Odour : nf The odor is a volatile emanation, characteristic of certain bodies and capable of provoking in humans or in animals sensations due to the stimulation of specialized organs.
- The expression "To be in the odor of holiness": To be in a state of spiritual perfection - To be seen well.
In the past, it was believed that the body of a holy person emitted after his death a peculiar, sweet smell, which made it easy to distinguish him from other deceased people.
It is from there that in the XVIIth century our expression appeared with its first meaning indicated, to designate a person who had during his lifetime a behavior so admirable that his canonization was possible.
But before that, in the XNUMXth century, there already existed to be in good / bad smell employee about someone who made a good or bad impression. This meaning has not disappeared and it has remained in our expression today, good smell becoming smell of holiness and employed, because he made a good impression, about someone who is appreciated, well regarded.
In this second sense, the modern, the locution is more used in the negative form not to be in the smell of holiness to talk about a person frowned upon by another.
This expression is generally used for an ill-gotten good of which one prefers to forget the doubtful origin. The emperor Vespasian (born in 9 AD and died in 79), who reigned over Rome from 69 to 79 AD ., instituted a number of various taxes in order to replenish the State treasury. One of them particularly marked the spirits, that on the urine intended to be collected for use by the dyers (they were used to degrease the skins). It was payable every four years by all heads of household, depending on the number of people (and animals) living under their roof. Of course, the people laughed at this tax and Titus, Vespasian's son, remarked on it. The emperor then put a coin under his nose and said, asking him to smell it: "money has no smell" (" pecunia non olet “), thus implying that it did not matter where the money came from as long as it filled the coffers. The public urinals installed in Paris from 1834 were called vespasiennes, in memory of Vespasian.
Quote from the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, known as Céline (1894-1961): “Then it is the supreme infection and the most relentless move away… It remains gaping there on the stall, decomposed, tattered green , more watchable. It gives off a smell such that the most disgusting ones try, procrastinate to finish it ", in the novel Guignol's band (1952)