Riviera Towns | Page 3

I knew that he was good for an hour. I hesitated. The
vista of the street ahead brought more attraction to my eye than the
indication of the perfume-factory to my nose. But there would still be
time for the street, and in the acquisition of knowledge one must not
falter. I knew only that perfumes were made from flowers. But so was
honey! What was the difference in the process? Visiting perfumeries is
evidently "the thing to do" in Grasse. For I was greeted cordially, and
given immediately a guide, who assured me that she would show me all
over the place and that it was no trouble at all.
Why is it that some of the most delicate things are associated with the
pig, who is himself far from delicate? However much we may shudder
at the thought of soused pigs' feet and salt pork and Rocky Mountain
fried ham swimming in grease, we find bacon the most appetizing of
breakfast dishes, and if cold boiled ham is cut thin enough nothing is
more dainty for sandwiches. Lard per se is unpleasant, but think of
certain things cooked in lard, and the unrivaled golden brown of them!
Pigskin is as recherché as snakeskin. The pig greets us at the beginning
of the day when we slip our wallet into our coat or fasten on our
wrist-watch, and again when we go in to breakfast. But is it known that

he is responsible for the most exquisite of scents of milady's boudoir?
For hundreds of years ways of extracting the odor of flowers were tried.
Success never came until someone discovered that pig fat is the best
absorbent of the bouquet of fresh flowers.
Room after room in the perfume factory is filled with tubs of pig grease.
Fresh flowers are laid inside every morning for weeks, the end of the
treatment coming only with the end of the season of the particular
flower in question. In some cases it is continued for three months. The
grease is then boiled in alcohol. The liquid, strained, is your scent. The
solid substance left makes scented soap. Immediately after cooling, it is
drawn off directly into wee bottles, the glass stoppers are covered with
white chamois skin, and the labels pasted on.
I noticed a table of bottles labeled eau-de-cologne. "Surely this is now
eau-de-liége in France," I remarked. "Are not German names taboo?"
My guide answered seriously: "We have tried our best here and in
every perfumery in France. But dealers tell us that they cannot sell
eau-de-liége, even though they assure their customers that it is exactly
the same product, and explain the patriotic reason for the change of
name. Once we launched a new perfume that made a big hit.
Afterwards we discovered that we had named it from the wrong flower.
But could we correct the mistake? It goes today by the wrong name all
over the world."
I was glad to get into the open air again, and started to walk along the
narrow Rue Droite--which makes a curve every hundred feet!--to find
the Artist. I had seen enough of Grasse's industry. Now I was free to
wander at will through the maze of streets of the old town. But the law
of the Persians follows that of the Medes. Half a dozen urchins spied
me coming out of the perfumery, and my doom was sealed. They
announced that they would show me the way to the confectionery. I
might have refused to enter the perfumery. But, having entered, there
was no way of escaping the confectionery. I resigned myself to the
inevitable. It was by no means uninteresting, however,--the half hour
spent watching violets, orange blossoms and rose petals dancing in
cauldrons of boiling sugar, fanned dry on screens, and packed with

candied fruits in wooden boxes for America. And I had followed the
flowers of Grasse to their destination.
The Artist had finished his cul-de-sac. I knew that to find him I had
only to continue along the Rue Droite to the first particularly appealing
side street. He would be up that somewhere. The Artist is no
procrastinator. He takes his subjects when he finds them. The buildings
of the Rue Droite are medieval from rez-de-chaussée to cornice. The
sky was a narrow curved slit of blue and gray, not as wide as the street;
for the houses seemed to lean towards one another, and here and there
roofs rubbed edges. Sidewalks would have prevented the passage of
horse-drawn vehicles, so there were none. The Rue Droite is the
principal shopping-street of Grasse. But shoppers cannot loiter
indefinitely before windows. All pedestrians must be agile. When you
hear the Hué! of a driver, you must take refuge in a doorway or run the
risk of axle-grease