wanted to be borne to the summit at nine thousand feet and left there in the sheerest, finest vital air

for three whole weeks, whereupon, he announced, he would descend from the mountain precisely on Christmas Eve as a strapping lad of twenty. The disciples gave up shortly beyond Vernet, the last human settlement at the foot of the fearsome mountain. But nothing daunted the marquis. Casting his garments from him in the icy cold and whooping in exultation, he began the climb alone. The last that was seen of him was his silhouette: hands lifted ecstatically to heaven and voice raised in song, he disappeared into the blizzard. His followers waited in vain that Christmas Eve for the return of the marquis de La TailladeEspinasse. He returned neither as an old man nor a young one. Nor when early summer came the next year and the most audacious of them went in search of him, scaling the still snowbound summit of the Pic du Canigou, did they find any trace of him, no clothes, no body parts, no bones. His teachings, however, suffered no damage at all. On the contrary. Soon the legend was abroad that there on the mountain peak he had wedded himself to the eternal fluidum vitale, merging with it and it with him, and now forever floated-invisible but eternally young-above the peaks of the Pyrenees, and whoever climbed up to him would encounter him there and remain untouched by sickness or the process of aging for one full year. Well into the nineteenth century Taillades fluidal theory was advocated from many a chair at faculties of medicine and put into therapeutic practice by many an occult society. And even today, on both sides of the Pyrenees, particularly in Perpi-gnan and Figueras, there are secret Tailladic lodges that meet once a year to climb the Pic du Canigou. There they light a great bonfire, ostensibly for the summer solstice and in honor of St. John-but in reality it is to pay homage to their master, Taillade-Espinasse, and his grand fluidum, and to seek eternal life.

PART III Thirty-five

HEREAS GRENOUILLE had needed seven years for the first stage of his journey through France, he put the second behind him in less than seven days. He no longer avoided busy roads and cities, he made no detours. He had an odor, he had money, he had self-confidence, and he had no time to lose. By evening of the day he left Montpellier, he had arrived at Le Grau-du-Roi, a small harbor town southwest of Aigues-Mortes, where he boarded a merchant ship for Marseille. In Marseille he did not even leave the harbor, but immediately sought out a ship that brought him farther along the coast to the east. Two days later he was in Toulon, in three more in Cannes. The rest of the way he traveled on foot. He followed a back road that led up into the hills, northward into the interior. Two hours later he was standing on a rise and before him was spread a valley several miles wide, a kind of basin in the landscape-its surrounding rim made up of gently rising hills and a ridge of steep mountains, its broad bowl covered with fields, gardens, and olive groves. The basin had its own special, intimate climate. Although the sea was so near that one could see it from the tops of the hills, there was nothing maritime, nothing salty and sandy, nothing expansive about this climate; instead, it possessed a secluded tranquillity as if you were many days journey distant from the coast. And although to the north the high mountains were covered with snow that would remain for a good while yet, it was not in the least raw or barren and no cold wind blew. Spring was further advanced than in Montpellier. A mild haze lay like a glass bell over the fields. Apricot and almond trees were in bloom, and the warm air was infused with the scent of jonquils. At the other end of the wide basin, perhaps two miles off, a town lay among-or better, clung to-the rising mountains. From a distance it did not make a particularly grand impression. There was no mighty cathedral towering above the houses, just a little stump of a church steeple, no commanding fortress, no magnificent edifice of note. The walls appeared anything but defiant-here and there the houses spilled out from their limits, especially in the direction of the plain, lending the outskirts a somewhat disheveled look. It was as if the place had been overrun and then retaken so often that it was weary of offering serious resistance to any future intruders- not out of weakness, but out of indolence, or maybe even out of a sense of its own strength. It looked as if it had no need to flaunt itself. It reigned above the fragrant basin at its feet, and that seemed to suffice. This equally homely and self-confident place was the town of Grasse, for decades now the uncontested center for production of and commerce in scents, perfumes, soaps, and oils. Giuseppe Baldini had always uttered the name with enraptured delight. The town was the Rome of scents, the promised land of perfumes, and the man who had not earned his spurs here did not rightfully bear the title of perfumer.