The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by V. E. Schwab
Contents
Part Three: Three Hundred Years—and Three Words — Chapter IX
Overview
Addie carefully stages an encounter with Madame Geoffrin to gain entry to a Paris salon, adopting a noble alias and leveraging Geoffrin’s taste for bold, educated women. The night curdles when Luc appears after years away and publicly brands Addie a thief, forcing her to flee and ruining her access to the salon’s world. Outside, Luc delivers a sharper threat: even if no one remembers Addie, the ideas he seeds about her can endure, a realization that will shape Addie’s understanding of power.
Summary
In Paris in 1751, Addie sits alone in the Tuileries, fully aware that a solitary woman attracts stares. Because strangers will forget her before gossip can spread, Addie uses that freedom to set a trap: she carries a copy of Pensées Philosophiques as bait and times her path to intersect with Madame Geoffrin’s walk through the gardens.
Addie engineers a mild collision, letting the book fall so Geoffrin will notice the title and engage. Claiming her father taught her to read and arguing that women must educate themselves, Addie matches Geoffrin’s values, then deepens the impression by presenting herself as “Marie Christine La Trémoille,” a carefully chosen noble name that invites interest but minimal scrutiny. Addie also frames her lack of chaperone and her unmarried status as deliberate independence, which Geoffrin admires.
Geoffrin invites Addie to her salon within the hour, and Addie carefully steers the invitation into practical help, implying her clothes are unsuitable until Geoffrin offers to dress her from her own wardrobe. Alone upstairs, Addie changes into a fine but restrictive gown and waits until the rooms are crowded enough for her to blend in, remembering how a previous salon visit ended with the shock of seeing her former lover Remy Laurent among Paris’s intellectuals.
When Addie finally enters, she moves quietly through the gathering, listening, drinking wine, and enjoying conversation with scholars, including a naturalist who eagerly describes the sea to her. The pleasant evening feels like respite—until Luc arrives after six years, his presence both a dreadful certainty and an end to the anxiety of waiting.
Luc publicly warns Madame Geoffrin that she has “opened [her] doors too wide,” singles Addie out, and calls her a thief wearing Geoffrin’s gown, prompting Geoffrin to order Addie stopped. Addie escapes into the night, where Luc follows and taunts her belief that she can endlessly reinvent herself because people forget her. Luc insists that his accusation will persist as an idea even if Addie is forgotten, planting a truth Addie will understand decades later: ideas can outlast memory—and Addie can plant them, too.
Who Appears
- Addie LaRueCursed immortal; infiltrates Geoffrin’s salon with a false identity; is publicly exposed by Luc.
- Luc (Monsieur Lebois)Addie’s shadowy pursuer; sabotages her at the salon and warns that ideas can persist.
- Madame GeoffrinInfluential salonnière; invites Addie in, then orders her stopped after Luc’s accusation.
- Geoffrin’s handmaidServant who retrieves Addie’s book and later helps dress her for the salon.
- Unnamed naturalistSalon guest who entertains Addie with marine-life stories, briefly offering distraction.
- Remy LaurentAddie’s former lover; remembered from a past salon encounter, absent but emotionally significant.