And it was always no, in all the departments, in the galleries, in the saloons, and in every part of the establishment! He went from the silk to the drapery department, from the linen to the lace department, he ascended to the upper floors, stopping on the flying bridges, prolonging his inspection with a maniacal, grievous minuteness. The house had grown out of all bounds, he had created this department, then this other; he governed this fresh domain, he extended his empire into this industry, the last one conquered; and it was no, always no, in spite of everything. His staff would now have sufficed to people a small town: there were fifteen hundred salesmen, and a thousand other employees of every sort, including forty inspectors and seventy cashiers; the kitchens alone gave occupation to thirty-two men; ten clerks were set apart for the advertising; there were three hundred and fifty shop messengers, all wearing livery, and twenty-four firemen living on the premises. And, in the stables, royal buildings situated in the Rue Monsigny, opposite the warehouse, were one hundred and forty-five horses, a luxurious establishment which was already celebrated in Paris. The first four conveyances which used formerly to stir up the whole neighbourhood, when the house occupied only the corner of the Place Gaillon, had gradually increased to sixty-two trucks, one-horse vans, and heavy two-horse ones. They were continually scouring Paris, driven with knowing skill by drivers dressed in black, promenading the gold and purple sign of The Ladies' Paradise. They even went beyond the fortifications, into the suburbs; they were to be met on the dusty roads of Bicêtre, along the banks of the Marne, even in the shady drives of the Forest of Saint-Germain. Sometimes one would spring up from the depths of some sunny avenue, where all was silent and deserted, the superb animals trotting along, throwing into the mysterious peacefulness of this grand nature the loud advertisement of its varnished panels. He was even dreaming of launching them further still, into the neighbouring departments; he would have liked to hear them rolling along every road in France, from one frontier to the other. But he no longer even troubled to visit his horses, though he was passionately fond of them. Of what good was this conquest of the world, since it was no, always no? At present, in the evening, when he arrived at Lhomme's desk, he still looked through habit at the amount of the takings written on a card, which the cashier stuck on an iron file at his side; this figure rarely fell below a hundred thousand francs, sometimes it ran up to eight and nine hundred thousand, on big sale days; but these figures no longer sounded in his ears like a trumpet-blast, he regretted having looked at them, going away full of bitterness and scorn for money.