It was on a Monday, the 14th of March, that The Ladies' Paradise inaugurated its new buildings by a great exhibition of summer novelties, which was to last three days. Outside, a sharp wind was blowing, the passers-by, surprised by this return of winter, spun¹ along, buttoned up in their overcoats. However, behind the closed doors of the neighbouring shops, quite an agitation³ was fermenting⁴; and one could see, against the windows, the pale faces of the small tradesmen, occupied in counting the first carriages which stopped before the new grand entrance in the Rue⁵ Neuve-Saint-Augustin. This door, lofty and deep like a church porch, surmounted⁶ by a group—Industry and Commerce hand-in-hand amidst a complication of symbols—was sheltered by a vast awning⁷, the fresh gilding⁸ of which seemed to light up the pavement with a ray of sunshine. To the right and left stretched the shop fronts, barely dry and of a blinding whiteness, running along the Rue Monsigny and the Rue de la Michodière, occupying the whole island, except on the Rue du Dix-Décembre side, where the Crédit Immobilier intended to build. Along this barrack-like development, the small tradesmen, when they raised their heads, perceived the piles of goods through the large plate-glass windows which, from the ground floor up to the second storey, opened the house to the light of day. And this enormous cube, this colossal⁹ bazaar¹⁰, shut out the sky from them, seeming to cause the cold which was making them shiver behind their frozen counters.