NOVGO.NET Chapter 697: Return to Order
Chapter 697: Return to Order
Versailles no longer echoed with the polished elegance of royal feet or the prattle of perfumed courtiers.
The grand halls were lined with German guards dressed in camouflage uniforms, and carrying assault rifles.
The banners of the Reich had replaced the tricolor.
Outside, the gardens were eerily quiet, no footfall of tourists, no idle gossip of lovers.
Just the hum of armored engines in the distance and the rhythmic thud of jackboots in formation.
Inside the Galerie des Glaces, three men sat beneath the golden murals of Louis XIV’s glory:
Wilhelm II, the aging Emperor of Germany, seated with the air of a triumphant Roman senator.
Bruno von Zehntner, dressed as a field officer, and silent as he stood behind his Kaiser like a sword yet to be drawn.
And at the center, in a tailored royal blue coat stitched with golden lilies and a silver sash across his chest, sat Henri d’Orléans, the newly crowned King Henri VI of France.
His face bore a look that was equal parts pride and discomfort, as though the crown fit too easily, and that alone made it suspect.
Bruno spoke first.
“The army must be dismantled.”
Henri blinked. “The French army?”
Bruno gave a slow nod. “You will not need it. Not in the way it existed before.”
The Kaiser chuckled softly and gestured with a cigarette holder.
“What Bruno means to say, Your Majesty, is that the republic’s army was never yours. It was theirs. A machine built to preserve the republic… not the crown.”
Bruno continued,
“We will salvage what can be salvaged. Light armor, reconnaissance craft, liaison aircraft, patrol ships. Enough for gendarmerie and internal defense. But no field artillery. No heavy tanks. No strategic bombers. No submarines. Those will be… relocated. For inspection. For our collective security.”
Henri looked down at his gloved hands. “And the men?”
“Those loyal to the monarchy,” Bruno answered, “will be retained. Vetted. Retrained. Re-equipped under new doctrine.”
“And those loyal to the republic?”
There was a long silence.
Wilhelm II turned toward a window, watching the fluttering Imperial standard of Germany outside where the French one once stood.
Bruno’s voice was low.
“Some will emigrate. Others will… resist. The rest will be encouraged to embrace a more classical education.”
Henri swallowed the knot in his throat. The Crown he wore felt heavier by the minute.
Bruno stood up and walked toward the center of the room, where the golden floor map of Europe lay beneath glass.
He tapped France with his gloved finger.
“You are not just a king reborn, Henri. You are the symbol of the new order. France reborn in fire and steel. No more liberty. No more parliamentary squabbles. No more red banners in the streets. The Crown returns with the sword at its back. And I intend to see it remain that way.”
Wilhelm smirked. “The King of France is no longer alone. He stands with brothers now. With emperors. With Kings, and with Princes….”
Henri finally looked up. “And yet my country is occupied.”
Bruno turned and locked eyes with him.
“Occupied, yes. But not enslaved. Rule well, Henri, and the French will learn to respect you more than they ever loved the Republic. That is the price of survival in this new world.”
He paused. Then, quietly:
“If you do not rule with strength… then they will return.”
The word they hung in the air like smoke from Wilhelm’s cigarette. Everyone knew who it meant.
Henri did not speak for a long while.
When he did, it was with the weary finality of a man who had walked into his own gilded prison.
“Then let us begin.”
Bruno nodded, stepped forward, and handed him the first decree, already printed and bound.
Royal Edict I: Reorganization of the Royal Gendarmerie and Armed Security of the Kingdom of France.
The pens were already on the table. The throne had no brakes. The new Kingdom would be born not in marble, but in ash.
—
Beneath the shattered bones of the Republic, in a smoke-choked cellar somewhere near Tours, a dozen men sat around a warped wooden table.
The air was thick with sweat, cigarettes, and the dread that comes when history closes a door.
A battered tricolor flag hung behind them, stained with soot and bullet holes.
One man, a gaunt, mustached figure with sharp features and sharper eyes, stood at the center.
Colonel Philippe Leclerc, loyal to de Gaulle, to the old France.
He slammed his hand on the table.
“We go to Britain. The General may be dead, but the alliances he forged are still strong. The other nations will need us if they are to land a force on French soil! There’s still time… if we move tonight.”
A balding older officer shook his head. “And how many will you take? Twenty men? Thirty? The Germans control the ports. The railways. The skies. We’ll be picked off like rats before we cross the Loire.”
“Then we fight our way out.”
“And die like fools?” another spat. “Bruno has crushed the army. The Air Force is being scrapped. Versailles now holds a king. A king, for God’s sake.”
A younger man, no more than twenty, leaned forward. His hands trembled as he lit another cigarette.
“Maybe… maybe we wait. See what the new France looks like. This Henri d’Orléans… he’s not Napoleon. He may be a puppet… but he’s French. Not a German prince. Not some foreign invader. Maybe it’s better to bend than to break.”
Leclerc’s stare was like ice.
“That’s how tyranny survives. Good men convincing themselves that surrender is wisdom.”
“But what are we fighting for?” someone muttered. “The Republic is dead. The people cheer when the food trucks arrive, food stamped with the Black Eagle of Prussia. I’ve seen men trade their tricolor pins for monarchist cockades just to keep their shops open. Maybe the people want a king again. I mean many of us still remember what happened when the Germans left us to our own in 1916….”
A silence fell over the table like a funeral cloth.
Outside, the distant rumble of half-tracks echoed through the streets.
German boots. Royal Gendarmerie patrols.
France, reborn, not with liberty, equality, fraternity, but with law, order, stability, hierarchy, and the flag of kings returned from exile.
One man, older than the rest, finally whispered:
“If we leave… we might be spared. If we fight… we might be martyred. But if we do nothing… if we submit… then history will forget us. And our children will wear crowns not of gold, but chains painted in the colors of monarchy.”
The candle flickered.
Leclerc nodded slowly. “Then let history remember us. As men who stood in the shadow of thrones… and did not bow.”