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Madame Baudu
Geneviève is Baudu’s daughter. She is pale and thin, with a thick mane of black hair. Per tradition, she has been engaged for 10 years to her father’s shop assistant, Colomban, who will take over her father’s shop when they marry. As Colomban grows increasingly allured by Clara Prunaire (who he can see through the window at the Ladies’ Paradise across the street), Geneviève’s spirits start to suffer. This leads her health to suffer too, as she grows so thin and sickly that her body no longer looks like a woman’s. Shortly after Colomban runs away with Clara, Geneviève dies, and the local tradespeople gather for her funeral—an event which symbolizes the death of small business.
Geneviève Baudu Quotes in The Ladies’ Paradise
The The Ladies’ Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Geneviève Baudu or refer to Geneviève Baudu . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
It was true, it was stealing everything from them: from the father, his money; from the mother, her dying child; from the daughter, a husband for whom she had waited ten years.
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Chapter 13
Quotes
She seemed to hear the trampling of a herd of cattle being led to the slaughterhouse, the destruction of the shops of a whole district, the small traders squelching along in their down-at-heel shoes, trailing ruin through the black mud of Paris.
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What tortures! Weeping families, old men thrown out into the street, all the poignant dramas associated with ruin! And she could not save anyone; she was even aware that it was a good thing: this manure of distress was necessary to the health of the Paris of the future.
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Why should her small hand suddenly become such a powerful part of the monster’s work? And the force which was carrying everything before it was carrying her away too, she whose coming was to be a revenge. Mouret had invented this mechanism for crushing people, and its brutal operation shocked her. He had strewn the neighborhood with ruins, he had despoiled some and killed others; yet she loved him for the grandeur of his achievement.
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Geneviève Baudu Quotes in The Ladies’ Paradise
The The Ladies’ Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Geneviève Baudu or refer to Geneviève Baudu . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
It was true, it was stealing everything from them: from the father, his money; from the mother, her dying child; from the daughter, a husband for whom she had waited ten years.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13
Quotes
She seemed to hear the trampling of a herd of cattle being led to the slaughterhouse, the destruction of the shops of a whole district, the small traders squelching along in their down-at-heel shoes, trailing ruin through the black mud of Paris.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
What tortures! Weeping families, old men thrown out into the street, all the poignant dramas associated with ruin! And she could not save anyone; she was even aware that it was a good thing: this manure of distress was necessary to the health of the Paris of the future.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Why should her small hand suddenly become such a powerful part of the monster’s work? And the force which was carrying everything before it was carrying her away too, she whose coming was to be a revenge. Mouret had invented this mechanism for crushing people, and its brutal operation shocked her. He had strewn the neighborhood with ruins, he had despoiled some and killed others; yet she loved him for the grandeur of his achievement.
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Page Number and Citation:
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