Charles' father, Monsieur Charles-Denis-Barholomé Bovary, had been an army surgeon's aide but left the service following a conscription scandal.  He then married a merchant's daughter who came with a dowry.  He lived off his wife's income for several years during which time he developed a taste for the finer things in life.  Charles' father tried several different careers but the years of easy living had made him lazy.  At the age of 45, disgusted with mankind and resolved to bitterness, he took his wife to a village on the border of Normandy and Picardy where living was inexpensive and he could eschew work in general.  His wife, tender and caring in her youth, grew to be a nervous and nagging woman who spoiled their only child despite the elder Bovary's insistence that the boy be subject to strict discipline.  Charles' mother insisted that the boy be properly educated and when Charles was twelve the aged local priest was engaged to tutor him in Latin.  Charles was a good learner and he went to the lycée in Rouen.  Although he did not distinguish himself he worked hard and maintained an average standing.  Before he finished the lycée, however, his parents sent him to medical school.  The lessons were above his level but he went to class and took copious notes.  Gradually he stopped attending and began passing time in the cafés playing dominoes.  He learned to drink and even came to know love.  He failed his first examination to become an officer de santé [a licensed medical man without a M.D.] but passed on the second attempt.  His mother secured a position for him in Tostes, a small village in the region and arranged for a 45 year-old widow with twelve hundred francs a year to be his wife.  Charles' wife, formerly Madame Heloise Dubuc, was thin and unattractive.  She suffered from numerous neurosis and insecurities and jealously ruled over her younger husband.