1810-1877
Department Store Founder

Early Years. Aristide Boucicaut, founder of the first French department store, was born in the Norman village of Belleme, where his father was a hat maker, and left home at eighteen to work with an itinerant peddler. By 1835 he was living in Paris, where he was employed at the Petit Saint-Thomas, a dry-goods store (known in France as a magasin de nouveaute, or novelty store), selling wares such as silks, cloths, ready-to-wear clothing, stitchery, umbrellas, and gloves. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, Boucicaut met and married Marguerite Guerin. After rising to a managerial position at the Petit Saint-Thomas, Boucicaut borrowed 50,000 francs and went into partnership with Paul Videau to purchase Au Bon Marche, a similar novelty store on the Left Bank of the Seine. When the two partners bought the store in 1852, it had only twelve...