Armance

"Armance"(1827) is the first novel written and published by the French writer Stendhal.The work describes the complicated relationship between two lovers (Armance and Octave): a series of misunderstandings  keeps them separate. For a series of clues, it suggests that Octave is impotent due to a rather serious accident .Always restless, dark and full of inner conflicts, the boy of high society in Paris was doubtful and very thoughtful about his true vocation. Do something concrete, like a military career or take refuge in the priesthood? This question will bring Octave to a kind of inability to love others. So, broken, he decides to escape from his beloved, embarking on a ship bound for Greece. Several critics have seen in "Armance" a fundamental metaphor: the unstable, anxious and decadent character of Octave would perfectly describe the decadence and political instability of that historical period.