From its earliest manifestations, the grand magasin was viewed as a baleful monster encroaching on surrounding territory. Jules Vallès notes in 1882 that ‘la terre classique du petit commerce heureux’ has been taken over by big shops: ‘C'est maintenant le grand magasin qui occupe le bas des larges immeubles, hangars luxueux, bazars à mines de caravansérails.’ Zola bequeathed to subsequent generations a series of characteristic tropes for imagining and depicting the successors of the grand magasin. Despite the positive associations Zola is seeking to propagate, from the opening pages Au bonheur des dames is a ‘monstre’ (66, 70, 75, 249, 295) in which Denise feels swallowed up (102). Repeatedly, ‘le colosse’ (223, 459, 460) is described in terms likely to inspire fear: ‘Il dominait, il couvrait un quartier de son ombre’ (459), we are told, and it is said to have ‘égorgé’ (460) the neighbourhood. It will indeed ‘devour’ (499) Paris. In the final chapter we read that ‘tel que le montrait la gravure des réclames, il s’était engraissé, pareil à l'ogre des contes’ (460). Just as Mouret's fictitious store expanded to fill an entire block, Valmy-Baysse depicts Paris-Universel similarly extending its reach: ‘Paris Universel, au fur et à mesure du développement de ses magasins, a, maison par maison, conquis un îlot parisien’ (Les Comptoirs de Vénus, 24). Nor was the store's presence limited to the space occupied by its building: setting up stalls outside its entrance to catch the attention of passers-by effectively populated the public space of the pavement with commercial activity; and its science of window-dressing meant the very street was absorbed as a part of its display area. In the late 1920s, the architect of the Galeries Lafayette, Ferdinand Chahut, used electric lighting with the aim of theatricalising the window displays, to colonise the pavement ‘pour le faire compter comme salle sans aucune gêne pour la liberté du public’; awnings further encroached upon public space. This all intensified the annexation of everyday life by the store.