The book tells the story of Angéline, a woman living with her father and becoming betrothed to a man named Maurice.
In the second part of the novel, Charles dies in a shooting accident and a fall disfigures Angéline's face.
The third part of the novel concerns diary entries and letters in which Angéline recalls moments of her life with her father and Maurice.
Abbé Paul Bruchési, one of her patrons, recommended that she contact Henri-Raymond Casgrain, who agreed to help promote the work.
The third section of the novel expresses Angéline's struggle to replace her temporary human concerns with permanent divine consolations, eventually succeeding in this goal.
She references several French Canadian people to connect their artistic and political achievements with the feminist and psychology of Angeline.
Angéline's self-reflection is the author's proposal to have a political, feminist rebellion to change the structure of Quebec society and identity.
Angéline's diary entries, contemplating her death and an afterlife with her father, are supposed to give the reader a reflection of a future Quebec whose culture is able to prosper after British rule has ended.
Conan's open-ended narrative gives choice to the reader to either hope for this future or to resign themselves to Quebec's oppressed cultural identity.