Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau. Оноре де Бальзак
he should have flung himself into the Seine.
Harassed by some unprofitable enterprise, he was lounging one day along the boulevard on his way to dinner—for the Parisian lounger is as often a man filled with despair as an idler—when among a parcel of books for six sous a-piece, laid out in a hamper on the pavement, his eyes lighted on the following title, yellow with dust: “Abdeker, or the Art of Preserving Beauty.” He picked up the so-called Arab book, a sort of romance written by a physician of the preceding century, and happened on a page which related to perfumes. Leaning against a tree on the boulevard to turn over the leaves at his ease, he read a note by the author which explained the nature of the skin and the cuticle, and showed that a certain soap, or a certain paste, often produced effects quite contrary to those expected of them, if the soap and the paste toned up a skin which needed relaxing, or relaxed a skin which required tones. Birotteau bought the book, in which he saw his fortune. Nevertheless, having little confidence in his own lights, he consulted a celebrated chemist, Vauquelin, from whom he naively inquired how to mix a two-sided cosmetic which should produce effects appropriate to the diversified nature of the human epidermis. Truly scientific men—men who are really great in the sense that they never attain in their lifetime the renown which their immense and unrecognized labors deserve—are nearly always kind, and willing to serve the poor in spirit. Vauquelin accordingly patronized the perfumer, and allowed him to call himself the inventor of a paste to whiten the hands, the composition of which he dictated to him. Birotteau named this cosmetic the “Double Paste of Sultans.” To complete the work, he applied the same recipe to the manufacture of a lotion for the complexion, which he called the “Carminative Balm.” He imitated in his own line the system of the Petit-Matelot, and was the first perfumer to display that redundancy of placards, advertisements, and other methods of publication which are called, perhaps unjustly, charlatanism.
The Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm were ushered into the world of fashion and commerce by colored placards, at the head of which were these words, “Approved by the Institute.” This formula, used for the first time, had a magical effect. Not only all France, but the continent flaunted with the posters, yellow, red, and blue, of the monarch of the “The Queen of Roses,” who kept in stock, supplied, and manufactured, at moderate prices, all that belonged to his trade. At a period when nothing was talked of but the East, to name any sort of cosmetic the “Paste of Sultans” thus divining the magic force of such words in a land where every man hoped to be a sultan as much as every woman longed to be a sultana, was an inspiration which could only have come to a common man or a man of genius. The public always judges by results. Birotteau passed for a superior man, commercially speaking; all the more because he compiled a prospectus whose ridiculous phraseology was an element of success. In France they only made fun of things which occupy the public mind, and the public does not occupy itself with things that do not succeed. Though Birotteau perpetrated this folly in good faith and not as a trick, the world gave him credit for knowing how to play the fool for a purpose. We have found, not without difficulty, a copy of this prospectus at the establishment of Popinot and Co., druggists, Rue des Lombards. This curious document belongs to the class which, in a higher sphere, historians call pieces justificatives. We give it here:
THE DOUBLE PASTE OF SULTANS
AND CARMINATIVE BALM
Of Cesar Birotteau.
MARVELLOUS DISCOVERY!
Approved by the Institute of France.
“For many years a paste for the hands and a lotion for the face
offering superior results to those obtained from Eau-de-Cologne in
the domain of the toilet, has been widely sought by both sexes in
Europe. Devoting long vigils to the study of the skin and cuticle
of the two sexes, each of whom, one as much as the other, attach
the utmost importance to the softness, suppleness, brilliancy, and
velvet texture of the complexion, the Sieur Birotteau, perfumer,
favorably known in this metropolis and abroad, has discovered a
Paste and a Lotion justly hailed as marvellous by the fashion and
elegance of Paris. In point of fact, this Paste and this Lotion
possess amazing properties which act upon the skin without
prematurely wrinkling it—the inevitable result of drugs
thoughtlessly employed, and sold in these days by ignorance and
cupidity. This discovery rests upon diversities of temperament,
which divide themselves into two great classes, indicated by the
color of the Paste and the Lotion, which will be found pink for the skin and cuticle of persons of lymphatic habit, and white for those possessed of a sanguine temperament. “This Paste is named the ‘Paste of Sultans,’ because the discovery was originally made for the Seraglio by an Arabian physician. It has been approved by the Institute on the recommendation of our illustrious chemist, Vauquelin; together with the Lotion, fabricated on the same principles which govern the composition of the Paste. “This precious Paste, exhaling as it does the sweetest perfumes, removes all blotches, even those that are obstinately rebellious, whitens the most recalcitrant epidermis, and dissipates the perspirations of the hand, of which both sexes equally complain. “The Carminative Balm will disperse the little pimples which appear inopportunely at certain times, and interfere with a lady’s projects for a ball; it refreshes and revives the color by opening or shutting the pores of the skin according to the exigencies of the individual temperament. It is so well known already for its effect in arresting the ravages of time that many, out of gratitude, have called it the ‘Friend of Beauty.’ “Eau-de-Cologne is, purely and simply, a trivial perfume without special efficacy of any kind; while the Double Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm are two operative compounds, of a motive power which acts without risk upon the internal energies and seconds them. Their perfumes (essentially balsamic, and of a stimulating character which admirably revives the heart and brain) awake ideas and vivify them; they are as wonderful for their simplicity as for their merits. In short, they offer one attraction the more to women, and to men a means of seduction which it is within their power to secure. “The daily use of the Balm will relieve the smart occasioned by the heat of the razor; it will protect the lips from chapping, and restore their color; it dispels in time all discolorations, and revives the natural tones of the skin. Such results demonstrate in man a perfect equilibrium of the juices of life, which tends to relieve all persons subject to headache from the sufferings of that horrible malady. Finally, the Carminative Balm, which can be employed by women in all stages of their toilet, will prevent cutaneous diseases by facilitating the transpiration of the tissues, and communicating to them a permanent texture like that of velvet. “Address, post-paid, Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, successor to Ragon, former perfumer to the Queen Marie Antoinette, at The Queen of Roses, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, near the Place Vendome. “The price of a cake of Paste is three francs; that of the bottle six francs. “Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, to avoid counterfeits, informs the public that the Paste is wrapped in paper bearing his signature, and that the bottles have a stamp blown in the glass.”
The success was owing, without Cesar’s suspecting it, to Constance, who advised him to send cases of the Carminative Balm and the Paste of Sultans to all perfumers in France and in foreign cities, offering them at the same time a discount of thirty per cent if they would buy the two articles by the gross. The Paste and the Balm were, in reality, worth more than other cosmetics of the sort; and they captivated ignorant people by the distinctions they set up among the temperaments. The five hundred perfumers of France, allured by the discount, each bought annually from Birotteau more than three hundred gross of the Paste and the Lotion—a consumption which, if it gave only a limited profit on each article, became enormous considered in bulk. Cesar was then able to buy the huts and the land in the Faubourg du Temple; he built large manufactories, and decorated his shop at “The Queen of Roses” with much magnificence; his household began to taste the little joys of competence, and his wife no longer trembled as before.
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