Between two openwork azure minarets and polychrome statues surmounted by banners, adorned with cabochons, at the top of an immense flamboyant arch (which earned it the nickname of the Salamander), flies away, on a golden ball, a mermaid wearing the hat of the boat of the City of Paris, with a flat skirt, throwing to the wind an evening coat of false ermine:the Parisienne:this scarecrow full of draughts also resembles the ladies of La Vie parisienne. On the first page of this select magazine where Gyp and Toutet write, we see a mother, the City of Paris. give the last advice to his daughter, the Exhibition:
It is Mr. Émile who inaugurates you, my darling, you will have to be very nice.
Mr. Émile inaugurates. Will we be ready? We are not ready, but, through the potholes that have upset the Trocadéro and the Champ-de-Mars, under the showers, the Head of State advances, accompanied by NI. Millerand, Minister of Commerce, of the prefect of police, M. Lépine, whose name has had so much success in the journals, of M. Crozier, chief of protocol, of the secretary of [Exhibition, M. A. Picard, then of M. Bouguereau in tail coat.