Pauline Lefèvre-Utile

Pauline Isabelle Utile was born on 30 June 1830 in Marle, in the department of Aisne, to Catherine Marie Adélaide (née Picart; 1798–1879) and Jean Baptiste Désiré Utile (1792 – c. 1858), a mounted gendarme and later an annuitant following an inheritance. At the age of sixteen, her parents sent her to live with two of her aunts in Varennes-en-Argonne and work as a demoiselle de boutique (shop girl). This practice developed in the 19th century and enabled women to find work and build up their own dowries. This work enabled her to acquire the experience, skills and part of the finances that were to play a decisive role in the foundation of the LU biscuit empire.{{Cite web |last=Patrimonia |first=Site Nantes |title=Pauline-Isabelle Lefèvre-Utile |url=https://patrimonia.nantes.fr/home/decouvrir/themes-et-quartiers/pauline-isabelle-lefevre-utile.html |access-date=17 September 2022 |website=patrimonia.nantes.fr}}

Pauline Utile married Jean-Romain Lefèvre from Meuse on 7 September 1850.{{Cite web |title=État civil |url=http://archives.meuse.fr/embed/4cf96734bd |access-date= |website=archives.meuse.fr |page=267 |language=fr}}. They moved to Nantes{{cite web |url=https://www.herodote.net/Le_bon_par_le_beau-synthese-2799-299.php |title=Les biscuits LU - le bon par le beau - Herodote.net}} and had four children: Ernest (1851-1939), Auguste (1854), Pauline (1855-1894), and Louis (1858-1940) who later took over managing the company and invented the Petit Beurre after studying biscuit manufacturing in Britain.{{Cite book |last=Olivier Fruneau-Maigret |title=LU une marque à l'avant-garde |date=10 July 2020 |publisher=Musée D'histoire Du Château Nantes |isbn=978-2906519800 |location=Nantes |pages=20–21 |language=french |access-date=}}

File:Petit Beurre LU.JPG

As early as 1846, Jean-Romain Lefèvre had offered English biscuits from Huntley & Palmers for sale alongside his own recipes, in his pâtisserie shop at 5 rue Boileau in Nantes.{{Cite web |title=Généalogie de Pauline Isabelle Utile |url=https://gw.geneanet.org/keepthebowflow?lang=fr&n=utile&oc=0&p=pauline+isabelle |access-date=17 September 2022 |website=Geneanet |language=fr}}

In 1850, the couple became owners of the shop and named it Fabrique de biscuits de Reims et de bonbons secs. Pauline Lefèvre-Utile was in charge of the management of the shop and the commercial aspects of the family business. Her skills and experience of retail contributed greatly to the development of their business. Her dowry enabled the couple to acquire the neighbouring premises at number 7 rue Boileau. The shop's sign combined the couple's two surnames, Lefèvre and Utile. This was the beginning of the maison LU.{{Cite book |last=Bernard Le Nail |title=Dictionnaire biographique de Nantes et de Loire-Atlantique |date=2010 |publisher=Le temps éditeur |isbn=978-2363120007 |location=Pornic |page= |pages= |language=|access-date=}}

The shop had a reputation for quality products, but also for its architecture and decor. It is vast (150 m2) with high ceilings, beautiful mouldings and chandeliers, and wood panelling on the walls, giving the whole space an upmarket and refined character.{{Cite book |last=Thibault |first=Patrick, ... |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/468405755 |title=La belle histoire de LU |date=1998 |publisher=Éd. CMD |others=Impr. Siraudeau) |isbn=2-909826-76-7 |volume=13 |location=Montreuil-Bellay |oclc=468405755}} The products sold included Biscuits de Reims, boudoirs, les biscuits champagne, langue de chat, macarons, vanilla biscuits, marzipan and almond petit fours. The products were arranged in crystal bowls with feet and elegant display stands. Waitresses welcome customers who picked the products they required, which were then picked up using tongs, (a rare occurrence at the time), and placed in a package designed to show them off to their best advantage. Cardboard boxes were introduced to take the products away as gifts, decorated with colourful scenes of the country or of children playing. The company employed fourteen workers in 1880.

In 1882, following the death of Jean-Romain Lefèvre, the couple's third son Louis took over the family business, aged 24. He had studied at the Lycée Clemenceau and spent time in Britain learning about the manufacture of British biscuits. Louis Lefèvre-Utile set up a first factory and later that year, the family business was awarded with a gold medal at the Nantes exhibition.File:Faire-part_de_décès_de_Pauline_Isabelle_Utile.jpg

Pauline Lefèvre-Utile died on 5 April 1922 in Nantes at the age of 91.{{Cite web |date=7 April 1922 |title=L'écho de la Loire |url=https://archives-numerisees.loire-atlantique.fr/v2/ark:/42067/e2b40df7bc830544846fa9de576831a5 |website=Archives numérisées de Loire-Atlantique |page=8}}

• Honorable mention at the Nantes National Exhibition in the Biscuits category in 1861
• Gold medal at the Nantes exhibition in 1882

File:Hippolyte_Berteaux_-_Breton_icon.jpg|Hippolyte Berteaux - Breton icon

File:Alfons_Mucha_-_1896_-_Biscuits_Lefèvre-Utile.jpg|Alfons Mucha - 1896 - Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile

File:Alfons_Mucha_-_1896_-_Biscuits_Champagne-Lefèvre-Utile.jpg|Alfons Mucha - 1896 - Biscuits Champagne-Lefèvre-Utile

File:LU2024.png|LU logo 2024

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Category:1922 deaths

Category:1830 births

Category:19th-century French businesswomen

Category:19th-century French businesspeople

Category:People from Nantes

Category:People from Aisne

Category:20th-century French businesswomen

Category:20th-century French businesspeople