THE FOUNDING FATHER
Fargeon belonged to an ancient dynasty of perfumers from Montpellier, and was in fact Queen Marie-Antoinette’s appointed supplier. Despite being under house arrest at the Tuileries with her family from the autumn of 1789, at the start of the French Revolution, the Queen continued to receive parcels from her loyal perfumer, brought by his young apprentice. Each day, she would freshen up, using the sophisticated preparations created from a base of essences of bergamot and orange. She was also fond of the rose perfume which reminded her of the gardens of Trianon and which Fargeon was so skilled at extracting.
Nevertheless, in 1792, at the age of 18, Pierre-Francois Lubin left Paris and the revolutionary unrest and headed to Grasse, to the workshop of another master scent-maker: Tombarelli. Tombarelli introduced him to the “Italian method”, which had been imported from Florence by Catherine de Medici two centuries before.
