History

Victor hails from the Provence region of France. Provence, although beautiful, has never been well-known for its industry, nor its intellectual rigor. The Curies, when emigrating to France, did not choose Provence to settle in. Foucalt did not pioneer his study of light there, the young Pasteur did not choose the Rhone river as a place to begin his professorial tenure.

The de la Roches cared not for these names- this was not their business. Their business was trade, and they had grown wealthy on it. Good fortune had kept their ships safe, and crates of coffee and cocoa arrived with prosperous regularity from the islands of Guadaloupe. There was little reason, therefore, to travel. Why travel outside of Provence? It was the English and the Germans who wished to travel here.

Victor, the eldest son of a family of daughters, found the whole business deeply depressing when watching the ships enter. The sailors were tall, gorgeously muscular, sun glinting off of their skin tanned as dark as the cargo they brought in, shouting instructions to each other in an unknown language that bore a trace resemblance to French. The air smelled of salt and coffee and spices- worse things too, like sea rot and fish. It was beautiful, the glimpse of a world outside the pictureglass frame of Provence, and it only lasted until the ships left again.

Victor, obviously, was not allowed on one of the ships. Neither were his sisters, though they begged more strongly than him. Guadaloupe itself was not what interested him- nor the spices, nor the exotic lands nor the men who brought them. It was the rot of the sea. The scent of decay, of something real and visceral. He studied dutifully at home, learning each language he could, but never could understand the Antillean words the sailors spoke to each other. Nor could he understand why the scent or the rot fascinated him more than the chocolate-heavy air. One didn't often come across those things in the land of lavender gardens.

For some time, he'd maintained a correspondance with a cousin of his, a Salomé Skiffins, who'd married an Englishman and lived in London. The letters became more pointed, more personal. What is London like? What does it look like, what does it smell like, how does the air feel on your face? Salomé did her best to discourage, mindful of what her uncle would think, but this only fascinated Victor more. It's dirty, she said, it smells like something died. The air is cold and bitter.

It took no end of persuading to be allowed to study in England- or indeed to be allowed to study the sciences at all. Victor's family had found his fervent study of German and its philosophers to be charming, but unnecessary for a trading company, and he was now proposing that he be allowed to leave the family business entirely. Victor, in preparation, had armed his sisters with Olympe de Gouges, George Sands, and Mary Wollstonecraft, and encouraged them to protest their cases as equally capable to manage the company while he made his escape.

The road to Normandy was thoroughly unpleasant, and the ferry over to England even more so. However, the carriage arrived at London, and Victor breathed in the air of the city. Dirty, like Salomé had said. But underneath the fetid smell of people, of shit and sweat and cheap perfume, there was the scent of the rot, and the promise to learn what caused it.

Victor set himself up to study at King's College of London, and quickly discovered the cause of his fascination. They brought bodies in for the anatomy lads, bodies that smelled like formaldehyde and looked like they were sleeping. If the cadavers weren't fresh, the demonstrator would cut into the bloated stomach, releasing the rot of the body in a bursting, fetid cloud of scent, and although Victor hid his nose and mouth with his hands, his eyes sparked to see it.

So began his time in London, and the freedom to explore the passions that brought him there.