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- Why Marie Antoinette
Wore Perfume and Why You Should be Glad You're Alive Now
by Joanna
McLaughlin |
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Perfume isn't new. Marie Antoinette
wore perfume when she was Queen of France. She wasn't even the
first queen to wear perfume or engage the services of an official
perfume-maker. Catherine de Medici (also Queen of France, many
years earlier) brought with her a man to serve as royal perfumer
when she left her native Italy to marry Henri II of France. The
perfumer she brought had served the Medici family for many years
before embarking with Catherine to France. In Italy, he had been
the Medici's official poison-maker. This was a man of considerable
professional versatility.
Catherine
de Medici was an interesting character. She was the richest woman
in the world at the time, not particularly good looking, and
the last of a great Italian dynasty that-as you remember-retained
the services of a poison-maker on staff. Catherine did not grow
up in a lovey-dovey household and her uncles quickly decided
that it would be best for all concerned (and by "all"
they meant "themselves") if Catherine were to marry
into a powerful political family. |
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Meanwhile, the Valois family was
ruling one of the most powerful nations on earth, France. The
Valois were powerful, self-absorbed, extremely cultured, and
broke. A deal was made to wed Catherine to Henri in 1533. (Both
were 14 which was considered a grand age to be married in those
days.) Catherine moved to France to be with her new husband.
In a few years, Henri II was king, Catherine was queen, and the
king had taken on his father's mistress, a woman many years his
senior.
Catherine devoted
her life to a variety of interests including being the patron
of Nostradamus, perfume, and annoying her husband's mistress.
When her husband died in a freak accident, she saw her sons ascend
to the power while she was pretty much the power behind the throne.
What happened in Catherine's
day in the world of perfume was that a very skillful Italian
perfumer was suddenly introduced to a world of new flowers, plants,
and herbs. Back then, perfumers only had natural substances to
work and this bounty of new botanicals naturally led to the creation
of more floral fragrances.
By
the time the Bourbons came into power in France, perfume had
not only risen to an art, it was regarded as medical necessity.
Despite the opulence of the palaces of France, they lacked indoor
plumbing. According to historians who somehow report to know
such things, it was not uncommon to find human excrement in the
elegant carpeted stairways of the great palaces. Piles could
be found in hallways and corridors. With bathing a rarity and
a rather liberal interpretation of the word rest room, the world
of the French court stank.
One
way for the cultured nostrils of the day to survive such an environment
was to constantly dab a bit of scent under the nose. It's similar
to the approach some coroners use when they apply mentholated
ointment to their noses before an autopsy. Besides that, perfume
was thought to be antiseptic. During the dark days of the Black
Plague (when about a third of Europe died), it was believed that
those who could keep sniffing perfume would be somehow protected.
This idea of rich people sniffing
perfume to mask the gamey and diseased world around them soon
gave rise to the perfumed glove. For many years, French aristocrats
wore gloves drenched in perfume so that they could just elevate
a royal finger to the nose to shield themselves from the olfactory
assaults around them.
In fact,
to this day, glovemaking and perfumery are related arts in France.
By the time Marie Antoinette
came on the scene, floral perfumes were all the rage. Perfume
was no longer seen as a miracle drug, but it was still believed
to help dilute or kill the germs from the still-stinking world
around the French court. Perfumes were once restricted to the
royal family but by Marie Antoinette's day they were in broader
distribution. However, they were so outrageously expensive that
only the richest of the rich could afford them.
In those days of the court of Versailles, bathing
was a rarity. It was not altogether unknown, but more likely
reserved for special occasions like birth and death. Men and
women at court would wash from wash bowls in their rooms, but
they probably reserved most of their attention to scrubbing make-up
from their faces than washing hands or other body parts.
Furthermore, clothing of the
type worn at court was exorbitantly expensive. Few people at
court, except perhaps the queen, could afford to own more than
one or two gowns. Corsets were sometimes worn to assist ladies
in these garments but the undergarments we know as panties were
unknown at Versailles.
It
is known that Marie Antoinette collaborated with a perfume maker
at court to develop a strong floral perfume. The formula has
been preserved and there is talk of re-creating the original
fragrance. If it were available today, it would be used as a
fragrance. But Marie Antoinette wore it more to disguise the
fact that she never bathed, seldom changed clothes, and was around
people who were actually less hygienic than she was.
Meanwhile, over in Germany, a little shop in Cologne
was working on a light citrus scent that would become more widely
distributed. This scent, nicknamed 4711, would one day find itsway
to medicine cabinet all over Europe. It's still available today.
Fragrance became more democratic.
When regular bathing became vogue and sanitary laws were instituted
(along with indoor plumbing) perfume became less "medical"
and more cosmetic. Along with that, perfume got less expensive.
Ordinary people (well, ordinary people with money) could wear
perfume and get away with it.
Now
perfume has always been a luxury item. Even today, it's an expensive
commodity. But the emergence of the middle class (and by that
I mean that the world's money was now being controlled by a whole
lot more people) and the rise in hygiene created an unprecedented
situation in which perfume could be enjoyed for itself.
Marie Antoinette wore perfume to
guard against disease, protect her healthy, block the bathroom
odors in the palace corridors, and thwart the body odor of those
genteel gentlemen and gentlewomen who surrounded her at court.
For her, perfume was like a vitamin pill (a way to keep healthy)
and a mood enhancer (a way to make the world more pleasant).
By the 1800s, perfume was more
common. Then in the 1920s, it became a consumer product. Today,
we wear perfume for the sensory enjoyment of it. Few people today
wear perfume to cover the stink of the world around them, but
rather to enhance their sensory experiences. It's no wonder that
the old heavy floral scents of Marie Antoinette's today seem
to get progressively lighter and airier. |
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Author: |
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Want to know more about perfume?
Visit http://www.thePerfume-Reporter.com
for exclusive articles by Joanna McLaughlin not found anywhere
else. While you're there, visit our ship and get some fashionista
accessories for the woman of fragrance. Joanna McLaughlin loves
perfume and her favorite scent today is Gramercy Park by Bond
No. 9. |
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Article Source: http://www.articlebase.com |
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Article Posted: April 19, 2010 |
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