08-09-2023, 02:41 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2023, 03:19 PM by Paul Ferguson.)
By Theresa Levitt.
"In 1770 a new perfume shop opened in the centre of Paris on the rue du Bourg-l’Abbé, a fragrant oasis adjoining a district that was, according to one contemporary, ‘by far the worst-smelling place in the world’. This stretch of the Right Bank was home to an abattoir, a fish market, a butcher, an overcrowded prison and a mortuary, whose combined effluvia flowed through open sewers directly into the Seine. Blaise Laugier’s new store in a side street off the open market of Les Halles, sandwiched between a florist and a seller of scented fans, took its place among a cluster of fashionable boutiques catering to an expanding metropolitan class for whom perfume had become an essential part of daily life."
Reviewed here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n15/...mist-s-den
"In 1770 a new perfume shop opened in the centre of Paris on the rue du Bourg-l’Abbé, a fragrant oasis adjoining a district that was, according to one contemporary, ‘by far the worst-smelling place in the world’. This stretch of the Right Bank was home to an abattoir, a fish market, a butcher, an overcrowded prison and a mortuary, whose combined effluvia flowed through open sewers directly into the Seine. Blaise Laugier’s new store in a side street off the open market of Les Halles, sandwiched between a florist and a seller of scented fans, took its place among a cluster of fashionable boutiques catering to an expanding metropolitan class for whom perfume had become an essential part of daily life."
Reviewed here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n15/...mist-s-den