be shaved by the Figaro on rue Montparnasse." Joseph DARNAND, head of the Militia, also signed his name, writing "To my comrade Bourdillon in homage to his loyalty", and Pierre LAVAL signed "Cordially with all sympathy". The most striking letter is from Robert BRASILLACH, dated 5 February 1945, the day before he died (no doubt it was his last session at the barber's), who wrote "Je suis partout et ailleurs" ("I am everywhere and elsewhere")... Enclosed is a letter addressed to René Bourdillon in 1947 and his humorous portrait as a barber at Fresnes, a Christmas card (1944) entirely hand-illustrated by Gui HANRO and containing a poem entitled "Noël en taule" by R. Brasillach, another poem signed "A.D" dedicated to the memory of this intellectual and dated 6 March 1945, a photocopy of a will signed by Pierre Garel sentenced to death in January 1945. René BOURDILLON, a former soldier, joined the LVF, which led to his internment at Fresnes in 1944, where he became the prison's "Figaro" and looked after most of the imprisoned "collaborators", from the most humble to their best-known leaders, LAVAL and DARNAND, both of whom were shot in 1945.