La Civilisation Des Odeurs

From the Renaissance on, sight and hearing have been viewed more and more as the noble senses, reminiscent of the divine, unlike the proximal senses, too closely associated with animality and sexuality. The sense of smell was the one most targeted by the Moralists, for they believed that the devil hid behind waste, plague vapours, human excrement and the lower body, particularly that of the female. Therefore the self-monitoring of such layers of hell, especially by the nose (whose form and length were thought to equate with those of the male and female sex organs), was the subject of every scholarly discourse, while stenches prevailed in this world, especially in large cities such as Paris or Naples. A multiform shaming mechanism urged us to reject and to sublimate this strongly animalistic side of humans. However, eliminating bad odours was not yet on the agenda. In fact, we were treating one evil with another, chasing away the plague by using the even more terrible odour of a goat, and by protecting body orifices and skin pores with highly fragrant substances. Perfumes, often of animal origin (musk), were used to chase away demons, but were also viewed as satanic traps. Such ambivalence persisted until the mid-18th century, when perfumes-increasingly floral-gained popularity in a more hedonic world. They then became part of a sublimation process by producing an olfactive barrier to counteract external stenches and body odours. Robert Muchembled, Professor Emeritus at Universite de Paris 13 (Paris Sorbonne Cite) and Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, has written over 30 books translated into several dozen languages, notably La Societe policee. Politique et politesse en France du XVIe au XXe siecle (Seuil, 1998); Une histoire du diable, XIIe-XXe siecle (Seuil, 2000); and Passions de femmes au temps de la reine Margot (1553-1615) (Seuil, 2003), etc. Pourquoi l'odorat, ce sens primordial d'adaptation au danger comme de reperage du meilleur partenaire sexuel, demeure-t-il si meconnu ? Son histoire paradoxale, pour peu qu'on s'y attache, est des plus captivantes. Dans cette synthese sans equivalent, Robert Muchembled mene l'enquete et presente les extraordinaires mutations de l'odorat en Occident, de la Renaissance au debut du XIXe siecle. Les sources utilisees sont multiples et riches: manuels de physiognonomie; oeuvres de medecins, philosophes, poetes, conteurs, theologiens, polemistes, moralistes; traites de civilite, traites de Secrets pour dames; edits royaux; reglements du metier de gantier parfumeur, inventaires apres-deces (apothicaires, gantiers parfumeurs); iconographie du sens olfactif... Muchembled s'empare de cet extraordinaire ensemble et dresse l'histoire du puissant refoulement qui, depuis un demi-millenaire, nous a fait considerer l'odorat comme le plus meprisable des sens avant que de le hisser recemment au rang du plus affute. Des miasmes exhales par les concentrations humaines aux emanations intimes nauseabondes, des senteurs excrementielles (musc, civette et ambre) pretendument protectrices de la peste aux condamnations des moralistes, de la revolution olfactive du XVIIIe siecle, qui transforme la goutte de parfum floral ou fruite en vecteur d'hedonisme jusqu'aux dernieres decouvertes scientifiques, c'est a un extraordinaire voyage olfactif dans la civilisation des moeurs que Muchembled convie son lecteur.