As early as six o'clock, Mouret was on the spot, giving his final orders. In the centre, starting from the grand entrance, a large gallery ran from end to end, flanked right and left by two narrower ones, the Monsigny Gallery and the Michodière Gallery. Glass roofings covered the court-yards turned into huge halls, iron staircases ascended from the ground floor, on both upper floors iron bridges were thrown from one end to the other of the establishment. The architect, who happened to be a young man of talent, with modern ideas, had only used stone for the basement and corner work, employing iron for all the rest of the huge carcass--columns upholding all the assemblage of beams and joists. The vaulting of the ceilings, like the partitions, was of brick. Space had been gained everywhere; light and air entered freely, and the public circulated with the greatest ease under the bold flights of the far-stretching girders. It was the cathedral of modern commerce, light but strong, the very thing for a nation of customers. Below, in the central gallery, after the door bargains, came the cravat, glove, and silk departments; the Monsigny Gallery was occupied by the linen and Rouen goods; and the Michodière Gallery by the mercery, hosiery, drapery, and woollens. Then, on the first floor came the mantle, under-linen, shawl, lace, and various new departments, whilst the bedding, the carpets, the furnishing materials, all the cumbersome articles difficult to handle, had been relegated to the second floor. In all there were now thirty-nine departments with eighteen hundred employees, two hundred of whom were women. Quite a little world abode there, amidst the sonorous life of the high metallic naves.