Near the beginning of the story, as Miss Rousset is generously sharing the contents of her food basket (including wine) with her nine traveling companions, Maupassant inserts a moment of verbal irony:
An embarrassing thing confronted them when they opened the first bottle of Bordeaux: they had but one cup. Each passed it after having tasted. Cornudet alone, for politeness without doubt, placed his lips at the spot left humid by his fair neighbor.
In describing how Cornudet “for politeness without doubt, placed his lips at the spot [on the cup] left humid by his fair neighbor,” Maupassant is saying the opposite of what he means. He is subtly using sarcasm to communicate how Cornudet drank from the same spot at Miss Rousset because he is sexually attracted to her and wanted his lips to touch the same spot her lips touched, not because he wanted to be polite. (Cornudet’s desire for Miss Rousset becomes even more blatant later in the story, when he propositions her for sex.)
This moment highlights how, though Cornudet considers himself to be a sophisticated and revolutionary politician—he’s the only democrat in the carriage—he is just as lewd and opportunistic as the other upper class characters in the story. He sexualizes Miss Rousset because of her profession rather than respecting her as the traveling companion that she is.
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.
In an example of situational irony, Miss Rousset’s nine traveling companions all convince her to sleep with the German commander so that they can leave the town of Totes, but then they promptly judge and shun her for doing so. The following passage captures the irony (and hypocrisy) of the travelers’ decision to ignore the woman who just sacrificed herself for them:
The heavy carriage began to move and the remainder of the journey commenced. No one spoke at first. Ball-of-Fat dared not raise her eyes. She felt indignant toward all her neighbors, and at the same time humiliated at having yielded to the foul kisses of this Prussian, into whose arms they had hypocritically thrown her.
Miss Rousset feels “indignant” toward her neighbors because of the painful irony of “having yielded to the foul kisses” of the German commander “into whose arms they had hypocritically thrown her” only to end up an outcast for the rest of the journey. While Miss Rousset is the one who ends up weeping alone in the carriage at the end of the story, Maupassant is clearly on her side. This moment of irony is meant to highlight the undignified nature of well-off people who see themselves as superior to lower class sex workers like Miss Rousset but who are actually morally inferior.
Maupassant also adds another layer of situational irony to the scene by having none of Miss Rousset’s traveling companions share any of their food with her on their way out of Totes. This is ironic because, when they were all starving on the way to Totes and she was the only one who brought a food basket, she shared everything that she had with all of them, so readers would expect them to do the same in return.
In an example of situational irony, Mr. Loiseau, Mr. Carré-Lamadon, and Count Hubert de Bréville journey into the town center of Totes and find the occupying Prussian soldiers acting in kind and caring ways. This is ironic because all three men hold fierce judgements (that they have shared throughout the story) about the Prussians, considering them to be both cruel and lazy occupiers. The following passage captures their surprise at this ironic twist:
The first [Prussian soldier] they saw was paring potatoes. The second, further off, was cleaning the hairdresser’s shop. Another, bearded to the eyes, was tending a troublesome brat, cradling it and trying to appease it. [...]
The Count, astonished, asked questions of the beadle who came out of the rectory. The old man responded:
“Oh! those men are not wicked; they are not the Prussians we hear about. They are from far off, I know not where; and they have left wives and children in their country; it is not amusing to them, this war, I can tell you!”
Describing the Count as “astonished” is Maupassant’s way of communicating the three men’s surprise at the soldiers doing menial and caring tasks like “paring potatoes,” “cleaning the hairdresser’s shop,” and “tending a troublesome brat, cradling it and trying to appease it.”
Maupassant likely included this scene to challenge his French readers’ biases toward the Prussians. Here, Maupassant speaks through the beadle (or local church official) when he says, “It is not amusing to them, this war, I can tell you!” Maupassant understood clearly that war only benefits the wealthy on both sides and that, like the French foot soldiers, the poorly paid Prussian foot soldiers are merely being used as pawns. They “are not wicked” like the Prussians with power.
