Thérèse is lured into the Convent of Sainte-Marie-des-Bois and imprisoned

Thérèse is lured into the Convent of Sainte-Marie-des-Bois and imprisoned after mistaking an isolated monastery for a place of refuge. The episode turns her religious devotion against her: a shepherdess’s assurances bring her to the convent, Dom Severino’s apparent welcome draws out the facts of her life, and the house’s concealed practices reveal that her confidence has been used to secure her isolation. In the frame narrative, she recounts the episode as part of the testimony that eventually moves Monsieur de Corville to protect her.

Background and Invitation

On 7 August, after leaving Auxerre, Thérèse rested beneath an oak near the road. From the rise, she saw a distant bell tower and imagined that the religious community there offered an asylum from the crimes and dangers she had encountered. A shepherdess told her that the building was a Benedictine monastery occupied by four unusually devout monks. She also described a miraculous Virgin to whom pilgrims came once a year, and praised the superior, Dom Severino, as a courteous and charitable man.

The account appealed directly to Thérèse’s faith. Hoping to pray before the image and make up for religious duties that hardship had interrupted, she gave the shepherdess a crown and set out for the monastery, called Saint Mary-in-the-Wood. The direction seemed straightforward, but the tower disappeared from view as Thérèse descended toward the plain. She continued through forest along a poorly marked path, without passing a house, until night had fallen and she heard a bell.

Arrival at the Isolated Monastery

The building stood in a secluded depression, surrounded by dense forest, with the nearest neighboring habitation six leagues away. A gardener’s cabin beside the walls served as the point of entry. Thérèse explained that she had come for a religious purpose and asked to see the superior and the miraculous image. Because the monks were at supper, the gardener first brought out Dom Clement, the steward, to determine whether her request warranted interrupting the superior.

Dom Clement’s forbidding manner made Thérèse uneasy, but Dom Severino presented a striking contrast. At fifty-five, he appeared vigorous, courteous, and gentle, and he agreed to hear her confession despite the late hour. He promised that they would consider how she could spend the night decently and that she could visit the sacred image the next day. The convent’s outward hospitality thus rested on a promise of religious assistance and practical shelter—precisely the assurances that encouraged Thérèse to remain.

Confession Becomes an Investigation

In the church, Dom Severino invited Thérèse to speak with complete confidence. She disclosed her misfortunes and the identifying mark left by Rodin. Only later, looking back on the interview, did she recognize that the superior’s questions had followed a revealing pattern: he established that she was an orphan born in Paris, had no relatives or protectors, had told no one of her destination, had arranged no meeting for her return, and believed nobody had followed or watched her enter.

The questions transformed confession into a test of whether anyone could intervene. The details Thérèse had offered as part of a sincere religious disclosure also established her isolation and the secrecy of her journey. After she answered, Dom Severino took her by the hand and led her deeper into the church, toward the sacristy. When she asked why they were going inside, he dropped the pretense of providing a respectable night’s lodging and made clear that the house’s welcome concealed an intention to subject her to its occupants’ demands.

The Convent’s Hidden Reality

Dom Severino’s change in manner exposed the gap between the refuge Thérèse had imagined and the institution that received her. He ordered her forward and told her not to resist. He then led her through dark passages and up a staircase of roughly thirty or forty steps. At the top, a door opened onto a brightly lit room where monks and girls were assembled. He presented Thérèse to those gathered there, drawing attention both to the mark Rodin had inflicted and to her innocence.

The room’s occupants and the superior’s introduction made plain that this was not a public religious reception. Among those present were three other monks and four girls; four additional women served the table. Thérèse understood that she had been brought into a closed world in which she had neither the protection nor the freedom she had expected from a religious house. The scene completes the reversal begun in the church: the man who had promised to hear her confession and arrange shelter was instead delivering her to the convent’s concealed regime.

Threats, Captivity, and Narrative Consequences

Dom Severino described resistance as futile and pointed to the instruments used to punish girls who disobeyed. He emphasized the monastery’s isolation and the absence of outsiders who might search it or answer a captive’s appeal. The other girls, he said, had arrived expecting to resist but had submitted when they saw the penalties. Thérèse’s arrival therefore initiates not merely a private deception but her entry into an organized system of confinement, coercion, and impunity.

Her first response was to plead with Dom Severino, appealing to the compassion she had expected from a religious superior. Instead, the monks treated her resistance as a reason to proceed against her. The account establishes the episode’s central reversal: her faith leads her toward the convent, her confession supplies information about her vulnerability, and the supposed sanctuary becomes another site of captivity. In the larger frame, Thérèse narrates these events to Madame de Lorsange and Monsieur de Corville while facing a sentence of death. Her testimony moves Madame de Lorsange deeply; after recognizing Thérèse as her sister Justine, she reunites with her, and Monsieur de Corville undertakes to protect the prisoner and press for her exoneration. The convent episode thus forms part of the evidence through which Thérèse’s history of persecution becomes known to people able to intervene.