Word of the day: niche

In Crime and Punishment (trans. Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky), Svidrigailov asks, “Où va-t-elle la vertu se nicher?” In other words, “Where is virtue going to build her nest?” A note for this sentence reads, “The playwright Molière (1622–73) is said to have asked this of a beggar who thought he had made a mistake in giving him a gold piece.”

I wondered: is the English word niche related to nicher ? Maybe, possibly, maybe, perhaps.

I recall the mantra that the local Chamber of Commerce repeated in weekly newspaper columns aimed at area merchants: Find your niche. Find your niche. I think that many a merchant must have closed up and skipped town to look for theirs.