She had taken refuge in a convent of which the superioress, Madame de Ternan, turns out to be the aunt of Léonce. This lady is something of the same sort as Madame de Vernon—except that her egotism, although quite as systematic, is not so base. But it can become so on occasion, and, as she is rather fond of Delphine and anxious to keep her with her to solace her old age, she plays into the hands of Madame de Mondoville (the mother of Léonce) and cleverly contrives to make Delphine take the veil. Barely has this been done when Léonce appears and claims her as his own, Mathilde having in the meanwhile died. Then is the exhausted reader harassed anew by a fresh spectacle of poignant anguish. A Monsieur de Sebersci suggests that Delphine should break her vows, quit her convent, and join Léonce, pointing out that, thanks to the Revolution, they can be quite respectably married in France. Delphine is horrified at first, but Léonce having announced the firm intention of putting an end to his existence if she remains a nun, she finally escapes and joins him. One begins to hope that they are going to be happy at last, when the “purpose” of the book presents itself. Madame de Staël was anxious to prove that social conventions may not be braved with impunity, but overtake and crush the nature which defies them. Delphine throughout had listened to no voice but that of her conscience and her heart; she is consequently the victim of calumny. Léonce is principally swayed by passion. He defies society in the end to possess Delphine, but has no sooner induced her to break her vows for him than he begins to feel the stigma of the act. He leaves her, and seeks death on the battle-field. Death spares him, but he is arrested as an aristocrat and condemned to be shot. Delphine follows him, and by her eloquence wrings a pardon from the judge. Léonce, enlightened by the approach of death as to the nothingness of the world’s opinion, is prepared to live happily at last with the woman whom he still professes to adore. But all at once the order for his release is rescinded and he is taken out to die. Delphine accompanies him, and talks all along the road. Indeed, she is superfluously eloquent, from the first page of her history to the last. When Léonce has been strung up by her to the highest pitch of exalted feeling, she takes poison and dies at his feet. He is then shot; and the lovers are interred in one grave by Monsieur de Serbellane, who has appeared again in the last chapter, after having been the primary though unwitting cause of his unhappy friends’ woes.