After Miss Rousset declines to sleep with the German commander, all of her French traveling companions converse together and decide to trick her into doing it so that the commander will let them leave the town of Totes. This is an example of dramatic irony because readers know, but Miss Rousset does not, that the seemingly casual conversations her compatriots engage in with her are not accidental but instead are intentional acts of manipulation.
The irony comes across in the following passage as Maupassant describes the strategic behavior of Mrs. Loiseau, Mrs. Carré-Lamadon, and Countess Hubert de Bréville:
And up to the time for luncheon these ladies continued to be amiable toward [Miss Rousset], in order to increase her docility and her confidence in their counsel. At the table they commenced the approach. This was in the shape of a vague conversation upon devotion. They cited ancient examples: Judith and Holophernes, then, without reason, Lucrece and Sextus, and Cleopatra obliging all the generals of the enemy to pass by her couch and reducing them in servility to slaves.
Maupassant juxtaposes the three women’s intentions—which are to increase Miss Rousset’s “docility and her confidence in their counsel”—with their behavior in order to heighten the dramatic irony. Readers are meant to laugh at the absurd and unceremonious ways that Mrs. Loiseau, Mrs. Carré-Lamadon, and Countess Hubert de Bréville try to convince Miss Rousset to sacrifice herself for them. Their lack of care in this conversation—and towards Miss Rousset—shows how hypocritical these well-off women are, as well as how easy it is for them to try to exploit Miss Rousset, a lower-class sex worker.
