Murder of Laure Richis

The murder of Laure Richis is the climactic event of Patrick Süskind's novel, the final and most crucial act in Jean-Baptiste Grenouille's two-year campaign to steal the scents of twenty-five beautiful young women. It is the keystone of his plan to create an ultimate perfume, a scent so irresistible that it will command the love of all who encounter it. The murder is not a crime of passion but a cold, premeditated act of olfactory artistry, carried out with the precision of a master craftsman harvesting a rare flower.

Background and Planning

By the spring of 1766, Grenouille had already murdered twenty-four virgins in and around Grasse, each chosen for her unique and exquisite scent. He had perfected the technique of cold-oil enfleurage to capture their auras, preserving the essences in tiny flacons. The twenty-fifth and most precious victim was to be Laure Richis, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Antoine Richis, the wealthiest citizen of Grasse and its second consul. Grenouille had first detected her scent a year earlier, from behind the wall of her garden, and recognized it as even more refined and celestial than that of the red-haired girl he had killed in Paris in 1753. He knew that in another year her scent would ripen into something no one could resist, and he resolved to possess it. He prepared a small pot of purified oils, a cloth of finest linen, and a demijohn of high-proof alcohol, and studied the terrain of the Richis mansion down to the last detail. The moon was new, providing perfect darkness for his work.

The Chase and the Diversion

On the morning of the murder, Antoine Richis, having deduced that his daughter was the murderer's ultimate target, staged an elaborate diversion. He departed Grasse with a caravan of twelve mules and servants, ostensibly heading for Grenoble, where a copycat murderer was rumored to be active. In reality, he turned off near the village of Saint-Vallier, sending the mule train on without him, and took Laure and her maid south across the Tanneron mountains toward the coast. His plan was to ferry her to the safety of the Monastery of Saint-Honorat on the Îles de Lérins, then quickly arrange her marriage to the son of the Baron de Bouyon, believing that a deflowered, married woman would no longer fit the murderer's collection. Grenouille, however, was not deceived. When he finished his morning work macerating jonquils in the Arnulfi workshop, he stepped outside and immediately sensed that the golden thread of Laure's scent was missing from the city's aromatic fabric. Terrified that someone else had plucked his flower, he learned from Druot that Richis had left for Grenoble. But his nose told him otherwise: the scent was blowing from the south-west, toward Cabris and La Napoule. He packed his knapsack with linen, pomade, a spatula, scissors, and a small, smooth club of olive wood, and set off on the road to the south. By evening he had reached La Napoule, where he ate at an inn and asked for cheap lodging, claiming to be a journeyman tanner from Nice. He lay down in a stall to rest, knowing the three riders were approaching.

The Night of the Murder

Two hours after dusk, Richis, Laure, and her maid arrived at the inn. Richis, disguised in a black frock coat, identified himself as a nobleman from Castellane and arranged for a boat to the islands at sunrise. He checked the stall where Grenouille lay feigning sleep, saw only a harmless, insignificant creature, and left satisfied. After dinner and a game of l'hombre, Richis locked Laure in her room from the outside and went to bed, sleeping peacefully for the first time in months. Grenouille, who had not slept at all, rose and prepared his tools. In total darkness, he spread the linen cloth on his blanket and brushed on the fatty paste in a carefully calculated pattern: thicker layers where the body would give off more scent—the mouth, armpits, breasts, genitals, and feet—thinner layers on the shins, back, and elbows. He was creating a scent diagram of the body to be treated, an artistic technique that anticipated the final result. He folded the cloth like a tapestry, tucked the spatula, scissors, and club into his pockets, and crept out into the pitch-black night. The sky was clouded, the only light the distant wink of the lighthouse on the Île Sainte-Marguerite. He found a ladder propped against the threshing shed, carried it to the back dormer, and climbed to Laure's window, which stood ajar. He slipped inside, laid down his cloth, and turned to the bed. Laure was lying on her stomach, her head pressed into the pillow, presenting the back of her head in an almost ideal position. The blow of the olive-wood club made a dull, grinding thud that Grenouille hated—a sound in the midst of his otherwise soundless procedure. He stood stiff and implacable for a moment, as if fearing the sound would echo back, but stillness returned. He then worked with brisk efficiency: he unfolded the impregnating cloth, spread it on the table and chairs, pulled back the bedclothes, and cut open her nightgown with a few quick snips. He tossed the oiled linen over her naked body, lifted her, rolled her up in it like a baker rolling strudel, tucking in the corners until she was enveloped from toes to brow. Only her hair stuck out; he cut it off close to the scalp and packed it inside her nightgown, which he tied into a bundle. He flapped a remaining piece of cloth over her shaved skull and pressed it tight. The package was perfect: not a slit or hole through which her scent could escape. He then took the armchair where her clothes lay, dragged it to the bed, and sat down to wait for six hours, until dawn. He covered himself with her dress, ate aniseed biscuits from her pocket, and stayed awake, feeling a profound satisfaction. He thought of his past—Madame Gaillard, Grimal, Baldini, the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, the red-haired girl in the Rue des Marais, his cave in the Auvergne—and considered himself a truly blessed individual. He whispered, "I thank you, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, for being what you are!" Once, he turned his foot and ever so softly touched Laure's foot through the cloth, the thin layer of oil drinking up her glorious scent, his scent.

The Aftermath

As the birds began to squawk, before dawn, Grenouille finished his task. He threw open the cloth and pulled it from the dead woman like a bandage, scraping off any remaining scraps of pomade with his spatula. He wiped down her body with her undershirt, rubbing until even the oil in her own pores pearled from her skin, leaving her withered and pale as a fallen petal. He tossed the undershirt into the large scent-impregnated cloth, added her nightgown and hair, and rolled it all into a small, firm package. He did not cover the body or cast a single glance at it; she no longer existed for him as a body, only as a disembodied scent. He climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the cold, dark-blue light of dawn. When Richis awoke at seven, he found Laure lying naked, dead, shorn, and sparkling white in the sunlight, exactly as in a nightmare he had dreamed two nights before. The news spread through the region like a declaration of war, triggering a terror more paralyzing than before. The authorities, for the first time, cooperated across prefectures, and a witness identified Grenouille as the journeyman tanner who had been at the inn. He was arrested in Grasse, and the clothes and hair of all twenty-five victims were found buried in his cabin. He confessed freely, but when asked his motive, he only said, "I needed them." He was sentenced to be broken on the wheel, but at the execution, he used his ultimate perfume to transform the crowd into a loving, orgiastic mob, and Richis himself embraced him as a son. Grenouille escaped, but the scent he had stolen from Laure, the keystone of his power, ultimately brought him no satisfaction, and he returned to Paris to be devoured by a crowd of cannibals who, for the first time, acted out of love.