“Description historique de l’hôtel royal des invalides” is a book of a quite astonishing size and weight. The centuries it endured made most pages very stiff and difficult to turn. The hard cover gives the book stability and is probably one of the reasons why its content is still quite readable – even after 250 years. The manual starts with a repeated title in different colors containing the extended headline as well as particular informations about the book. Sadly, after a couple pages turned, a bookworm seems to have found a meal and at the bottom/center of the book are small, round holes visible. The get bigger as we continue trough the book, gaining an loosing in diameter as well as amount of holes. Its chapters are very diverse, ranging from single descriptions over drawings of facades to different views on ground plans of the hotel royal itself. These plans are very carefully crafted, sometimes lacking any sort of explanation or clue on what its parts may represent. The workin general is intersected into very different ‘chapter-like’ parts. Some of them consist of plain texts without a single picture but with a repeated title on every page. Others fill the centre of its surfaces with pictures, not only those of buildings but artistic ones as well. It seems that Gabriel Pérau was interested in ancient stories, maybe even religious mythology. One thing that isnt making any sense to the the spectator is in between chapters, or even inside the chapters, blank pages appear in non-regular repetition. The reasons for that could be: a) the content was originally not written in this compact order. It is more likely that a series of informational letters or brochures was made, that could later on be assembled to this very book. Or b) some graphics that have spots of black ink needed this blank page between each other to prevent smearing.
