carbonate of potash, 2-1/2 oz.; oil of sassafras, 4 drachms."
Eau des Carmes.
Eau de Melisse des Carmes, an aromatic spirit, recommended as a cordial for internal administration, and to bathe the temples, was first compounded in the pharmacy of the Barefooted Carmelites, near the Palace of the Luxembourg in the Faubourg St. Germain in 1611. In the course of the century the preparation became a valuable property, and though its composition was kept secret by the monks, formulas innumerable were published. Richelieu, Elizabeth of Bavaria, mother of the Regent during Louis XIV's minority, and later, Voltaire, "reclaimed" it. Patents authorising the monks to carry on the manufacture and sale were granted by Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, but when the last was applied for in 1780, the College of Pharmacy opposed it, but withdrew their opposition for the consideration of £40 a year which the monks agreed to pay them. In 1791 when the monastic orders were suppressed and their property confiscated, forty-five Carmelites of the Monastery of the Vaugirard formed themselves into a commercial company to manufacture and sell the Eau des Carmes. Their deed of association provided that the property should remain in the hands of the forty-five down to the last survivor. This one was a certain Brother Paradise, who took as a partner a M. Royer and died in 1831 on the premises in the Rue Taranne where the company had been constituted. M. Royer died a few years later, and his widow married a M. Boyer in 1840 who wrote a "Monographie Historique," which it is believed was edited for him by Alexander Dumas.
The following formula for a preparation resembling
