LA FIN DU MONDE

To attack the sun, to drive it from the universe, to create perpetual darkness – what an outrageous proposition! But Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was an outrageous man. He took on many roles: writer, revolutionary, philosopher, libertine. He disdained the social norms and he demanded unrestrained freedom. He questioned every assumption about love, beauty, even violence, and he ignored the taboos.  He wanted to attack the sun and ignite the world, liberate us from our preconceptions, break down the barriers which keep us from accepting our own desires. We identify with him, because we try to do the same.

Which is why Etat Libre d’Orange has chosen to celebrate a man who celebrated extremes. We have invited the Marquis de Sade to join our family of outrageous perfumes. He has accepted with pleasure . . . and maybe a little pain.

Etat Libre d’Orange and the Marquis de Sade. It’s a marriage made in heaven, or possibly in hell.  Either way, it works. Together, we launch an assault on the sun.

To read Sade is to take a risk — one is suddenly forced to face one’s self, exposed. It’s a wonderful risk to take if you want to plunge yourself into the heart and the body of humanity. Because Sade liberates.
He pushes us to imagine and to desire, far beyond the boundaries which saturate our perspective.

"How many times, dear God, have I not longed to be able to attack the sun, snatch it out of the sky, create a general darkness, or use that star to ignite the world."

As a creator of perfume, how could I open my perspective, imagine beyond my limitations? A very personal question. The cistus! One of my paradoxes. One of my gray areas.

I have always recoiled from the cistus, I’ve avoided it or hidden it under thick layers of vanilla and amber as a way of escaping it. This is why I have made myself confront a radical formula: the cistus, exposed, and in all its states.

My dear Marquis: here’s to your suns, to our volcanoes!

— Quentin Bisch, perfumer

From the depths of his prisons, Sade constantly reminded his contemporaries
- and all men - of his injunction to go beyond compromise, to overcome conformity, and to always put freedom rst.

To be yourself, without suffering the judgment of others; to be yourself and to live as you want to live... "All human happiness is in the imagination," Sade reminds us.

Sade was the freest man who ever lived. Sade is desire and passion, strength and tenderness, provocation and sensuality. His scent is the same: in nitely volcanic.

Like his perfume, Sade cannot be banished, reduced to silence, made to disappear.
He is there, always there: unforgettable. This is an eternal fragrance that endures just as his thought endures, beyond time.

— Hugues de Sade

Cistus

Legend has it that an apple from a tree fell on Newton’s head – and thus, the theory of universal gravitation was born. But then let’s imagine a different scene – Newton, asleep under a rose bush. And instead of an apple, a flower falls, an enormous rose, a fully scented, fleshy rose. Would he have felt it? Would he have plunged his face into the heart of the flower? And what would this mean for his theory?

This scent: A chypre! And a very precise and clear-cut formula, like something that falls on you, sudden and direct. And never leaves you. A trail of scent that holds on. Akigalawood and patchouli for a honeyed rose.

Newton, excuse us! Your Crucial Experience showed us that colors are not characteristics of objects but properties of light. We now know, thanks to you, that white light is a mixture of rays with the nuances of the rainbow. You also showed us that just because an object IS red does not mean that we see it as red. If it appears red to our visual perception, this is because, when illuminated with a white light source (for example, sunlight), its surface absorbs all the colored light rays that compose it, EXCEPT the reds.

So forgive us for taking inspiration from your Experimentum Crucis! You have been the inspiration and the source of criticism for so many. And as your theory has changed our vision of the world, we have tried to create a fragrance that will change the world.

Lychee, Apple, Rose NeoAbsolute, Jasmin Absolute, Honey, Patchouli, Musks

His beauty would have been his greatest asset. One imagines he was raised in the big air of Texas, his soft skin scrubbed by ears of wheat, his eyelashes curled by grappling with grace against a blinding sun. A Midnight Cowboy lost on city asphalt.

A fisherman without a line, he was made to be hooked by others, to believe in his fate without knowing it, to wreak havoc and forget it over time. Youth for women-of-a-certain-age, stock for late-night parties, a partner to accompany the wealthy of Palm Beach on nature walks, his splendor is consumed in the service of others. Now, a Fat Electrician in New Jersey, his talent depleted in his sexual decline. This is the curse of beauty - it doesn’t last.

Vetiver from Haiti, chestnut cream, olive leaves, myrrh, vanilla, opoponax

Who goes beside you into the forest on the darkest night ? In Victor Hugo’s poem, « À quoi songeaient les deux cavaliers dans la forêt », (What Two Horsemen Were Thinking in the Forest), the narrator says “ by my side, Hermann seemed to me like a shadow. ”

We all have shadows, even at night in the dark forest. You may call yours by another name : your invisible friend. Your conscience, your soul, maybe even your complementary ego. Your shadow could have a name, like Hermann. Or your shadow could be your perfume. This is your companion. You can argue with your companion, you can challenge your companion, you can test the boundaries of your own attitudes. You can debate the finer points of existence. But you cannot lose this companion, not ever. This is your alternative self. As you move through life and contemplate its meaning, you ask unanswerable questions. When you’re overwhelmed with uncertainties, look to your shadow. Maybe you’ll get a response. Maybe not. But at least you’ll have an interesting conversation.

The night was so black and the forest very dark.
By my side, Hermann seemed to me like a shadow.
Our horses were galloping. Guardians of god !
The clouds in the sky looked like marble.
The stars flew through the branches of the trees
Like a swarm of firebirds.

I am full of regrets. Broken by suffering,
Hermann’s deep spirit is empty of hope.
I am full of regrets. Oh my loves, sleep!
Yet, while traveling through the green solitude,
Hermann says to me: “ I am thinking about half-opened graves. ”
And I say to him : “ I think of closed tombs. ”

He looks ahead : I Iook back,
Our horses gallop across the clearing ;
The wind brings to us from far away the sound of the angelus bell ;
he says : “ I think of those who are afflicted by existence,
Of those who are, those who live ”. “ Me, ” I say to him,
“ I think of those who are no longer ! ”

The fountains are singing. What do the fountains say ?
The oaks are murmuring. What do the oaks murmur ?
The bushes are whispering like old friends.
Hermann says to me, “ The living never doze.
At this moment, some eyes cry, other eyes are awake. ”
And I say to him, “ Alas ! Other eyes are asleep ! ”

Hermann then continues. “ Misfortune, that’s life.
The dead no longer suffer. They are happy ! I envy
Their graves where grass grows, where trees shed their leaves.
Because the night caresses them with soft flames ;
Because the sky beams peace upon all their souls
In all the tombs at the same time !

And I say to him, “ Be quiet! Respect the black mystery !
The dead are lying in the ground under our feet.
The dead, these are the hearts that once loved you
This is your expired angel ! This is your father and your mother !
Do not dismay them through bitter irony.
As in a dream, they hear our voices. ”

Blackcurrant buds, black pepper, galbanum, calypsone, geosmin, frankincense, pepperwood, petalia, rose absolute, patchouli, ambroxan