It is a 1967 French paperback of Stendhal’s Armance, a romance novel originally published in 1827 which revolves around Octave de Malivert, a taciturn but brilliant young man, who is attracted to Armance Zohiloff, who shares his feelings. It describes how a series of misunderstandings have kept the lovers Armance and Octave divided.
The book in and of itself in unremarkable, something you could buy in Paris at a used book shop for a couple of Euros. However, the axiom “never judge a book by its cover” is uniquely appropriate here, for when I loosely thumbed its pages I found countless small drawings adorning them. They appear to be inspired by the text and were done by a family friend as a gift.
The inscription says (translated from French): “To Alfred and Natalie Copponex from François Fosch, with gratitude for the enduring memories.”
Armance had a surprise for me that went beyond the story of two young lovers.