Considered by many critics as one of the paradigmatic spaces of the late eighteenth-century French literature, the gothic castle occupies a central place in the literary imaginary of this period. This article seeks to explore the many literary, cultural and ideological dimensions of the gothic castle and its associated topoï in the sentimental novel Malvina (1800) by the French author Sophie Cottin. How is this gothic and libertine space integrated into the sentimental structure of Malvina? Moreover, what does the esthetic hybridism of Malvina reveal about pre-Romantic literary sensibilities?