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Show THIS QUEEN WORKS How Paris Chooses a Fete Sovereign Sov-ereign Each Year. Mile. Lucienne Joly, a Hard-Working Seamstress Was Queen of the French Capital's Autumn Feast This Year. Paris. Although France Is now a republic for the third time, her people peo-ple still seem to hanker after royalty and their taste runs In the direction of queens. They can't have a regular queen, of course, so they must be contented con-tented with queens of a lower degree, who are chosen in various trades and various parts of France with all due ceremony. From time immemorial the tradespeople trades-people of Paris have celebrated each carnival by electing a queen from among the work people, whose chief merit is unusual beauty, the pride of birth being quite an unimportant factor. fac-tor. The vegetable women select their queen, the grocers theirs, the fishmar-ket fishmar-ket makes its choice and so on. Then these several chosen queens are brought together for an appointed committee to pass judgment on them. The queen receiving the largest number num-ber of votes is raised to the highest honor and her title is Queen of the Queens. It is a strange fact that for several years, with one exception, the fish market has furnis.hed the Queen of Queens for this joyous fete. This year the business men of Paris inaugurated a Fete d'Automme (autumn (au-tumn feast), and October 2 and 3 were chosen as the days for the celebration. cele-bration. A very ceremonious meeting was held in the chamber of marriages at the city hall at which the delegates of Mile. Lucienne JolyL the various business associaticBVfis-sembled associaticBVfis-sembled a few days ago Eor B. cult undertaking of electing an Bk meral sovereign to preside over tBJ fete. The delegates on arriving at tl!B hall found 15 beauties sitting in state' awaiting the decision of the judges. The idle, butterfly type was not represented, repre-sented, for the young woman who was to attain the supreme dignity of queen hail to be taken from the ranks of the business women. After a moment's contemplation the president of the committee, M. Chal-anson, Chal-anson, arose and in carefully selected ' words set forth the ideas which first inspired the business men to bring into in-to existence this autumn feast. The delegates were then asked to vote for the queen of the fete. The situation was most embarrassing. Gallantry is proverbial with the Frenchman, and to his chivalrous miud it was almost treason to select one to the discredit of the other candidates. A choice had to be made, however. Above each candidate was a number and each delegate del-egate simply wrote the number of his preference on the slip provided for him and dropped it into a box. The first count showed that the delegates del-egates were of divers opinions and no one of the candidates had a majority. This necessitated another ballot. A signal was given to the brass band in attendance, and in a twinkling it was thrilling the assembled people with one of the most exciting popular airs. The music gave courage to the timid and faltering judges, so that it was only a question of few minutes before the final vote was cast and counted. This formality over, M. Grandon, master mas-ter of ceremonies, announced the result re-sult and proclaimed the chosen queen to be Mile. Lucienne Joly, queen o: the dressmakers, a Juno-like brunette who had received 41 votes, thus making ma-king her Queen of the Autumn Feast Blushing with pleasure and greatly agitated, the reigning sovereign thanked the assembly for the honor conferred on her,, and the committee then escorted her and her 14 maids of honor to a restaurant, where the chosen cho-sen one was congratulated demonstratively demonstra-tively by her relatives and companions. |