During the reign of Marie Antoinette, more than 5,000 people lived and worked at Versailles. Given the resulting chamber pot situation, you can understand why she spent a few thousand livres a year on perfumed toiletries.

Like other royal purveyors, Marie Antoinette’s perfumer Jean-Louis Fargeon had an intimate view of the queen’s troubled tenure and the Revolution’s bloody reforms. But unlike the majority of the queen’s circle, which was prone to spending recklessly and engaging solely in frivolous pastimes, Fargeon was a competent businessman and an intellectual who would actively support the Revolution’s aims (if not its executions). Drawing on Fargeon’s papers, historian Elizabeth de Feydeau’s A Scented Palace: The Secret History of Marie Antoinette’s Perfumer is an illuminating biography of the reviled queen and a rich introduction to the era’s perfumed luxuries.

As a member of the merchant class, Fargeon’s education included the philosophy of the Enlightenment era, as well as the art and science of his skilled trade…

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