Once I spoke the language of the flowers...

The flower symbolism associated with violets is modesty, virtue, affection, watchfulness, and faithfulness. The English name is derived from the vocabulary word, from Latin viola, meaning “violet colour” or “violet flower.”

Napoleon and Josephine also adored violets. She often wore a violet-scented perfume, which was her trademark. When she died in 1814, Napoleon planted violets at her grave. Just before his exile on St. Helena, he made a pilgrimage to it, picked some of the violets, and entombed them in a locket, which he wore around his neck; they stayed there until the end of his life as a reminder of their tumultuous love.

Violets contain ionone, which short-circuits our sense of smell. The flower continues to exude its fragrance, but we lose the ability to smell it. Wait a minute or two, and its smell will blare again. Then it will fade again, and so on. How like Josephine, a woman of full-bodied if occasionally recondite sensuality, to choose as her trademark a scent that assaults the nose with a dam-burst of odour one second, and the next leaves the nose virginal, only to rampage yet again. No scent is more flirtatious. Appearing, disappearing, appearing, disappearing, it plays hide-and-seek with our senses, and there’s no way to get too much of it. The violet so besotted the ancient Athenians that they chose it as their city’s official flower and symbol. Victorian women liked to sweeten their breath with cachous, violet drops, especially if they’d been drinking.

The streets of nineteenth century London were full of poor girls selling small bouquets of violets and lavender. In fact, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony includes an orchestral interpretation of the flower-girl’s cry. Violets resist the perfumer’s art and always have. It is possible to make a high-quality perfume from violets, but it’s exceedingly difficult and expensive. Only the wealthiest people could afford it; but there have always been empresses, dandies, trend setters, and extravagants enough to keep perfumers busy.