Boule De Suif

“Many a rotund bourgeois, emasculated by a purely commercial life, awaited the arrival of the victors with anxiety, trembling lest their meat-skewers and kitchen carving-knives should come under the category of arms.”

Guy de Maupassant offers a critical description of the bourgeoisie, satirizing their self-centeredness. That the merchant residents of Rouen are concerned mostly with money and their own comfort foreshadows how Boule de Suif’s traveling companions will betray her.

“For some days already the ground had been hard with frost, and on the Monday, about three o’clock in the afternoon, thick dark clouds coming up from the north brought the snow, which fell without intermission all the evening and during the whole night.”

Maupassant uses detailed imagery to establish the story’s setting. The characters can escape neither the war nor the harsh reality of the cold winter and the incessant snow; both will affect the travelers’ journey. The passage also sets a bleak atmosphere, laying the groundwork for the harshness to come.

“As he turned away to fetch the other horse he caught sight of the motionless group of travelers, by this time white with snow. ‘Why don’t you get inside the carriage?’ he said, ‘you would at least be under cover.’ It had never occurred to them, and they made a rush for it.”

The hostler, a common worker who looks after horses, seems to have more sense than the aristocratic and bourgeois travelers, who are needlessly standing out in the snow, apparently unprepared for the circumstances they find themselves in. Their lack of forethought foreshadows their failure to bring provisions for the journey, unlike Boule de Suif, a sex worker. However, any irony in the hostler and Boule de Suif seeming to have power over the aristocrats and the merchants evaporates by the end of the story, as the latter reassert their control to coerce Boule de Suif into sleeping with the Prussian officer.

“The former salesman of a master who had become bankrupt, Loiseau had bought up the stock and made his fortune. He sold very bad wine at very low prices to the small country retail dealers, and enjoyed the reputation among his friends and acquaintances of being an unmitigated rogue.”

Maupassant characterizes Loiseau as an opportunistic businessman. Loiseau symbolizes the newly moneyed French merchant class at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. Loose on morals, he uses dishonest means to build and maintain wealth and thinks little of the plight of the common people.

“The six passengers occupied the upper end of the conveyance, the representatives of revenued society, serene in the consciousness of its strength—honest well-to-do people possessed of Religion and Principles.”

With the capitalization of “Religion” and “Principles,” Maupassant satirizes how the French upper and middle classes regard themselves as purveyors of objective morality. In reality, their “strength” is purely monetary, as their actions reveal them to be self-serving hypocrites.

“The alcohol raised his spirits somewhat, and he proposed that they should do the same as on the little ship in the song—eat the fattest of the passengers. This indirect but obvious allusion to Boule De Suif shocked the gentle people.”

Maupassant highlights the tension between Boule de Suif and the other passengers with Loiseau’s joke about cannibalizing her. It shocks these supposed “gentle people,” but as it is what they metaphorically do by persuading her to have sex with the Prussian officer, their response here merely indicates their hypocrisy.

“In moments such as this we are only too glad to find any one who will oblige us.”

Loiseau’s response to Boule de Suif’s offer of food appears polite and diplomatic. In retrospect, however, his words hint at how Boule de Suif’s traveling companions will continue to take advantage of her for their own benefit. A moment that seems to portray class boundaries as permeable therefore ultimately reinforces The Inescapability of Social Class—specifically, the way the upper classes exploit the lower ones.

“Inside the conveyance nothing could be distinguished any longer, but there was a sudden movement between Boule de Suif and Cornudet, and Loiseau, peering through the gloom, fancied he saw the man with the beard start back quickly as if he had received a well-directed but noiseless blow.”

This scene reveals Cornudet’s motivation. The movement suggests that Cornudet has made an unwanted advance, foreshadowing the moment when he propositions Boule de Suif outside her room. He does not respect Boule de Suif but sees her simply as an object to fulfill his desire. She resists Cornudet, showing her sense of morality.

“The Count, much astonished, stopped the beadle, who happened to come out of the vestry at that moment, and asked the meaning of it all. […] ‘You see, Monsieur, the poor always help one another; it is the great people who make the wars.’”

This quote highlights how war affects the lower classes. The count, an aristocrat, sees the French working classes and the Prussian foot soldiers working together and cannot understand how “enemies” could cooperate in this way. The beadle points out that the poor must rely on each other in times of need and suggests that there is natural solidarity among the working classes, who, regardless of nationality, bear the burden of the wars the wealthy wage. This idea tempers the story’s otherwise pessimistic view of the prospects of society’s most marginalized members.

“‘She must be persuaded,’ he said. Whereupon they conspired.”

Here the characters show their true colors. After first expressing indignation at the Prussian officer’s request, the characters now want to get on with the journey and feel no qualms using Boule de Suif to do so. The tension increases and the conflict rises as the characters ally themselves against her.

“She considered Abraham’s sacrifice a very simple affair, for she herself would have instantly killed father or mother at an order from above, and nothing, she averred, could displease the lord if the intention were commendable. The Countess, taking advantage of the sacred authority of her unexpected ally, drew her on to make an edifying paraphrase, as it were, on the well-known maxim: ‘The end justifies the means.’”

The conflict between Boule de Suif and the others intensifies as the nun suggests that obeying authority and acting with good intentions can justify seemingly immoral actions. The nun’s words begin to sway Boule de Suif, who—in another ironic twist—is more devout than most, if not all, of her fellow travelers.

“He then appealed to her kindness of heart, her reason, her sentiment. He knew how to remain ‘Monsieur le Comte,’ yet showing himself at the same time chivalrous, flattering—in a word, altogether amiable. He exalted the sacrifice she would be making for them, touched upon their gratitude, and with a final flash of roguishness, ‘Besides, my dear, he may think himself lucky—he will not find many such pretty girls as you in his own country!’”

The count uses charm and flattery to appeal to Boule de Suif’s emotions one final time, playing on everything from vanity to guilt to patriotism. Boule de Suif’s inner conflict reaches a crisis, and she ultimately compromises her values for the group.

“Nobody looked at her, nobody thought of her. She felt herself drowning in the flood of contempt shown towards her by these honest scoundrels who had first sacrificed her and then cast her off like some useless and unclean thing.”

Rather than showing gratitude for Boule de Suif’s sacrifice, the other passengers return to ignoring her. The most charitable reading of their behavior is that they see in Boule de Suif an embodiment of their own shame—not just their mistreatment of her but their lack of patriotism generally. However, Boule de Suif herself clearly sees their actions as simply callous exploitation, and the scene highlights their hypocrisy one last time as they eat food they do not share with her.