Pierrefort

Pierrefort is a small town in the Auvergne, a region of central France. It is the first settlement Grenouille encounters after descending from the Plomb du Cantal, where he had lived in complete isolation for seven years. His arrival there marks his abrupt and jarring re-entry into the world of human beings.

Grenouille's Reappearance and the Town's Reaction

When Grenouille first appears in Pierrefort, his appearance is so grotesque that farmers working in nearby fields run away screaming at the sight of him. He has long hair reaching to his knees, a scraggly beard down to his navel, nails like talons, and skin peeling from his arms and legs. In the town itself, he causes a sensation. Hundreds of people gather to gape at him. Some believe he is an escaped galley slave; others think he is a mixture of man and bear, a forest creature. One man who had been to sea claims Grenouille resembles a member of a wild Indian tribe from Cayenne. He is led before the mayor.

The Fabricated Story and the Mayor's Report

Before the mayor, Grenouille produces his journeyman's papers and, in a few gabbled but comprehensible words—his first utterances in seven years—relates a story of having been attacked by robbers, dragged off, and held captive in a cave for seven years. He claims he saw neither daylight nor another human being during that time, was fed by an invisible hand that let down a basket in the dark, and was finally set free by a ladder, without ever knowing why or seeing his captors or rescuer. Grenouille invented this story because it seemed more believable than the truth. The mayor records it without protest and passes his report on to the Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, the liege lord of the town and a member of parliament in Toulouse.

The Marquis's Interest and the Journey to Montpellier

The Marquis de la Taillade-Espinasse, upon receiving word of a man who had dwelt in a cave for seven years, is beside himself with delight. He immediately has Grenouille brought to his laboratory, where he subjects him to a thorough examination. The Marquis finds his own theories about the earth's corrupting gas, the fluidum letale, confirmed most graphically by Grenouille's deteriorated state. He declares that Grenouille's twenty-five-year-old body clearly shows the marks of senile deterioration. The Marquis proposes to take Grenouille to Montpellier to be the object of a scientific demonstration, using his own vital ventilation machine to cure him. Two hours later, they are sitting in a carriage, travelling the sixty-four miles to Montpellier in just under two days. The Marquis, despite his advanced age, personally whips both driver and horses to speed the journey, so excited is he by his find. Grenouille is forced to sit in the carriage wrapped in rags and a blanket drenched with earth and clay, and is given only raw vegetable roots to eat, so that the contamination by earth's fluidum might be preserved in its ideal state.