Denise Baudu is 20. She moves to Paris with her younger brothers from Valognes where she finds a job at a department store called "Au Bonheur des Dames," which is The Ladies' Paradise in French. She works long days for very low provisions, and the difficult lives of the women often lead to in-fighting.
The owner of Au Bonheur is a savvy business many named Octave Mouret. He is extremely manipulative, crafting clever ways of tricking women into spending more money than they want to, by overwhelming them with the shopping experience. He is known around town for driving local competitors out of business. Also, he has slowly branched into every retail sector, slowly draining the local economy entirely. Denise learns these things from conversations with locals.
One day, Octave Mouret seduces a young widow. He wants to become more politically influential so that he can change some local laws to make his business easier to run. He meets Denise and falls in love with her, but she doesn't respond positively, and he isn't used to rejection. He pursues her ravenously and she reduces him to a puddle before he wins her over and they are married.
