Setting?

The setting of the story is rather vague. There are no concrete references which could help us to define a particular period of history. Though, taking into consideration that all Maupassant's stories describe the 19th century French life, "The Family" can be attributed to this period either. The thing which can prove this fact is a good characterization a wife of the narrator's friend, Simon. The narrator describes her as "a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her children and her cook-book." So it was in the 19th century and earlier , when the main task of any wife was to bring up children,to take care of them and old ill people and also to cook food.
The only thing I can say with solid sureness is that the events are happening in a small province where the narrator's friend lives with his family.
 These slight  features of setting are very important, because they create true-to-life atmosphere of that period for a reader to be penetrated with.