His next task was to get to Mexico—but the Spaniards were already suspicious. “Are there not plants growing in your own country?” they asked. De Menonville answered that indeed there were, but Central America possessed superior examples. And then came the waiting time: six months during which “time flew with leaden wings” for the impatient botanist. He then decided on a new strategy—one that by all accounts suited his character perfectly. “Pretending to be actuated by that volatility and inconstancy of disposition, often with so little fairness ascribed to Frenchmen, I feigned to be overcome with ennui from my long stay in Havana.” Within six weeks the Spaniards, with a spot of ennui themselves no doubt from all that Gallic sighing and prancing, yet enjoying the way it confirmed their prejudices, had helped him get the precious visa to Mexico. Plenty more gesticulating and nationalistic stereotyping ensued down at the busy Havana harbor as he negotiated his ticket. “The master of the packet would take no less than 100 hard dollars: the demand was exorbitant but it was vain to reason: his avarice was inflexible. To all my arguments he opposed a truly Spanish phlegm and gravity and coolly pocketed my money without once taking his cigar from his mouth.”
In Vera Cruz, where he was incidentally thrilled to find pineapple ice cream, he found another method of getting his own way: by appealing directly to the Spaniards’ bowels. The laxative plant root jalap was so much in demand—despite the presence of hot peppers that could doubtless produce a similar effect—that the city of Jalapa, which supplied the Mexican world with the natural remedy, had been named after it in gratitude. Until de Menonville’s arrival the constipated citizens of Vera Cruz had transported their medicine at great cost from Jalapa, 100 kilometers away. To their evident relief the young botanist showed them how they could find it locally.
It was not the only local remedy the Spaniards used. From the first years after they conquered Central America they had been using cochineal not just as a dye, paint and cosmetic, but also as a medicine. When Philip II of Spain was sick he would get a mixture of ground beetles and vinegar served to him on his silver spoon. The physicians were flexible: they plastered it on wounds, recommended it for cleaning the teeth and, according to King Philip’s doctor, Francisco Hernández, they used it “to relieve ailments of the head, heart and stomach.” It is curious that today’s pharmaceutical and food industries treat cochineal as a harmless coloring agent, while for thousands of years it has been prized not only for its color, but for its ability to heal.11
The laxative discovery made de Menonville the hero of the moment, and he used that position to continue his undercover investigations—discovering that the mountain town of Guaxaca (now Oaxaca, pronounced Wa-har-ka) was the main center for cochineal production. But the governor quickly became suspicious of his questions, told de Menonville he had to leave on the next boat out, and this time the young adventurer’s dramatic posturing was for real. “I repaired to my lodging deadly sick at heart: I walked backward and forward, now threw myself on a seat and now into my cot, swinging it from one side to the other with such violence as to risk breaking my head against the ceiling.” With what he later called the “voice of anguish” he began to criticize himself: “Your plan of four years standing now falls to wreck: four years are lost of the profession you chose yourself, the bounties of your king have vainly and stupidly disappeared, you fail in an endeavor undertaken against the advice of your father, your friends, and everyone else.” But then another voice—of reason perhaps, or of foolhardiness—began to speak, reminding him that there were no ships leaving Vera Cruz for another three weeks. Perhaps, if he hurried, he could cover the 600 kilometers to Oaxaca on time. He wrote himself a firm directive in his journal: “You absolutely must, I said to myself, penetrate into the interior despite your lack of passport, and you must bear away the fleece, despite all the dragons on the way.”
And so the real adventure began: a day later, at three in the morning, he scaled the city walls and set off on his impossible journey. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and carried a rosary and a few “neat” clothes, in order “to assume the appearance of taking a walk rather than a journey.” He avoided the toll gates, stayed with Indians, pretended to be constantly lost to explain his strange location, and to be a Catalan from the French-Spanish border to explain his strange accent.
Bad roads, appalling weather, days without food and the dangers posed variously by the Spanish king’s soldiers and raging torrents were all par for the cochineal course—but de Menonville faltered only when he met a beautiful woman in an Indian home. “I looked for faultiness in her, but—almost naked as she was, having nothing on but a flounced muslin petticoat trimmed with a rose-colored cord, and a shift which left her shoulders bare—the nicest scrutiny discovered no defect.” Learning that she was married and had children “only rendered her more interesting, and her charms had a disorderly effect on my senses.” The Frenchman was close to pulling out a gold coin from his pocket with which to buy her favors, but then that useful inner voice became vocal once again— leave, it said, or your plans of four years will fall to nothing—“and I left the cottage without speaking a word, or daring to take another glance and dragged myself, sighing, along.”
A few days later, and having found a horse, a companion and excellent directions (the last from a “round and jolly” Carmelite), he arrived at a small hamlet called Galiatitlan, and finally saw, for the first time, and on the leaves of a cactus, what he thought could be the treasure he had come so far and risked so much to find. He leapt from his horse, pretending to alter his stirrups, and entered the grounds. Seeing the Indian owner walking toward him, he struck up what he tried to make seem like a casual conversation. Endeavoring to disguise his excitement, he asked the man what the plants were for. When he was told it was “to cultivate grana,” de Menonville pretended surprise and begged to see.
“But my surprise was real when he brought it to me, for instead of the red insect I expected there appeared one covered with a white powder,” de Menonville wrote. Was this a false ending to his quest? Could he have travelled so far for the wrong insect? “I was tormented with doubts,” he wrote. “And to resolve them thought of crushing one on white paper, and what was the result?” It yielded a royal purple hue. “Intoxicated with joy and admiration, I hastily left my Indian, throwing him two coins for his pain, and galloped at full speed after my companion.” Having discovered that red paint was made from white bugs, he “even trembled with ecstasy,” he wrote happily in his journal. Grand plans for a huge French national color industry, credited in future history books to none other than Thierry de Menonville, no doubt filled his dreams that night, although they shared their space in his head with more practical worries to the effect that “I should have to bring to a safe haven an animal so light, so pliable, so easy to crush: an animal which, once separated from the plant, could never settle on it again.”
It was not only France which was desperate for this dye, the young explorer knew. If de Menonville could get those insects home and if the venture was a success he knew he could export to Holland and Britain and a dozen other countries full of people who were tired of buying red from Spain’s overpriced monopoly. Britain was particularly vulnerable. By the time our young botanist was scaling the walls of Vera Cruz, British dyers were finding themselves in a quandary. Britain had a successful cotton industry but continental Europeans used to joke about English dyeing with the same amusement as they have joked, over the centuries, about English cooking. Of the 340 tons a year that New Spain was importing to Europe by the end of the eighteenth century, British dyers were claiming nearly one-fifth. It wasn’t all for fashion: much of that insect blood was intended to hide the stains of human blood, and was heading straight for the military dyeing vats, after an accidental discovery by a Dutchman living in London.
Cornelius Drebbel had not actually been working on dyes at all, that day in 1607, but had been sitting in his laboratory gazing out of the window, probably thinking about the world’s first “s
cuba” gear. He would eventually demonstrate his ideas in the world’s first submarine (or at least subriverine), which was rowed underwater from Westminster to Greenwich under his direction to the enthusiastic roar of crowds. But these moments of an eccentric’s glory were in the future. On the day in question, the glory was not at all obvious. Drebbel was absorbed in his thoughts, and he carelessly knocked over a glass thermometer containing a mixture of cochineal and aqua fortis.12 It spilled all over the windowsill and onto the pewter frame of the window. To Drebbel’s surprise it made a bright red dye. He did some more experiments, using pewter and then just tin as a mordant, and ultimately set up a dye works in Bow in East London with his son-in-law Abraham Kuffler. By 1645 Oliver Cromwell had fitted out his New Model Army with Kuffler tunics and from then on the British army was to be famous for its red coats. The scarlet broadcloth for British officers’ uniforms would be dyed with cochineal until as late as 1952. So in the heady days of 1777 it was immensely valuable stuff, and for any young man who had the secret fortune and fame seemed assured.
Soon after that first sighting of cochineal, de Menonville arrived in the mountain city of Oaxaca. He begged the black owner of a plantation to sell him some nopal leaves with the bugs on them. He pretended it was for an urgent medical salve. “He permitted me to take as much as I pleased: I did not require twice bidding but immediately selected eight of the handsomest branches, each two feet long and consisting of seven or eight leaves in length but so perfectly covered with cochineals as to be quite white with them. I cut them off myself, placed them in the best possible manner in the boxes and covered them with the towels . . . I gave him a dollar . . . and while he overwhelmed me with gratitude I called in my Indians, loaded them with the two baskets and made off with the rapidity of lightning.”
At this point de Menonville could not help contemplating the terrible punishment he would meet if his cargo were discovered. Spanish justice was strict; smuggling carried strict penalties, and although he did not know exactly what they were, he did know that forgers were punished at the stake. If it was death by fire for making a few fake coins, what would the Spaniards conjure up for a man caught stealing the ingredients of their most lucrative trade? “My heart beat in a manner that beggars description: it seemed to me as if I was bearing away the golden fleece, but at the same time as if the furious dragon, placed over it as a guard, was following close at my heels: all the way I kept humming the famous lines of the song ‘At last I have it in my Power’ and should willingly have sung it aloud, but for fear of being heard.” He carefully packed up the boxes with plenty of other plants and started out on the return journey, itself full of adventures, with authorities almost guessing his trickery, and drivers attempting their own trickery.
“By accident a mirror happened to hang before me, and seeing myself in it, dirty and with my clothes torn, I could not but feel amazement and gratification at the little difficulty I had met with. In France, taken for a highwayman, I should have been stopped by the police: in Mexico I was not even asked for my passport.” He arrived back in Vera Cruz sixteen days after he had left, with his new friends believing he had been enjoying the baths at the nearby seaside town of Madeleine.
A week later he found himself at the port at dawn. “I was not without some dread,” he admitted, “and, in real truth, this appeared to me the decisive day. At day-break I caused all my cases of plants, as well as all my empty boxes, to be carried from my lodgings, and every thing had reached the gate of the quay before six o’clock. I computed that at this hour the idle would still be asleep, that the soldiers and officers, tied with the night-guard, would be at rest in their hammocks, and that all unoccupied and inquisitive would be at the market.” He was right about the streets, which were almost empty, but with thirty porters following him it was hard not to be noticed. The customs officers asked to see what the botanist had in his packs, and to his horror he was suddenly surrounded by a crowd of soldiers, sailors and tradespeople who could not contain their curiosity. De Menonville opened his boxes, as if he were proud to show off his findings—and to his huge relief, he got away with the bluff. “The officer of the guard complimented me on my researches and collection of herbs: the searchers admired them in stupid astonishment but at the same time were so civil as not to check any of the cases, though they might have done so without injuring my plants, and the head of the office, satisfied with my readiness to suffer examination, told me I might pass on.”
It was not an easy journey—it took an astonishing three months to reach Port au Prince in Haiti—but when he finally opened his cases, quivering with anxiety over the condition of his state secret, he was relieved to find that some of the bugs had survived. Moreover, the navy paid him the 2,000 livres they owed him, which he used to start his own nopalerie in Santo Domingo. It must have seemed ironic, if not cruel, that he went out one day for a walk near his house on Santo Domingo—and discovered indigenous cochineal.
De Menonville continued to publish research on whether it mattered if the cochineal lived on an opuntia with red flowers or white, yellow or violet ones (it didn’t), on how many different species of cactus the insect could successfully thrive on (about five or six), and on whether Mexican or Santo Domingan cochineal gave the better paint (he was undecided)—until his death three years later in 1780, when he was probably not even thirty years old. Doctors may have ascribed his fatal sickness to a “maligne” virus, but the word from those who knew him was that his death was caused by disappointment. The King—who was to die on the guillotine block in 1789—had made him Royal Botanist, but de Menonville had not become the hero he wanted to be. First there were rumors, which he strongly denied, that he had stolen the cochineal. Later the consignment he sent to the King’s garden in Paris was lost when the ship—the Postillon de Rochelle —was sunk. He had also not been popular among his colleagues: a subject delicately mentioned in an elegy given five years after his death by the president of the Société Royale de Médecine, Monsieur Arthaud. “People have reproached Monsieur Thiery [sic] for his violence, his posturing, and the hardness in his character . . . but it is an indifferent person who either will not or can not recognise the merit of a superior man, and who only looks at him from the outside,” Arthaud said, adding diplomatically that de Menonville was a French hero, albeit one with character flaws. The cactus garden that de Menonville tended in Santo Domingo—ironically only the wild cochineals survived—allowed the French cochineal industry to thrive for some years, until the arrival of new synthetic fabric dyes in the 1870s made this color a rarity in the world’s dyeing vats.
Today, in Oaxaca, the cochineal industry has almost vanished from the landscape,13 although it is still there in the stones. The town’s colonial heritage is intact, and many of the grandest buildings, including the huge Santo Domingo church and its neighboring convent, now one of Mexico’s best provincial museums, could be said to be built on the bodies of beetles. But the city’s libraries do not easily yield the letters and records of Mexico’s red barons. With the help of librarians I found just one book—a school textbook with a mere one page of information about the industry that built the town, and even that information is based on the research of an English scholar—R. A. Donkin from Cambridge—not a Mexican.
INDIAN RED
De Menonville’s journey was, in his own mind, a failure. He may have found his fleece, but it had not brought him the gold he hoped for. But his work inspired others to try to introduce cochineal to the Old World. Having read his work, the decision-makers of the British East India Company became excited by the possibilities offered by insect harvests. There was, after all, a market: if they managed to make the red dye themselves, they calculated, they could sell it not only to Europeans but to the Chinese—who had been importing cochineal from the Americas for at least a hundred years on the fabled Manila Galleon. There was also a thriving market for red in Central Asia: the carpet dyers had long been experimenting with cochineal, and by the end of the eighteenth ce
ntury it had begun displacing the more traditional red rug dyes.
Throughout the 1780s Dr. James Anderson in Madras made a bid to be the cochineal king of the British Empire. He imported several different kinds of opuntia from Kew Gardens, so that he was able to write home to England—with unmistakable delight—about a certain Captain Parker, who had called in to visit. “He was not a little surprised to find himself in a grove of upward of Two Thousand of the Kew Plants; many of them covered with the Fruit, of which he inadvertently eat [sic]; til his lips were deeply tinged and filled with small prickles.” Dr. Anderson—whose letters show a missionary zeal for introducing cochineal—also sent the plants on to remoter colonial stations, including the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic— more famously Napoleon’s last home—where the governor, Robert Brooke, pronounced them to be “growing luxuriantly . . . we have now a variety of the species here, and only want the insect.”
Indeed, everyone wanted the insect. Dr. Anderson kept writing letters trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade the British government to offer a cash prize to anyone who could bring live cochineals to India. In 1789 he was getting desperate and sent a letter to the Hon. John Holland back in England, telling him that “there are 500 copies of the Directions for Taking care of the Insects at Sea, returned from the Press,” and pushing him to get a budget for translating the document, “for it is evident that the French lost the Fruits of Mr. Tierry’s [sic] zeal by his want of time to establish rooted Plants for transporting the Insects.”
Everything seemed to have changed when, in 1795, a Captain Neilson sailed into the port of Calcutta. He had some cochineals—and a story to tell. The ship had stopped a few months earlier in Rio de Janeiro, and Captain Neilson had gone for a stroll outside town, attended by “the usual” Portuguese guard. He saw a plantation of cactus with the insect on it, and (having been stationed at Madras with the 52nd Regiment five years before) remembered Dr. Anderson’s appeals for help. He pretended to be an amateur naturalist and asked the locals for some samples. By the time he got to India they had all died, except for one leaf with a few dozen sickly little insects—on which rested the hope of Britain for a new and grand industrial venture.
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