"We've got them, it's a dead end!" - "We are Caught in an Ambush”
Francois recounts, “ I shouted to Meaulnes, ‘ We’ve got them, it’s a dead end!’. In fact it was they who had caught us. They had been leading us where they wanted. Once they reached the wall, they turned round on us with a determined air and one of them gave that same whistle which we had already heard twice that night." Francois' familiarity of the locality bids him confidence about trapping the figures. However, the figures deliberately lead Francois and Meaulnes to a section whereby they would easily entrap and assault them. The ploy to lure the two is well-planned that it effortlessly entices them to the snare of ambush.
The Irony of the Boarder - “The Boarder”
Francois explains, “They had come together by car from La Ferté-d'Angillon, which was fourteen kilometres from Sainte-Agathe. A widow – and, as she gave us to understand, very rich – she had lost the younger of her two children, Antoine, who had died one day on coming home from school, after bathing with his brother in an unhealthy pond. She had decided to give us the elder boy, Augustin, as a boarder in the upper school.” The widow would be expected to be attached to Augustin after being bereaved one son. She would have opted to stay closer to him. Sending him to boarding is ironic, but it demonstrates that the widow is assured that he will be safer in boarding than with her.
