Cl lia invents love anew by inventing the alphabet that allows her to correspond with Fabrice; Sanseverina is described to us as 'a soul always sincere who never acts with caution, who totally gives herself over to the impression of the moment'; it is when she schemes, when she poisons the prince and floods Parma, that this soul is revealed to us: she is no other than the sublime and mad escapade that she has chosen to live.