the firm. And this head is a woman.

This woman is remarkable. Gifted with keen understanding and a firm
will, she had in former times vowed to make a large fortune, and she has
kept her word.

She was the daughter of a humble packer of the Rue Neuve-Coquenard.
Toward 1848 she married Michel Desvarennes, who was then a journeyman
baker in a large shop in the Chaussee d'Antin. With the thousand francs
which the packer managed to give his daughter by way of dowry, the young
couple boldly took a shop and started a little bakery business. The
husband kneaded and baked the bread, and the young wife, seated at the
counter, kept watch over the till. Neither on Sundays nor on holidays
was the shop shut.

Through the window, between two pyramids of pink and blue packets of
biscuits, one could always catch sight of the serious-looking Madame
Desvarennes, knitting woollen stockings for her husband while waiting for
customers. With her prominent forehead, and her eyes always bent on her
work, this woman appeared the living image of perseverance.

At the end of five years of incessant work, and possessing twenty
thousand francs, saved sou by sou, the Desvarennes left the slopes of
Montmartre, and moved to the centre of Paris. They were ambitious and
full of confidence. They set up in the Rue Vivienne, in a shop
resplendent with gilding and ornamented with looking-glasses. The
ceiling was painted in panels with bright hued pictures that caught the
eyes of the passers-by. The window-shelves were of white marble, and the
counter, where Madame Desvarennes was still enthroned, was of a width
worthy of the receipts that were taken every day. Business increased