Xavier Ruel and his wife moved to Paris in 1852 and Ruel started selling small items from carts around Paris and with the area around the Hôtel de Ville (Paris City Hall) being the area that earned the most he decided to open a store in the area and rented out the ground floor of a building on Rue de Rivoli and opened "Bazar Parisien".

[2][3] According to legend in 1855, Ruel saved the life of Empress Eugénie (wife of Napoleon III), her horses had become frightened after passing outside the store and Xavier ran out and calmed down the horses to reward him in saving her life she gave him a sum of money which allowed him to expand the store and in 1856 it was renamed to Bazar Napoléon.

[3][5] In 1900 at 78 years old founder Xavier Ruel died, at the time the business employed 800 people and recorded a capital of 12 million francs.

[7] Two floors became part of the mall's Galeries Lafayette in 2006 and on 17 July 2010 the store was permanently closed.

Paul Delaoutre, CEO of the branch department stores of the Galeries Lafayette group explained that they “aimed at targeting creative urban inhabitants looking for originality”.

It was announced in February 2023 that Groupe Galeries Lafayette had entered negotiations to sell the BHV to Société des Grands Magasins (now Groupe SGM) which operate a number of malls in France and seven Galeries Lafayette stores.

[1] In August 2024 it was reported that the company had not been paying vendors for several months, suppliers had also begun suspending deliveries leaving store shelves empty.