Octave Mouret before and after PotBouille and Au Bonheur Des Dames

THE FORTUNE
OF THE
ROUGONS
His elder brother [Octave?], not knowing what to do with him, took him also to
his uncle's. The latter made a wry face on beholding the child; he had no intention
of carrying his compensation so far as to feed a useless mouth.

ABBE
MOURET'S
TRANSGRESSI
ON

I saw your brother Octave at Marseilles last month. He is off to Paris, where he
will get a fine berth in a high-class business. The young beggar, a nice life he
leads.'

HIS
MASTERPIECE

[] a male cousin, of the second degree, a wealthy man, decorated with the
Legion of Honour, and owning one of the large Paris drapery shops. He showed
himself good-naturedly condescending in his elegance, and desirous of displaying
an enlightened taste for art. [] The second cousin, on the contrary, drew himself
up and walked first behind the hearse, filling the part of chief mourner with proud
and pleasant fitness.

DOCTOR
PASCAL
Octave Mouret, one of the kings of the new commerce

Of the three children, Octave Mouret was the audacious conqueror, the clear
intellect, resolved to demand from the women the sovereignty of Paris, fallen at
his debut into the midst of a corrupt bourgeois society, acquiring there a terrible
sentimental education, passing from the capricious refusal of one woman to the
unresisting abandonment of another, remaining, fortunately, active, laborious,
and combative, gradually emerging, and improved even, from the low plotting,
the ceaseless ferment of a rotten society that could be heard already cracking to
its foundations. And Octave Mouret, victorious, revolutionized commerce;
swallowed up the cautious little shops that carried on business in the oldfashioned way; established in the midst of feverish Paris the colossal palace of
temptation, blazing with lights, overflowing with velvets, silks, and laces; won
fortunes exploiting woman; lived in smiling scorn of woman until the day when a
little girl, the avenger of her sex, the innocent and wise Denise, vanquished him
and held him captive at her feet, groaning with anguish, until she did him the
favor, she who was so poor, to marry him in the midst of the apotheosis of his
Louvre, under the golden shower of his receipts.

Octave Mouret, proprietor of the great establishment Au Bonheur des Dames,

whose colossal fortune still continued increasing, had had, toward the end of the
winter, a third child by his wife Denise Baudu, whom he adored, although his
mind was beginning to be deranged again.

He was more fully furnished with documents regarding the two children of
Octave Mouret, with whom he continued to correspond; the little girl was
growing up puny and delicate, while the little boy, who strongly resembled his
mother, had developed superbly, and was perfectly healthy.

The three children of the Mourets are born of the same breath which makes of
the clever Octave the dry goods merchant, a millionaire

Octave Mouret had come near losing his daughter, who had always been very
frail, while his little boy continued to enjoy superb health.