Octavie’s abduction and abuse at the monastery turns the institution’s routine exploitation into a stark new crisis: a young woman taken from a journey to her marriage is brought in as a replacement for Omphale, subjected to the monks’ violence, and later sent away without protection. Her story shows how the monastery treats its captives as interchangeable, while her presence and departure sharpen Thérèse’s understanding that favor and time served offer no reliable safety.

Abduction and Arrival

Octavie appears after Omphale’s departure, when Thérèse and the other girls have been left uncertain about what the monks intend to do next. Four days after the supper at which Omphale’s replacement is announced, the girls are summoned to a gathering attended by eight women and the Girls of the Watch. The superior identifies the newcomer as the person chosen to replace Omphale, then reveals her to the assembled company.

Octavie is fifteen, born in Paris, and of high social standing. She has just left a convent in preparation for marriage to the Comte de * * *. She was traveling with two governesses and three lackeys when she was kidnapped at nightfall; she alone was taken, and after being blindfolded she was brought to the monastery. She does not know what happened to her attendants. Her abrupt removal from a supervised journey and her confinement among captive women expose the monastery’s power to reach beyond its walls and seize new victims.

Her appearance briefly unsettles even the men who have brought her there. The narrator describes the assembled monks as momentarily absorbed by her beauty, but that hesitation does not become restraint. Their admiration quickly gives way to their customary abuse, and Octavie’s distress and resistance are ignored. The scene makes the institution’s violence unmistakable: the newcomer is not welcomed as a person but assessed as a captive to be used.

Abuse and Thérèse’s Witness

The superior orders Octavie to undress, and the monks proceed despite her distress and efforts to resist. Thérèse witnesses the assault alongside the other girls. Severino takes the leading role; Clement and Antonin assist him, while the other monks participate in the abuse. Octavie’s tears and appeals do not stop them. The account establishes the essential sequence without making the violence its own spectacle: the monks assert control, assault her, and treat her suffering as no reason to desist.

Octavie is then subjected to further abuse by the men, including punishment inflicted by Clement. Their companions encourage them rather than intervene. This collective response matters: the violence is not a private transgression hidden from the monastery’s inhabitants, but a practice carried out in their presence and affirmed by the group. The captive girls, including Thérèse, are made witnesses to the system as well as its victims.

The episode also links Octavie’s treatment to the monks’ profanation of religious imagery. Earlier, they had used Florette, the youngest girl, in a staged apparition of the Virgin to deceive visitors and attract offerings. That evening they made the religious costume part of their abuse of her. When Thérèse fainted at the spectacle, Severino ordered that she be used in turn, and the sacred host was subjected to deliberate desecration. The false miracle and the assault on Octavie belong to the same pattern: the monks exploit religious forms publicly and privately, converting the appearance of devotion into an instrument of deception and domination.

Captivity and Departure

After the assault, Octavie is returned to her room. Thérèse would like to comfort her, but Thérèse herself is assigned to Severino that night and cannot offer the support she wants to give. Octavie’s arrival therefore produces no safe refuge within the captive community: she is left to face a radical change of circumstances while those who might sympathize with her remain under the same coercive control.

Octavie has a strong religious feeling and is described as virtuous and sensitive; those qualities make her situation especially painful to her. Her presence also confirms a rule Thérèse had learned from Omphale: a girl’s length of service does not determine when she will be dismissed. The monks may send a captive away after a week or after twenty years, whether from caprice or fear of future inquiries. Octavie has not been at the monastery for four months when Jerome announces that she must leave. Although he had appeared to favor her during her stay, that apparent preference does not protect her or give her control over her departure.

Like Omphale, Octavie promises to help the remaining girls after she leaves, but she does not keep that promise. The narrative presents this failure without suggesting that she had the freedom or power to rescue them: inside the monastery, promises made under captivity cannot guarantee what happens afterward. For Thérèse, Octavie’s brief presence and disappearance reinforce the danger of depending on another captive’s intervention.

Consequences and Significance

Octavie’s abduction, abuse, and removal change Thérèse’s assessment of the choices before her. After Omphale has failed to return and Octavie has likewise gone, Thérèse resolves to pursue the escape plan she has been developing. She sees no security in remaining: staying offers the prospect of death, while a successful flight might save her. Octavie’s story is thus not a separate episode of suffering alone; it helps make Thérèse’s decision to act more urgent by demonstrating how quickly the monks can seize, use, and dismiss any girl in their custody.

The episode also sharpens the contrast between religious appearance and institutional conduct. The same community that stages a Marian miracle for public offerings uses captives as disposable instruments and permits its members to abuse them openly. Octavie’s social standing and intended marriage do not protect her once she is isolated; nor do the monks’ fleeting admiration, Jerome’s apparent favor, or the customary promise of help from a departing girl. Her trajectory—from bride-to-be, to captive, to abruptly dismissed victim—shows the monastery’s power not as a stable hierarchy of care, but as a system in which the monks alone decide who is taken, used, and sent away.