Dear friends of Thomas More,

     Promised since a long time, you hoped this Gazette for it at least Christmas and with the Kings it hit the longest road to reach you with the gold, the myrrhe and the incense of our wishes. Other unexpected topic: it is sent to you under the coverage of Moreana which welcomes it under the elder sister wing defender. The two last born ones of the family of the Friends of Thomas More (the English Gazette and the French Gazette) so form both volumes of Nb 63 for which you expected from Japan!

     As you can see, the unexpected skipped into the round of hours which led us near a new decade, binding the editorial team to a reorganization of 1979 and 1980 publications. The issue taken care by Japan, that of winter 1979, will be forwarded to you in next spring. It will be Nb 64, followed closely by a double number (65/66), whitch will bring us up to the end of the first half of the year 1980.

     The Moreana regulars will find the familiar face of their review there. Be confident, the Gazette does not replace Moreana. It is the complement, " useful and pleasant ", the annual issue of which allows to enrich the moriens events reports (up to here mentioned quickly in " éphémérides "); to present files (this time on More and the music, on the Utopia "everywhere", on the canonization) files that the French readers will have the pleasure to read entirety in their language; to give more ample news of the members of Amicale Thomas More (do not hesitate to write us, to place your questions, suggestions and criticisms); to finally improve the morien research for plentiful illustrations, drawings and photos.

     One of them (p. 95) fixes the moment when André Prévost handed to Jean-Paul II a copy of his critical edition of the Utopia. This work, greeted by the press as honouring the French culture, will be presented by the author to the angevin public, on February 6th of this year, on the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of More. Other documents deal with Geramny, Portugal, Japan, USA, USSR...

     The Gazette reflects the morien presence worldwide. It so finds its initial role of " talkative magpie ". One of its etymologies indeed connects the word gazeta in a diminutive of Venetian gaza: the jay. Another interpretation connects the origin of the word with the Byzantine Greek gaza: treasure. What was, from the XVIth century, a periodic information sheet, is thus offered to you here as a small documentation " treasure " about More and his time.

     From the XVIth century to our time, time passed by without depriving anything of the topicality of More as a writer, a political and a martyred man. As reminds it the Amici Thomae Mori slogan who appears on the coverage of every number of Moreana : Time Trieth Truth (adaptation of a sentence of More, " Plea of Souls ", in 1529). The time puts the truth in test.

     As in the course of time evoked by the reproduction of an Anjou sundial taken from Pierre Dabin's work about time in angevine province (Le Rayon Noir), so in the course of the hours of this new year, the truth of the morien brilliance is for you, all the year round, is that of the friendship.