Constantinople appears not as a visited setting but as the destination Odelette imagines when she hopes to escape enslavement. Her belief in it as a possible refuge clashes with Marie-Josèphe’s warning that royal power could keep her from ever reaching it.

An imagined refuge

Odelette imagines Constantinople as part of a future in which the man she calls her royal husband acknowledges her, frees her, and takes her home. Her expectation rests on the prospect that he might recognize a child she bore him; Marie-Josèphe counters that he is already married and would not acknowledge either Odelette or a child. The city therefore carries the promise of a life beyond her present dependence, but that promise remains Odelette’s hope, not an established outcome.

The limits of escape

Marie-Josèphe knows only what Odelette’s mother had told them about Turkey, which Odelette regards as a paradise and Marie-Josèphe does not. She warns that even if she herself would never turn Odelette out, the King might banish her if the man appealed to him, and Marie-Josèphe could not prevent it. Constantinople consequently marks the distance between imagined rescue and actual security: Odelette’s hoped-for journey depends on powerful men, while Marie-Josèphe’s promise to free her offers a different path toward autonomy.