There is an urgency to the shopping on Boulevard Haussmann but outside Printemps, Paris’ oldest and largest department store, crowds assemble around each window. Russian stacking dolls open and close rhythmically, in the dead of the forest a table is laid in the finest crystal and women in beaded gowns promenade with fur coated animals. Amid the crowd, in repurposed shopping carts roasted chestnut are peddled by the cone full.