With Mr. and Mrs. Carré-Lamadon, Maupassant is satirizing the middle-class French bourgeoisie who see themselves as belonging to “high society” while acting in crass and undignified ways. When introducing Mr. Carré-Lamadon, Maupassant describes how the man “held himself with great dignity, as if belonging to a superior caste,” before making it clear that he is not very dignified or superior (as evidenced by his decision to evade fighting in the war despite being a member of the Legion of Honor).
Mrs. Carré-Lamadon, like her husband, also represents the self-important French middle class. She intentionally wraps herself in furs in order to appear wealthy and sophisticated, and she faints from hunger because she refuses to eat from a sex worker's food basket. Despite constantly signaling her social and moral superiority, she proves herself to be selfish, joining forces with the other French travelers to convince Miss Rousset to sleep with the German commander and then shunning her after she does. Maupassant also makes it clear that Mrs. Carré-Lamadon is hypocritical, as she is constantly having affairs with other men, even thinking to herself that it’s a shame the commander was not French because (Maupassant implies) she would have slept with him herself.
As the only two fully bourgeoisie characters in the story, the Carré-Lamadons are clearly satirical stand-ins for crass and complacent middle-class people more broadly.
With the character of the German commander, Maupassant is satirizing wealthy military officers. Maupassant makes this clear by having the commander be exaggeratedly lazy, unqualified, and comfortable using his position of power to exploit others (specifically Miss Rousset) for his own gain. The following passage—in which the French travelers first meet the commander—captures the way that Maupassant uses the character to communicate his distaste for higher-up military officials more broadly:
[T]he officer received them, stretched out in an armchair, his feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a long, porcelain pipe, and enveloped in a flamboyant dressing-gown, appropriated, without doubt, from some dwelling belonging to a common citizen of bad taste. He did not rise, nor greet them in any way, not even looking at them.
Maupassant’s description of the commander here clearly has a mocking tone—the man is “stretched out in an armchair” with his feet up (signaling laziness and a lack of manners), “smoking a long, porcelain pipe” (indicating how he prioritizes his own pleasure), and “enveloped in a flamboyant dressing-gown” that he stole from a French citizen (showing his disregard for other people). That he doesn’t rise to greet any of the French travelers again signals how arrogant and inconsiderate he is, to an almost hyperbolic degree.
It is notable that Maupassant includes a scene later in the story in which the French travelers come across kind and caring Prussian foot soldiers. By juxtaposing them with the commander here, Maupassant hints that he is not mocking Prussian military members generally, but instead simply mocking the wealthy officials who misuse their power.
