Aristide had a sister living in Paris. Sidonie Rougon had married a solicitor's clerk at Plassans, who had come with her to the Rue Saint-Honoré to start business as a dealer in Southern commodities. When her brother came across her, the husband had disappeared, and the business had long ago gone to the dogs. She occupied in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, a small mezzanine floor consisting of three rooms. She also leased the shop beneath, a narrow and mysterious shop in which she pretended to carry on the business of a dealer in lace. True enough, there was a display of Valenciennes and Maltese lace suspended from gilt rods in the window; but inside, the place had more the look of an ante-room, with its polished wainscotting, and a total absence of goods of any description. Light curtains hung before the glazed door and the window, intercepting the glances of the passers-by, and helping to give the shop the veiled and discreet appearance of a waiting-room at the entrance to some strange temple. It was very seldom that any customer was seen to call at Madame Sidonie's; the handle was even generally removed from the door. She spread a report in the neighbourhood that she went personally to offer her wares to ladies of fortune. The convenient arrangement of the place, she would say, had alone caused her to rent the shop and the floor above which communicated by a staircase hidden in the wall. And indeed the lace-dealer was constantly out of doors; she might be seen hurrying in or out at least ten times a day. The lace trade, however, was not her only business; she utilised her upper floor--cramming it full of merchandise of one sort or another, bought up no one knew where. At different times she had dealt there in gutta-percha goods, such as waterproof coats, shoes, braces, &c; then had followed a new oil to promote the growth of the hair, various orthopedic instruments, and an automatic coffee-pot, a patented invention, the working of which gave her a great deal of trouble. The first time her brother came to see her, she had gone in for pianos, to such an extent that her apartments were full of them; they were even in her bedroom, a very daintily decorated room, which contrasted violently with the commercial untidiness of the two others. She carried on her two businesses with perfect method; the customers who came for the goods on the mezzanine floor, entered and departed by means of a carriage entrance which gave admittance to the house from the Rue Papillon; only those acquainted with the mysterious little staircase were able to form an idea of the lace-dealer's underhand trading. Up in her apartments she was known as Madame Touche, which was the name of her husband, whilst she had had only her Christian name painted on the shop-door, which was the reason for her being generally addressed as Madame Sidonie.