Missel des Serviteurs de Marie [extra illustrated]

pp 592 Custom-bound French missal which has been embellished with family mementoes as an aid to prayer and meditation including a 1944 letter written by 'R Sagnieres', a grieving mother, to Lieutenant Cherassus from Embrun in the Haute-Alpes asking for more information about 'la mort de mon cher fils' and begging for the return of some of his possessions, 'son portefeuille, qui doit contenu des photo, Ce me serait une grande consolation...' The preoccupation with physical memories and relics of the dead runs through the volume with thirty or so items contained within the prayer book, each lodged at a page containing an appropriate printed prayer often with extensive finger marking to those pages where the relics have prompted and supported prolonged religious meditation. The book is bound in polished black goatskin with the gilt initials 'R.A.' - a member of the Arduin family - to the upper cover; fleur de lys endpapers; photographs of family members laid in along with printed prayer cards, remembrance cards with tiny albumen photographs; a thread touched against Therese of Lisieux, souvenirs of First Communion, and a photo 'de ma maman, 1940', pressed flowers etc.