2023-08-16 01:00:14
Did you know… that it was in Liège that a merchant had imagined the concept of department stores? The sixth episode of our podcast series looks back on this saga.
At the dawn of the French and Liège revolution, around 1788, a tradesman from the Duchy of Luxembourg runs a boutique of perfumery, fine hardware and articles from Paris, very fashionable at the time. He has more than one trick up his sleeve: his name is Joseph Michel Orban.
Taking advantage of the notoriety of his wife who does the hair of the ladies of high society, he makes his business grow. and discovers a recipe that assures him success: that of the pomade which reproduces the color of the hair of Marie-Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, between brown and red.
Joseph-Michel Orban sells everything: oil, vinegar, lamps, soaps, remedies, perfumes, razors, wallpaper, liqueurs, socks. Over time, it diversifies and expands its sales area, while paying particular attention to what is now called “customer experience”.
Ingenious, he later used, during the French Revolution, the difference in value of assignats, the paper money of the time, between Paris and Liège, to build your fortune which will extend to becoming the owner of land, real estate and industrial sites.
The beginning of the family conquest
Joseph Michel Orban first invested, in 1797, in a chicory mill. Two years later, he seized a vast property, Place de la République Française in the heart of Liège. He bought land in the surrounding area until he acquired the domain of Sainte-Ode, between Bastogne and Saint-Hubert, where his wife had officiated.
It is with his only son, Henri Joseph, that Joseph Michel Orban establishes the power of the family. With him, he is interested in coal mines, forges, blast furnaces and a steelworks in Grivegnée where he introduces new production methods.
In 1833, the life of the patriarch came to an abrupt end. He succumbed, most likely, to cholera.
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Journalist: Guillaume Cordeaux
Directed by: Julie Garrigue
Mixing: Rudi Wynants
Illustrations: Marie-Anne Dozo
Music: Stef Lenaerts
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