A few days after Signora Laurentini’s death, an unexpected discovery pulled Emily away from her own grief and filled her with a mixture of astonishment and horror.
Her will was opened at the monastery in the presence of the superiors and Monsieur Bonnac. When the document was read, everyone learned that one-third of her personal fortune had been left to the closest surviving relative of the late Marchioness de Villeroi.
That person was Emily.
The abbess had known the secret of Emily’s family for many years. She had kept it hidden because of a promise made by St. Aubert to the friar who attended him during his final illness. Out of love for his daughter, St. Aubert had begged that Emily should never learn of her connection to the Marchioness.
The abbess had respected his wish.
However, during Laurentini’s final meeting with Emily, the dying nun had revealed certain hints. Later, during her last moments, she had made a confession so extraordinary that the abbess felt she could no longer remain silent.
She had originally planned to speak with Emily on the morning after her meeting with the nun, but Emily had been too ill at the time.
Now, after the will had been examined, the abbess sent for her.
Emily immediately went to the convent, where she learned facts that deeply moved her. Yet the abbess’s knowledge was incomplete, and many important details remained unknown.
Because Laurentini’s history was closely connected with the tragic fate of the Marchioness de Villeroi, the abbess’s conversation was set aside, and the story of the unfortunate nun was revealed.
The Story of Laurentini di Udolpho
Laurentini di Udolpho had been the only child of her parents and the heir to the ancient house of Udolpho in Venice.
The first great mistake of her life came from the way she was raised.
Those who should have taught her self-control and guided her passions instead encouraged them. They spoiled her through excessive affection and corrected her through anger rather than wisdom.
Their kindness was not based on reason, and even their attempts to discipline her were controlled by their own emotions.
When they allowed her wishes, they pleased themselves.
When they opposed her, they fought only to prove their authority.
Instead of teaching her patience, they strengthened her pride.
Every struggle became a contest between them and their daughter. The tenderness of parents and the obedience of a child were both forgotten.
Because her parents always gave in first, Laurentini believed she had defeated them. Her passions grew stronger each time they tried to control them.
When both her father and mother died in the same year, Laurentini was left alone, young, wealthy, and beautiful.
She loved society and enjoyed admiration. She cared little for public opinion whenever it stood against her desires.
She possessed a brilliant mind, a charming manner, and every talent needed to attract others.
Unfortunately, her strong passions were guided by weak principles.
Among her many admirers was the Marquis de Villeroi.
During his travels through Italy, he saw Laurentini in Venice, where she usually lived, and immediately became deeply attached to her.
Laurentini was equally fascinated by him.
The Marquis was one of the most admired noblemen at the French court, and she was captivated by his appearance, manners, and accomplishments.
She carefully hid the darker parts of her character and concealed the mistakes of her past.
The Marquis believed her to be the perfect woman and asked her to become his wife.
Before their marriage could take place, Laurentini returned to the castle of Udolpho.
The Marquis followed her there.
But away from society and unable to maintain her false appearance, Laurentini revealed her true nature.
The Marquis began to see the danger before him.
A closer investigation convinced him that he had been deceived.
The woman he had intended to marry became only his lover.
After spending several weeks at Udolpho, the Marquis was suddenly called back to France.
He left unwillingly, for Laurentini still held his heart.
He had delayed their marriage several times, but now he promised her repeatedly that he would return and complete their union once his business in France was finished.
Comforted by these promises, Laurentini allowed him to leave.
Soon afterward, her relative Montoni arrived at Udolpho and renewed the proposal of marriage that she had once rejected.
She refused him again.
Her thoughts remained entirely fixed on the Marquis de Villeroi.
She withdrew from society and abandoned her former pleasures.
Her only comfort was remembering him.
She spent hours looking at his portrait.
She visited the places where they had once been happy.
She wrote letters to him.
She counted the weeks and days until the time he had promised to return.
But the promised time passed.
The Marquis did not come.
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
Laurentini’s imagination became consumed by a single thought.
Because her entire heart had been given to one person, life itself seemed meaningless when she believed she had lost him.
For several months she heard nothing from him.
Her days passed between passionate longing and hopeless despair.
She refused visitors.
Sometimes she stayed alone in her room for weeks, speaking only with her favorite servant.
She wrote unfinished letters.
She read his old letters again and again.
She cried over his portrait, sometimes speaking to it as if he were present—accusing him, blaming him, then forgiving and loving him.
At last, a rumor reached her.
The Marquis de Villeroi had married in France.
The news destroyed her.
After suffering through jealousy, grief, and anger, she made a terrible decision.
She would secretly travel to France.
If the rumor proved true, she would take revenge.
She trusted only her favorite servant with her plan and persuaded her to accompany her.
Laurentini gathered her jewels, which were extremely valuable because they had belonged to many generations of her family, along with a large amount of money.
The treasure was secretly taken to a nearby town.
Then Laurentini and her servant followed.
From there, they traveled secretly to Leghorn and sailed for France.
When Laurentini arrived in Languedoc, she discovered that the Marquis had indeed been married for several months.
Her despair nearly drove her mad.
At different moments, she imagined murdering the Marquis, his wife, and herself.
But eventually she chose another plan.
She would meet the Marquis again.
She would accuse him of betrayal.
Then she would kill herself before his eyes.
She managed to place herself in his path.
But when she saw him again—the man who had filled every thought of her heart for so long—her hatred disappeared.
Love returned stronger than anger.
Her courage failed.
She trembled beneath the storm of emotions within her and finally fainted.
The Marquis was unable to resist her beauty and suffering.
The feelings he had once possessed returned immediately.
His love had never truly disappeared; it had only been restrained by duty.
Because his family honor prevented him from marrying Laurentini, he had tried to overcome his passion.
He had married the Marchioness de Villeroi instead.
At first, he had loved his wife with a calm and respectful affection.
But the Marchioness’s gentle nature could not satisfy the passion he had once felt for Laurentini.
Although she tried to hide it, the Marquis believed her heart belonged to another man.
When Laurentini arrived in France, she quickly realized that she could regain her power over him.
She decided to use that influence to achieve the goal she believed was necessary for her happiness.
She wanted the Marchioness removed so that she could become the Marquis’s wife.
With great patience and deception, Laurentini slowly separated the Marquis from his wife.
She encouraged his pride and jealousy.
She even pointed out a man whom she claimed was the Marchioness’s secret lover.
But first she forced the Marquis to promise that he would not harm this supposed rival.
This was part of her plan.
She knew that if his desire for revenge was prevented from reaching one person, it would become stronger against the other.
Then perhaps he would agree to the terrible act that would remove the only obstacle between them.
Meanwhile, the innocent Marchioness suffered greatly.
She noticed the change in her husband.
He became distant and silent.
His manner toward her grew cold and sometimes cruel.
He left her alone for hours, where she wept over his rejection and tried desperately to find a way to regain his affection.
Her pain was even greater because she had accepted his marriage proposal only because of her father’s wishes.
Her own heart had belonged to another man—someone whose kindness and character she believed would have made her happy.
Laurentini discovered this soon after arriving in France.
She used the secret against her.
She presented the Marquis with such convincing appearances of his wife’s unfaithfulness that, blinded by wounded pride, he agreed to destroy her.
A slow poison was given to the Marchioness.
She became the victim of Laurentini’s manipulation and her husband’s weakness.
But the moment of Laurentini’s victory became the beginning of endless suffering.
The revenge she had desired so desperately lost all meaning the instant it was achieved.
Hatred disappeared.
Only pity and guilt remained.
Even if she had gained the marriage she wanted, her happiness would have been destroyed by the memory of her crime.
The Marquis also suffered immediately after his revenge was complete.
The feelings he had mistaken for certainty vanished.
He was horrified that no evidence of his wife’s guilt remained after her death.
When he learned she was dying, he suddenly felt convinced of her innocence.
Even her final words, in which she solemnly declared that she had been faithful, could not have given him stronger proof.
At first, overwhelmed by guilt, he wanted to surrender himself and Laurentini to justice.
But after his emotions weakened, he abandoned that decision.
He saw Laurentini only once afterward.
He cursed her as the person who had led him into his crime.
He told her he spared her life only because she promised to spend the rest of her days in prayer and repentance.
Laurentini was devastated.
The man for whom she had destroyed her soul now looked upon her with hatred and disgust.
Overcome by horror at what she had done, she abandoned the world and entered the monastery of St. Claire.
There she became a living example of the destruction caused by uncontrolled passion.
After the Marchioness’s death, the Marquis left Château-le-Blanc forever.
He never returned.
He tried to escape his memories through war and the distractions of city life, but nothing could free him from his guilt.
A deep sadness remained with him until his death.
The physician who had examined the Marchioness after death had been bribed into silence.
The servants’ suspicions never became more than whispers.
The truth was never officially investigated.
It remained uncertain whether the Marchioness’s father ever learned what had happened, and whether the lack of proof prevented him from seeking justice against the Marquis.
Her death was deeply mourned by her family, especially by her brother, Monsieur St. Aubert.
He was the father of Emily.
There was little doubt that he suspected the true cause of his sister’s death.
Many letters passed between him and the Marquis afterward, though their contents were unknown.
It was believed they concerned the tragedy of the Marchioness.
These letters, along with several letters written by the Marchioness herself to her brother, were the very papers St. Aubert had ordered Emily to destroy.
Out of concern for his daughter’s peace of mind, he had forbidden her from investigating the sorrowful story behind them.
St. Aubert had suffered deeply from the death of his beloved sister.
Her unhappy marriage had always caused him great concern.
After her death, he could never speak her name or hear others mention her without pain, except when speaking privately with Madame St. Aubert.
Because he feared awakening Emily’s emotions, he carefully hid her aunt’s identity and history.
He even asked his sister Madame Cheron to remain silent.
She faithfully obeyed.
It was over some of the Marchioness’s final heartbreaking letters that St. Aubert had been crying when Emily saw him on the night before leaving La Vallée.
It was also her portrait that he had held with such tenderness.
The tragic death of the Marchioness explained his emotion when La Voisin mentioned her name.
It also explained why he wished to be buried near the monument of the Villeroi family, where her remains were placed.
Her husband, however, was buried far away in northern France, where he had died.
The friar who attended St. Aubert during his final moments remembered that he was the brother of the late Marchioness.
But St. Aubert had begged him to hide this truth from Emily.
He had also asked the friar to request that the abbess protect the secret.
The request had been faithfully followed.
When Laurentini arrived in France, she carefully concealed her true name and family.
To hide her past, she created the false story that had deceived Sister Frances.
Because the abbess had not been in charge of the convent when Laurentini first entered, she was probably unaware of the truth.
Laurentini’s guilt and sorrow destroyed her peace of mind.
Her disappointed love for the Marquis remained with her, and her suffering caused her reason to become unstable.
After the first storms of despair passed, a deep and silent sadness settled over her.
Only occasional moments of madness disturbed her until her death.
For many years, her only comfort had been walking alone through the woods near the monastery at night.
She often played her favorite instrument there and sang the sad melodies of her homeland.
Her voice carried all the sorrow that filled her heart.
The physician who cared for her advised the superior of the convent to allow this habit because it was the only thing that calmed her troubled mind.
Although such walks broke the rules of the convent, they were kept secret.
Because of this, Laurentini’s mysterious music became one of the reasons people believed that the château and its surroundings were haunted.
Soon after entering the convent, before her madness became obvious, Laurentini had written her will.
After leaving a generous gift to the monastery, she divided the rest of her valuable fortune between the wife of Monsieur Bonnac, who was her Italian relative, and the closest surviving relative of the late Marchioness de Villeroi.
Since Emily was not only the closest relative but the only one remaining, the inheritance passed to her.
At last, the mystery of her father’s actions was explained.
Laurentini had often noticed the resemblance between Emily and the unfortunate Marchioness.
That resemblance had caused the strange behavior that had once frightened Emily.
But during Laurentini’s final hours, when her guilty conscience constantly brought the image of the Marchioness before her, the likeness became stronger than ever.
In her confused state, she believed Emily was not merely similar to the woman she had destroyed.
She believed Emily was the Marchioness herself returned.
Her later claim, after recovering her senses, that Emily was the daughter of the Marchioness came from suspicion rather than knowledge.
Because Laurentini knew that the Marchioness had loved another man before marrying the Marquis, she had almost convinced herself that the woman’s honor had been sacrificed in the same way as her own.
But Laurentini was innocent of the crime Emily had feared she committed at Udolpho.
The nun had also been deceived by the terrible object that had once frightened her.
Emily had believed Laurentini’s confession proved that a murder had occurred in the castle.
She was wrong.
In one chamber of Udolpho there had hung a black veil.
Its strange position had awakened Emily’s curiosity.
When she finally lifted it, she expected to find a hidden portrait.
Instead, she saw something horrifying.
Inside the wall was a human figure lying at full length, dressed in the clothing of the dead.
Its face appeared partly destroyed, and worms seemed to crawl across its features and hands.
No person could endure looking at such a sight twice.
Emily had dropped the veil after the first glance.
Her terror had prevented her from ever looking again.
Had she dared to examine it more carefully, she would have discovered that the figure was not human.
It was made of wax.
The story behind it was unusual.
A former member of the house of Udolpho had committed an offense against the authority of the church.
As punishment, he was ordered to spend certain hours each day contemplating a wax figure made to resemble a dead human body.
The purpose was to remind him of his own mortality and humble his pride.
The Marquis of Udolpho had accepted this punishment as a religious duty and believed it would help gain forgiveness for his sins.
He later required his descendants to preserve the image forever.
If they failed to do so, part of their lands would be given to the church.
The figure remained in the chamber, though later generations avoided performing the punishment themselves.
The image had been made with such terrible realism that Emily’s mistake was understandable.
Having already heard rumors about the disappearance of the lady of the castle and knowing Montoni’s character, she believed the figure was the murdered body of Laurentini.
She thought Montoni had hidden the remains there.
The locked doors of the chamber strengthened her suspicion.
She believed Montoni had kept the secret hidden because he feared the consequences of revealing her death.
The strange ceremony involving the veil and the fact that the doors had once been left open caused her doubts.
But they were not strong enough to overcome her fear.
Only her terror of Montoni’s revenge had prevented her from revealing what she had seen.
When Emily discovered that the Marchioness de Villeroi had been the sister of Monsieur St. Aubert, she experienced many emotions.
She grieved for the tragic death of her aunt.
Yet she was also relieved.
The cruel suspicion created by Laurentini’s words about her birth and her parents was finally removed.
Emily’s trust in her father’s goodness had never allowed her to believe that he could have acted dishonorably.
She could hardly accept the possibility that she was the child of anyone other than the woman she had always known and loved as her mother.
Still, many things had troubled her:
Her resemblance to the Marchioness.
The strange behavior of Dorothée.
Laurentini’s accusation.
And the mysterious attachment St. Aubert had shown toward the Marchioness.
All these things had raised questions that her reason could neither answer nor dismiss.
Now those doubts were gone.
Her father’s actions were fully explained.
But her heart remained heavy with sorrow for her gentle and unfortunate relative.
And the story of Laurentini left her with a powerful lesson:
A passion once allowed to grow without control could lead a person step by step toward crimes that, in youth, they would have believed impossible.
Even years of suffering, repentance, and the harshest punishment could not completely erase the memory of such guilt.