Other branch
Denise Baudu
Shop girl, then department director
Not a Rougon-Macquart by blood, but the moral and narrative centre of Au Bonheur des Dames. Denise arrives in Paris from Valognes in Normandy with her two younger brothers and no connections, hoping to find work in her uncle Baudu's drapery shop — only to discover that the great department store across the street has already made the shop unviable. She takes a position in Au Bonheur des Dames without enthusiasm and without expectation; she is taken on without enthusiasm either. She is not beautiful in the conventional sense, not charming, not socially skilled. She is competent, honest, and apparently impervious to intimidation. She is fired for a minor infraction and spends a desperate period in furnished rooms, taking in sewing to survive, before returning to the store. Her ascent is entirely meritocratic — she is promoted because she is genuinely good at what she does. Octave Mouret notices her first as an irritant (she keeps filing complaints about working conditions that he would rather ignore), then as a puzzle, then as the one woman who will not be dazzled by him. He offers her everything, progressively: a private dinner, a directorship, money, his desire. She refuses all of it with the same quiet, implacable courtesy. She will accept none of it on those terms. She will accept marriage — genuine commitment — or nothing. He loves her eventually for this, and marries her, and she becomes the department store's humane conscience. Zola does not make her a saint; she is practical, occasionally naive, always clear about what she will and will not do. She is the only character in the cycle who faces Octave Mouret at full strength and does not blink.
Héroïne morale d'Au Bonheur des Dames. Vendeuse normande arrivée à Paris sans relations et sans atouts conventionnels, elle monte par son seul mérite malgré les licenciements et la misère. Mouret lui propose argent, poste et désir ; elle refuse tout avec une courtoisie implacable jusqu'à ce qu'il lui offre un mariage sincère. Unique personnage du cycle à affronter Mouret à pleine force sans céder.
Plain in feature but with a natural dignity and quiet strength that makes her beautiful to those who look carefully — which Octave Mouret, eventually, does.
Plain in feature but with a natural dignity and quiet strength that makes her beautiful to those who look carefully — which Octave Mouret, eventually, does.
Family & Relationships
- Lover Octave Mouret