Edith Piaf who - with the now-immortal Cerdan- is France's idol, has for me too almost replaced Billie Holiday. I cannot forget how, rue de la Harpe and later at the Hôtel du Bon La Fontaine, we would sit for hours on end drinking wine and listening again and again to those two records ("Un homme comme les Autres," "Je m'en fous pas mal") sung by this brave unnoticeable, tiny, rigid woman, tears streaming down our faces, knowing that we ourselves were in her mouth, a mouth howling the most brazen clichés.