Therese’s escape from Monseigneur’s estate turns on a sudden opening: while her captors are incapacitated, she takes Dubois’s discarded clothes, deceives a household attendant into hurrying to the master’s aid, and gets out. She finds Valbois at the inn in Grenoble and is given back the money Dubois took, along with the promise of new clothes. The flight offers immediate safety, but only briefly; it sends her onward with Madame Bertrand toward the events that will expose her identity and prompt Monsieur de Corville to intervene.

The opportunity to escape

Monseigneur has brought Therese and Dubois into his private rooms, where Therese is made a victim and witness of his violence. As the ordeal continues, he and Dubois stop to eat. Both become incapacitated, and Therese seizes the chance rather than risk waiting for them to recover.

She takes the skirt and mantle Dubois had removed, along with a candle, and heads for the stairs. The house is nearly empty of servants. When she encounters someone, she claims that the master is dying and urges the person to help him. The deception draws attention away from her, and she reaches the door without further obstruction.

Flight to Grenoble and Valbois’s help

Therese does not know the roads: she was not permitted to see the route by which she had arrived. She takes the first road she encounters, which leads to Grenoble, and enters an inn while its occupants are still in bed. There she goes to Valbois’s room and tells him what happened, explaining that Dubois has also taken her clothing and the five louis he had given her.

Valbois calls her the unluckiest girl on earth, but interprets her survival as evidence of a protecting celestial power and urges her to remain virtuous. He declines to pursue Dubois, invoking the same reasons Therese had given the previous day for letting her go. Instead, he returns the stolen money and promises that a seamstress will bring two complete outfits and linen within an hour. His response repairs some of the immediate loss without undoing the danger she has escaped.

Departure and the next journey

Valbois tells Therese that she must leave that day because Madame Bertrand is expecting her. He has persuaded Bertrand to delay her departure by a few hours, giving Therese time to join her. Therese thanks him, and she leaves Grenoble with Bertrand in a small covered carriage drawn by one horse. Bertrand’s fifteen-month-old daughter travels with them; Therese quickly becomes deeply attached to the child.

The flight therefore leads not to a settled refuge but to another journey. The escape preserves Therese’s life and briefly restores her means of travel, while returning her to the precarious dependence that has marked her repeated attempts to find safety.

The escape within Therese’s testimony

Therese recounts the escape as part of the life story she tells Madame de Lorsange after being brought, bound and weakened, before her and Monsieur de Corville. Accused of murder, theft, and arson, she has been tried at Lyon and is being taken to Paris for confirmation of her sentence before a planned return to Lyon for execution. At Montargis, Monsieur de Corville takes responsibility for her, and the guards permit her to speak after she has been unbound and given food.

Her account shifts the apparent meaning of the prisoner’s arrival: the woman being transported as a criminal is the witness to a long sequence of abuses and precarious escapes. When Therese finishes, Madame de Lorsange recognizes her as her lost sister, Justine. Moved by the testimony, Monsieur de Corville writes to the Lord Chancellor, assumes responsibility for Therese’s innocence, and arranges for her to stay at his château pending clarification of her case. The escape from Monseigneur’s estate thus forms one link in the chain of events that brings Therese within reach of protection, even as the larger account makes clear how repeatedly that protection has failed her.