page_title: Madame Zeno
section_title: How it's done
hierarchical_section_title: Madame Zeno / Career / How it's done
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of a balloon ascension between 1890 and 1909.
context_page_description: Madame Zeno was an early Aeronaut, an actor, and an entertainer famous at the turn of the 20th century for her performance of suspending from a trapeze below a parachute attached to Hot Air Balloon and cutting loose from a balloon floating back to earth while hanging from the trapeze beneath the parachute.
  Aka: Mademoiselle, Mme., M'lle, and Madame Alice Zeno
context_section_description: Lucy "Madame Zeno" would hang or sit on a trapeze that was attached to a parachute whose top was in turn attached to a hot air balloon.  The balloon would be inflated from the hot air generated by a bonfire.  When the balloon was full the ground crew would release the restraints and the entire contraption would head skyward.  The balloons typical maximum altitude was between 3000 and 4000 feet.   Once it reached this altitude and the noise of the world below had disappeared Madame Zeno would pull a rope that cut the parachute free from the balloon.  The trapeze would drop a few hundred feet and the red, white, and blue parachute overhead would blossom bring her safely back to earth.  While floating back to Earth Madame Zeno would wave to the crowd and perform various moves on the trapeze.  Madame Zeno used no safety belts or lines to prevent injury should she fall from a height but relied solely on her strength and balance to stay firmly on the trapeze.  She recalled making $500 on that first day, $400 for the ascension and another $100 for taking up an advertising banner and selling photos of her and the crew.
caption: The whole contraption.
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