Chapter 218:

Words : 1254 Updated : Sep 25th, 2025

Chapter 218: "There’s no Republic left to fight."For every red one under Moreau’s banner, to more had turned from grey in the last three hours. Metz. Rouen. Brest. Delon leaned over the map and muttered, "They still think there’s something to protect." Beauchamp lit a match nearby. "There is. It’s just not theirs anymore." Near the German border. In a trench near the forest’s edge, Lieutenant Sylvain Dupray adjusted his stiff collar and peered through his scope. "They’re holding the bridge," he said to his second. "Roughly twenty men. Probably 15th Loyalist Battalion, remnants." "How sure?" the sergeant asked. Dupray exhaled. "I used to play cards with their captain." He turned. "Load the mortars. We’re not asking." At 10:42, the sky above Metz cracked with fire. Two minutes later, the bridge was in flames. Moreau’s 11th Eastern Division marched across what remained. The city fell by midday. Southwest, in the mountains near the Spanish border. Captain Eloise Marin wiped her blade clean after a brutal melee outside a customs shack. Her unit, the 3rd Pyrenees Commandos, had spent the night hiking goat trails and evading loyalist border patrols. Now, they controlled the last mountain pass near Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. A local guide approached, wide-eyed. "The Spanish will see your guns from their towers." Marin looked toward the cliffs, breathing heavy. "They’ll see our flags first." She planted a roaring lion flag in the ground and turned to her men. "Build trenches. Nobody crosses out of France." In Grenoble, the streets burned. The city had resisted longer than most. Loyalist officers had trained their men for this moment. They believed Grenoble was a symbol of republican pride, mountain independence, alpine stubbornness. Captain Damien Courcier, age 29, Moreau’s youngest frontline commander, stood in the bell tower of Saint-Laurent Church, staring at the chaos. Below, fire lit the market district. Black smoke curled around rooftops. Sporadic gunfire rang from the tramline where his 4th Battalion fought trench-by-door against entrenched gendarmerie. A boy ran into the bell tower, blood on his shirt. "Captain....gas shells!" Courcier turned. "Which side?" The boy hesitated. "Ours." Courcier flinched. "Goddamn it." He descended the stairs two at a time. Outside, a Moreau-aligned artilleryman was screaming at a lieutenant. "It was a misfire! I swear it!" "You dropped it in the middle of our line!" Courcier grabbed the officer by the collar. "Next round lands wrong, I’ll shoot you before they do. Understood?" He looked out again. "Prepare another wave. If we can’t take the town square in one hour, torch the rail yard." Grenoble bled into submission by dusk. Back in Paris, Moreau sat alone. He did not speak. Did not read. He simply watched the radio operators sending out updates to seventy-six new military units that had declared allegiance since sunrise. Delon entered. "They took Metz." Moreau said nothing. Delon continued. "We’ve encircled Brest. The navy’s still holding out, but Toulon caved. We own the Mediterranean now." Still silence. Delon lowered his voice. "We’re within a day of having it all." Moreau finally spoke. "Not all. Not yet." Beauchamp entered. "Clermont-Ferrand defected. That’s the last major supply corridor." He handed a folder over. "Draft of the total occupation plan. It includes all prefects, military courts, temporary governance." Moreau took it. Looked up at the ceiling. "I thought there’d be more fighting," he said. "There is," Delon replied. "Just not enough." In Brest, where sea met steel, Admiral Jules Renan refused to lower the Republic’s flag. From the deck of the destroyer Léon Gambetta, he paced while loyalist sailors stood at uneasy attention. Below, crowds marched in favor of Moreau. The Admiral’s first officer approached. "Sir, orders?" Renan looked to the horizon. Then at the sky. "Fire one warning shot inland. Then tell the men to stand down." He looked sick. The officer nodded. "You chose survival." "No," Renan said. "I chose to let France live, even if she forgets who I was." In Nancy, Colonel Martel addressed his men outside a half-demolished government building. He held up the latest dispatch. "Loyalty isn’t a virtue anymore. It’s a death wish. The country is turning without us." He looked around. "You want to die for a regime that let us rot in Africa? That traded our names for seats in Berlin?" Silence. Then, one by one, they removed their old patches and stepped forward. Nancy fell without a shot. By 13:30, over 90% of France was under control. Moreau’s command map lit red from coast to mountains. Only minor resistance remained isolated loyalist units in Perpignan, Brest, and scattered areas near the German border. In a café in Dijon, converted into a forward observation post, two soldiers played cards. One looked up at the rifle leaning near the door. "You think we’re heroes?" The other didn’t answer. He laid down a queen of spades and said, "I think we’re tired." At the Spanish border, an emissary crossed from San Sebastián with a white flag and a silver briefcase. He met a French officer at the checkpoint near Biarritz. The officer, young and sunburned, read the message, nodded, and radioed the capital. An hour later, Beauchamp confirmed to Moreau. "Franco recognizes the provisional government." Moreau only said, "Good. Then no more exile routes." Delon smiled. "Obviously he would have to recognise the Lion of Spain unless he wants Moreau to turn his attention back on him. Don’t mind me but the last time Moreau did he nearly got fucked." In a farmhouse outside Reims, a radio technician named Lucienne Berard set up a wireless relay. She tuned the frequency, held her breath, and heard it orders coming not from the Republic, but from the Ministry of Internal Recovery. Her husband, a schoolteacher, watched her. "You think this is it?" he asked. She didn’t answer at first. Then she smiled. "France feels young again." On the eastern edge, near Strasbourg, engineers cut through the remaining telegraph lines connecting military outposts to Berlin. A German scout plane passed overhead, low and slow. It didn’t drop bombs. Just a black-and-white message. "We are watching." The engineer crumpled it. "We’re not afraid of shadows anymore," he muttered. That evening, near the Spanish border, Captain Marin walked through a makeshift command trench with blood on her boots. A sergeant handed her a communique all southern roads now reported quiet. No movement. No sound. S~eaʀᴄh the NôᴠeFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Marin grinned. "Looks like the Pyrenees finally shut up." In Limoges, the last serious resistance cracked around sunset. Three loyalist majors surrendered at the train station after their food stocks ran out. They were led to the town square, placed in a line. The commanding officer looked at them. "You want a speech?" he asked. One of them replied, "You’ll be giving many. Might as well rehearse." The officer shot him in the leg. "You’ll get a trial. But not tonight." At 20:00, Delon gathered his commanders in a candlelit room in Paris. Maps lined every wall. Delon addressed them one by one. "North, secured." "East, stabilized." "South, folded." "West, compliant." He turned to Moreau. "There’s no Republic left to fight." Moreau nodded. He stepped to the window, staring at the Notre-Dame. "It’s time." Delon asked, "For what?" "For permanence." Beauchamp spoke up. "Then Phase Three?" Moreau’s eyes didn’t leave the skyline. "Yes. Begin it tomorrow." Delon lit a final cigarette. "We just took a country, Moreau." Moreau turned. "No. We brought it back."

Chapter 218:

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