The road to Nice, on either side of which the suburban houses are built, was, in the year 1851, lined with ancient elm-trees, grand and gigantic ruins, still full of vigour, which the fastidious town council has replaced, some years since, by some little plane-trees.  When Silvere and Miette found themselves under the elms, the huge boughs of which cast shadows on the moonlit footpath, they met now and again black forms which silently skirted the house fronts.  These, too, were amorous couples, closely wrapped in one and the same cloak, and strolling in the darkness.

This style of promenading has been instituted by the young lovers of Southern towns.  Those boys and girls among the people who mean to marry sooner or later, but who do not dislike a kiss or two in advance, know no spot where they can kiss at their ease without exposing themselves to recognition and gossip.  Accordingly, while strolling about the suburbs, the plots of waste land, the footpaths of the high road—­in fact, all these places where there are few passers-by and numerous shady nooks—­they conceal their identity by wrapping themselves in these long cloaks, which are capacious enough to cover a whole family.  The parents tolerate these proceedings; however stiff may be provincial propriety, no apprehensions, seemingly, are entertained.  And, on the other hand, nothing could be more charming than these lovers’ rambles, which appeal so keenly to the Southerner’s fanciful imagination.  There is a veritable masquerade, fertile in innocent enjoyments, within the reach of the most humble.  The girl clasps her sweetheart to her bosom, enveloping him in her own warm cloak; and no doubt it is delightful to be able to kiss one’s sweetheart within those shrouding folds without danger of being recognised.  One couple is exactly like another.  And to the belated pedestrian, who sees the vague groups gliding hither and thither, ’tis merely love passing, love guessed and scarce espied.  The lovers know they are safely concealed within their cloaks, they converse in undertones and make themselves quite at home; most frequently they do not converse at all, but walk along at random and in silence, content in their embrace.  The climate alone is to blame for having in the first instance prompted these young lovers to retire to secluded spots in the suburbs.  On fine summer nights one cannot walk round Plassans without coming across a hooded couple in every patch of shadow falling from the house walls.  Certain places, the Aire Saint-Mittre, for instance, are full of these dark “dominoes” brushing past one another, gliding softly in the warm nocturnal air.  One might imagine they were guests invited to some mysterious ball given by the stars to lowly lovers.  When the weather is very warm and the girls do not wear cloaks, they simply turn up their over-skirts.  And in the winter the more passionate lovers make light of the frosts.  Thus, Miette and Silvere, as they descended the Nice road, thought little of the chill December night.