France: Love in the Afternoon

"In Paris, no one makes love in the evening any more; everyone is too tired." So sighs a character in Francoise Sagan's latest novel, La Chamade, and so to a breathless world was revealed the latest innovation in French amatory technique. In the days of Maupassant, mustaches and mistresses, the affluent Frenchman could not do without his cinq a sept—the 5-to-7 p.m. evening liaison with his paramour. Then he dashed home for a 7:30 dinner with his wife. All of that, as La Sagan sadly reports, has changed.

The new hours for love in the afternoon are 2 to 4...