Grasse is a large town based on the tourism of perfume.
For the perfume enthusiast, the perfume museum is interesting to walk around and there are also the three main perfume houses Galimard, Fragonard and Molinard.
I suggest, like all beautiful French towns, walk around and explore, then find somewhere to sit down and have some good food and wine.
GETTING TO GRASSE
Once you arrive at the Grasse train station, walk out of the station to your right is the tourism office, below the bus stop.
Ask at the office how to walk up or how to bus, being with A the lover of steps and hills we walked past the bus stop to the zebra crossing walked up a drive way, then followed our nose and a few signs up to Grasse, the walk is rather run-down, across roads and through littered alley ways.
“Odours have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.” (Perfume, P. Suskind)
H I S T O R Y
Grasse is an ancient city north of Provence, in between the sea and the mountains. It is an important medieval site, the region produces the most precious flowers of France.
Since the Middle Ages the city has been an important economical centre, characterized by a considerable number of tannery and glove-factories, that produced hides whose high quality made the city famous in the whole Europe.
In XVI century the fashion of perfumed gloves (started by Caterina de’ Medici to avoid the unpleasant odour of leather gloves) and the cultivation of aromatic plants, used to perfume leather, gave birth to perfume industry.
At the beginning of the XVIII century the corporation of glovers-perfumers started to stand out from tanners, at the point that in 1729 they gained an own statute, and year after year the production of perfumed oils became more profitable than that of leather gloves.
In XIX century the city became an industrial centre.
Three are the giants of perfume in “the only city where the word factory is poetical” (Francis de Croisset): Galimard, Fragonard and Molinard.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is the protagonist from Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume, published in 1985 and set in Grasse. Grenouille is born with an extreme form of hyperosmia (an abnormally strong sense of smell), which eventually leads to him becoming a serial killer.
Part one
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in the fish market in Paris, on July 17, 1738. His mother, who would have let him die, was executed shortly after Grenouille's birth. Even though he has a phenomenal sense of smell, he has no odour of his own, which repelled every wet nurse in the cloister. He was given to the church for a short time and was eventually brought to Madame Gaillard's orphanage and sold to Monsieur Grimal's tannery at 8 years old. In September 1753, Grenouille becomes enchanted by the scent of a redheaded (assumed) girl from the Rue de Marais, who is peeling plums. Grenouille strangles the girl out of impulse and smells as much of her as he can, as soon as she is dead. From then on, he dedicated his life to preserving the girl's scent. He became apprenticed to Giuseppe Baldini, a renowned Italian perfumer, and quickly mastered distillation, creating hundreds of new perfumes. At the age of 18, Jean-Baptiste left for Grasse to learn enfleurage, since it was impossible to distill the scent of a human being (he found this out after trying to distill a cat). Baldini agrees to give Grenouille traveling papers if Grenouille agrees to leave him at least 100 new formulas and promises never to return to Paris.
Part two
Grenouille travels by night, through the mountains, to get to Grasse. He avoids other people as much as he can. In Auvergne, he settles in a cave where he stays for seven years, living in an imaginary purple castle in his head. In his fantasies, the scents he has smelled throughout his life are drinks, standing around him in bottles. Throughout these seven years, he emerges from the cave only at night. He finds he lacks for nothing in the cave, and may have stayed there permanently if not for the occurrence of a 'catastrophe.' In the cave, Grenouille discovers he has no smell of his own. This discovery moves Grenouille to continue to Grasse.
Part three
After leaving his cave, Grenouille spends a short amount of time with the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse and then ends up working for Madame Arnulfi in Grasse, where he learns the method of enfleurage. Grenouille also discovers another red-headed girl named Laure Richis, an exquisitely beautiful girl whose scent is even better than that of the girl from the Rue de Marais. When he first notices her, she is still very young (about 14) and Grenouille wants to wait 2 years before trying to capture her scent. However, the only way to capture a living being's scent is by killing that being. Before Laure, Grenouille kills 24 other beautiful young girls for their scent. He cuts their hair and takes their clothes with him. His lack of scent becomes a great asset to him, as he is never caught. When another murderer is caught in Grenoble, everyone in Grasse believes the murder spree is over except for Antoine Richis, Laure's father. Antoine then figures out the murderer's way of thinking and decides to flee, intending to marry his daughter off. The first night of their journey is spent in La Napoule, but Grenouille tracks them down and murders Laure. Even though he leaves before anyone else wakes up, he is arrested shortly after Laure's murder and the court decides to execute him. But by that time, he has already made a perfume out of Laure's hair and clothes.
Süskind refers to what happens on the day of the execution as a 'Promethean act.' Laure's scent inspires so much love that it causes the 10,000 people in the crowd to enact an orgy, and to consider Grenouille the most amazing person they have ever seen. Grenouille, however, only feels hatred for them. When even Antoine Richis comes to Grenouille begging for forgiveness, Grenouille faints. When he wakes up again, he is in Laure's bed while Antoine holds his hand and asks him to be his son. All Grenouille wants to do, however, is return to Paris and die.
Part four
Grenouille now knows that he can never love like others, nor can he smell himself, but he has the power to do whatever he wants: 'the invincible power to command the love of mankind.' When he returns to the fish market where he was born, he tips the flask over his head. The criminals prowling around the market see him as an angel, and eat him. When they are done, it feels as though they had 'for the first time in their life, done something purely out of love.
E N F L E U R A G E
In cold enfleurage, a large framed plate of glass, called a chassis, is smeared with a layer of animal fat, usually lard or tallow (from pork or beef, respectively), and allowed to set. Botanical matter, usually petals or whole flowers, is then placed on the fat and its scent is allowed to diffuse into the fat over the course of 1-3 days. The process is then repeated by replacing the spent botanicals with fresh ones until the fat has reached a desired degree of fragrance saturation.
This procedure was developed in southern France in the 19th century for the production of high-grade concentrates.
In hot enfleurage, solid fats are heated and botanical matter is stirred into the fat. Spent botanicals are repeatedly strained from the fat and replaced with fresh material until the fat is saturated with fragrance. This method is considered the oldest known procedure for preserving plant fragrance substances.
In both instances, once the fat is saturated with fragrance, it is then called the "enfleurage pomade". The enfleurage pomade was either sold as it was, or it could be further washed or soaked in ethyl alcohol to draw the fragrant molecules into the alcohol. The alcohol is then separated from the fat and allowed to evaporate, leaving behind the absolute of the botanical matter. The spent fat is usually used to make soaps since it is still relatively fragrant.
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