Chapter 1

The chapter opens with a description of the agricultural market town of Yonville-L'Abbaye and the surrounding countryside.  The narrator characterizes the area as a "mongrel region" composed of equal parts Normandy, Picardy and the Ile-de-France.  It is a relatively impoverished area with poor soil, ignorant natives and limited access to the greater world.  A covered market occupies half the square which is bounded by the town hall, the Lion d'Or Hotel and Monsieur Homais' pharmacy.  The evening that the Bovary's are expected to arrive the mistress of the inn, Madame Lefrançois, is busy preparing for market day as well as providing for her regular diners: the tax collecter Monsieur Binet who always arrives on time and has particular tastes and Monsieur Léon Dupuis the young clerk who arrives at any time and doesn't care what he eats.  The pharmacist Monsieur Homais, wearing a velvet skullcap with a gold tassel, converses with the busy woman while they wait for the Bovary's to arrive.  The brief appearance of the curé causes Homais to express his disgust with organized religion and reaffirm his pragmatic agnosticism to the otherwise uninterested inn keeper.  Eventually the Hirondelle, the town's rattling three horse coach, arrives with its driver Hivert who begins distributing packages and news to the town folk.  He apologizes for the coach's tardiness but explains that Madame Bovary's greyhound ran away during the journey and could not be found.  Emma blames the dog's disappearance on her husband.