A Radcliffean romance in which sensational incident is combined with appreciation of the picturesque, as the herone's adventures take her from Switzerland to France, then Italy and Portugal. In running away from her home in the Alps, killing a manservant who threatens her virtue, escaping imprisonment and surviving a shipwreck, the narrator shows uncommon resolve. But she is otherwise dependent in a conventional way on the protection of others, and her main emotional predicament is the degree of admiration she meets with from several officers in Napoleon's army. The survey of Parisian society in volume II has the interest of involving historical figures such as Massena and Volney, and praising the leadership of Napoleon himself.