Constance hopes that Mother Marie will be the new prioress. Realizing that Blanche is genuinely afraid, she tries to calm her. Blanche is overcome by fear and is about to run off when Mother Marie appears. That night in the chapel, Constance and Blanche keep vigil by the prioress’s bier. The prioress confesses her terror in the hour of death, then falls lifeless. She blesses Blanche and consigns her, as the youngest member of the order, to the care of the loyal Mother Marie. In the infirmary, Madame de Croissy is lying on her deathbed, struggling to appear calm. Constance shocks Blanche by telling her that she knows that they will both die young and on the same day. Blanche admits her envy of her companion’s straightforward and easygoing nature. In the workroom of the convent, Blanche and the young Sister Constance discuss their fear of death, which Constance claims to have overcome. Nevertheless, the prioress is touched by Blanche’s resolve to embrace her new life. Weeks later at the Carmelite convent in Compiègne, the aged and ailing prioress Madame de Croissy interviews Blanche and makes it clear to the girl that the convent is a house of prayer, not a refuge. Shaken, she returns to tell her father that she has made up her mind to become a nun.
When Blanche arrives, she makes light of the incident, but her anxiety is revealed when a servant’s shadow frightens her as she leaves the room. In his library, the Marquis de la Force and his son, the Chevalier, are worried about Blanche, the Chevalier’s fearful, nervous sister, whose carriage has been held up by a mob on her way home.
The first signs of the French Revolution are beginning to shake the country.
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