The office of "la Poste" in Chareauville is a stately building. Jean de Limours lives above the office with his gorgeous wife Melanie, the daughter of Mimi and Nico Saintville, who run a thriving bakery in the town. Each morning Melanie sits behind the counter to sell stamps, take in parcels and to pay bills of exchange. She does this with so much charm that men in particular, prefer to spread their errands to the post office throughout the morning rather than finishing them at one time.

Towards noon "le facteur" arrives, he puts the packages and letters in a sack and brings this by horse to the main post office. Here letters and parcels with destinations further afield are taken inland by steam train. Jean inherited the noble profession of postmaster. His father, Lionel witnessed the arrival of the first letter boxes in the town, they were primarily for the tourists, even though at this time it was only the very rich, advised by their doctor to visit  the hotel on the coast to benefit from the healthy sea air for health reasons.

Now that postcards, mainly the work of Chareauville’s own photographer Léon Chailly, the husband of Anne who runs "Deauville", are on sale at Giscard Ballancourt’s  "Boutique de Souvenirs" , the post office is swarming with people. There are lovely photographs of Jacques Le Perray's lighthouse and André Draveil's watermill. In the mean time Léon has discovered Melanie’s commercial potential. He has proposed promoting Chareauvill’s beach life with a series of tasteful photographs of Melanie in a swim suit. Jean has no problems with this, as long as it remains "decent".