La verité sur la fuite et l'arrestation de Louis XVI à Varennes d'après des documents inédits 1866

This is Étienne Auguste Ancelon's book, "La vérité sur la fuite et l'arrestation de Louis XVI à Varennes d'après des documents inédits". The opened book offers a study in contrasts, the left page blank, aged and stained, confronts a densely inscribed right page bordered by a distinct frame. This juxtaposition creates a visual tension between absence and presence, information and void. The book's materiality suggests that the structure of historical narratives are formed and influenced by absences as much as by what is recorded. The marbled endpapers add an ornamental flourish, a coded cultural artefact. The book as an object becomes a signifier in itself. It's physical dimensions – the height, width and thickness – give it a sculptural presence. The book's formal qualities invite one to consider how it challenges notions of historical truth, suggesting that narratives of power are always mediated through material forms and open to interpretation.