Sidonie Rougon

Youngest daughter of Pierre and Félicité Rougon. By 1848 she was married and living in Paris.

Sidonie plays a large role in La Curée and is one of its most eccentric characters. She is introduced in the first chapter as “a skinny, artificial woman of uncertain age, with a soft, waxy face that her faded dress made even less memorable”. She is in fact only 35.
She is Saccard's sister and she had married a legal clerk from Plassans. She came to Paris with her husband(M. Touche) and they set up a fruit shop on the rue Saint-Honoré. What became of the husband or the shop remains a mystery. At the time of the novel she is living on the rue du Faubourg-Poissonière in an apartment above a shop, which she also leases. The shop is hardly open and displays lace only. Upstairs she runs something akin to the business of Dell boy Trotter in the British comedy series “Only Fools and Horses” with items ranging from suspenders to a patented automatic coffeemaker to pianos. She also traded information and was always running errands to lawyers and judges on behalf of her “clients”. It was this side of her character which was instrumental in putting together the family of Renée with Saccard at the time of his first wife's death. To emphasize her eccentricity, we also learn that she carries around with her paperwork relating to a debt owed by England to France for what is now 3 billion francs. This debt crops up throughout the novel but has no link to the main narrative. She is a great character who at different times you want to laugh at, feel sorry for and know more about. However, there is not a soft side to Sidonie. For her everything is a deal to be done as we see when she deals with the wedding of Saccard or later when she is trying to find a lover for Renée to solve her money problems. Zola explains that the woman in her had died.