What ES1 shares with the two versions of MB is that the situation of the action historically is dependent on two events: an elopement for which a day, date and month are provided, and a Mid-Lent masked ball. The elopements occur on Saturday 13 March 1841, Monday 12 September 1842 and Monday 4 September 1843 respectively. Interestingly, time is doubled in the NV in such a way as to make the planned date Monday 12 September AND December 1842, the official date of Flaubert's majority, and 13 March would be the conception date for one who was born on 13 December, as Gustave Flaubert was. The masked ball in both versions of MB is Thursday 19 March 1846, and in ES1 Thursday 26 March 1840.

The chart in the Appendix (pp. 289–92) reflects the system of equivalences established in the novel for the frequently repeated transition from March to April and from September to October. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 16/26 March 1631, the lavatio of 27 March AND 4/12 April and the Era of Constantinople, which establishes a coincidence of 21 March/1 April/September (Nicolas, 9) are all operational factors in the chronology of MB, as is indicated by Lheureux's allusion to a dog returning from Constantinople at the time of Djali's escape (1, 601) and by the reference to a three-year interval between Rodolphe's lettre de rupture of 3 September 1843 and Emma's last visit to La Huchette on 23 March 1846 (1, 679). The usurer Lheureux does not make mistakes about time, so the table also explains his ‘time lie’ of 26 March 1846 at Emma's funeral: