Economic Revival and Innovation

Despite political uncertainty, the 1870s witnessed remarkable economic recovery. The payment of the Prussian indemnity, rather than crushing France, demonstrated the nation's financial resilience. The Bank of France's gold reserves actually increased during this period, and new industries began to flourish.

The department store emerged as a symbol of this new prosperity. Au Bon Marché, expanded by Aristide Boucicaut and his wife Marguerite, pioneered retail techniques that would define modern shopping. Fixed prices replaced haggling. Goods were displayed to encourage browsing. The store offered mail-order catalogs that reached into the provinces, spreading Parisian fashion and taste across France.

But Marguerite Boucicaut's role went beyond business innovation. After her husband's death in 1877, she ran the store alone, becoming one of France's first female industrial magnates. She instituted employee benefits unusual for the era: a pension fund, free medical care, and even paid vacation. "A satisfied employee creates satisfied customers," she explained to skeptical competitors.

These stores also provided new employment opportunities for women. The vendeuse (saleswoman) became a recognizable urban type—young women from respectable but modest backgrounds who earned their own wages and navigated public space with a freedom their mothers could not have imagined. Though their pay remained far below that of male employees and their behavior was strictly regulated, they represented a crack in traditional gender boundaries.