Eulalie

Eulalie is a sixteen-year-old Lyonnaise of distinguished birth, abducted by Dubois’s hirelings and brought to Monseigneur’s estate under false pretenses. Her short appearance is decisive less for any lasting role in the plot than for what it reveals: Dubois’s trafficking reaches beyond Therese, and the powerful man who receives Eulalie treats a young woman’s vulnerability as an opportunity for his own pleasure. The narrative presents her as innocent and forthright, but gives her little space to act before she is overpowered.

Identity and Introduction

Eulalie is the daughter of one of Lyon’s foremost families. Dubois’s criminal hirelings abduct her by pretending to convey her to a rendezvous with the lover she idolizes. Her social standing and the deception surrounding her capture establish that she has not entered Monseigneur’s household willingly: she is brought there through a calculated lie, rather than through any choice of her own.

The narrator describes Eulalie as barely sixteen, with a face associated with a Madonna, and emphasizes her modesty, innocence, and forthrightness. The account also dwells at length on her physical appearance. That contrast matters: her character is initially framed through virtue and naivete, while the men around her regard her as an object to be obtained and used. The description therefore reflects both her narrated innocence and the predatory gaze governing the scene.

Abduction and Encounter at the Estate

When Eulalie recognizes Dubois, she immediately understands that she has been deceived and asks where she has been brought. Her words expose the betrayal at the center of the encounter: the person she identifies as responsible for helping her reach an expected meeting has instead delivered her into danger. The narrative offers this recognition as a brief assertion of her understanding, not as a means of escaping the situation.

Monseigneur seizes Eulalie as soon as she arrives. Dubois, who has arranged the delivery, prevents Eulalie from getting away, while Therese is made to assist Monseigneur. He describes the women as victims who will satisfy his pleasure, and promises Dubois payment for bringing them to him. His language makes the transaction explicit: Eulalie’s abduction is not an accidental prelude but part of a deliberate arrangement in which she is treated as a commodity.

Relationship to Therese and Dubois

Eulalie’s encounter with Therese is shaped by their shared captivity. Therese is both a witness to what is done to Eulalie and a victim of Monseigneur’s household herself. When she later recounts the episode to Valbois, she stops short of describing the full abuse, conveying its severity through her refusal to continue rather than through a detailed account. Eulalie’s fate thus enters the narrative through Therese’s testimony, which makes the scene part of the heroine’s accumulating record of violence and escape.

Dubois occupies the position of betrayer and procurer. She has Eulalie abducted through a promise connected to the young woman’s lover, then blocks her escape once the deception is exposed. After the assault, Dubois leaves the estate with Therese’s clothing and the five louis Valbois had given her. Eulalie is not shown in the ensuing escape, but her abduction and Therese’s account of their ordeal reveal the same criminal network’s ability to deliver vulnerable women to wealthy men.

Monseigneur’s Power and the Unresolved Outcome

Monseigneur’s authority within the house is reinforced by the household’s near absence of servants and by his ability to order both women’s movements. After the abuse begins, he and Dubois interrupt the proceedings to eat and drink. Their drunken collapse gives Therese the opening to flee; she takes the garments Dubois had removed and reaches the road. The chance that saves Therese does not resolve Eulalie’s situation: the account does not say whether she escapes, is rescued, or survives.

That omission is part of Eulalie’s limited narrative presence. She is granted a moment of recognition and protest, but the episode quickly shifts to Therese’s attempt to survive and get help. Her unresolved fate underscores the larger imbalance of the scene: the perpetrators move freely between abduction, payment, and abuse, while the women’s immediate choices are restricted to resisting, enduring, or seizing a rare chance to escape. Eulalie’s brief appearance therefore broadens the danger confronting Therese from an isolated threat to a system that makes young women vulnerable to organized exploitation.