Then, Monsieur de Maurepas proposes that he leave to do business with the North, which Tanié accepts to take on because he knows that Madame Reymer is only with him for his fortune.
In the second story, Diderot recounts the history of Gardeil and Mademoiselle de la Chaux.
Out of love for him, Mademoiselle de la Chaux abandons all – her honor, her fortune, her family – to be with Gardeil.
Diderot concludes his book in saying that to judge someone based on one single character trait is going a bit fast, but that there is a lot of truth in generalities.
He plays with perceptions of reality and appearances, truth and falsity, as well as good, bad and the relativity of these notions.
Likewise to that of the painting The Treachery of Images by René Magritte, Diderot wants to tell us that a person's behavior is not in itself moral or immoral.