Chapter 82:

Words : 1097 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Chapter 82: "Whoever does not impose his will submits to that of the enemy."2 December 1934, Paris The iron skies over Paris wept quietly on that cold December morning. The chaos of November was still rang as a memory across the boulevards, but the city had finally begun to breathe again tentatively, uncertainly, like a man recovering from near drowning. Moreau stood alone in the reading room of the Ministry, gazing out the window toward the Seine. He had just received word from one of the senior aides Marshal Hubert Lyautey, the last of the great colonial warriors, had passed away quietly in Thorey-Lyautey. "God," he whispered. "France didn’t even have time to thank him." Behind him, General Beauchamp entered, holding a folded newspaper under his arm. He didn’t say anything at first he simply walked up beside Moreau and stood still, both men watching the fog thicken over the rooftops. "Did you know him, sir?" Moreau asked at last. seaʀᴄh thё ηovёlFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Beauchamp exhaled slowly. "Not personally. But I followed his work like gospel when I was a young officer." Moreau nodded. "They’re saying the news has shaken Morocco. The old sultan’s court even issued a statement." "It should shake France too," Beauchamp replied, his voice edged with bitterness. "But the Republic is too busy sewing up wounds from the riots to notice its greatest soldier is gone." Marshal Hubert Lyautey was more than a general. He was a mind. A symbol. The embodiment of France’s colonial imagination. Born in Nancy in 1854 into a lineage of nobility and Napoleonic valor, Lyautey had risen from Saint-Cyr to become one of the most influential men in the French Empire. He had first found his calling in Algeria in 1878. It wasn’t the battlefields of Europe that seduced him but the complexity of the Maghreb, the silence of the desert, and the lives of people whose loyalty had to be earned rather than conquered. It shaped him. "I am Louis XIV here," he once wrote to his father from Madagascar. "And that suits me." He served in Indochina under Gallieni, putting down the Black Flag rebellion, then pacified and restructured regions of Madagascar with stunning efficiency and reform. But it was Morocco where his legend solidified. Appointed Resident-General in 1912, he held the country together not only through military strength but administrative genius. Lyautey built schools. He commissioned hospitals. He asked his men to treat the Moroccans not as subjects, but as citizens of a future that he believed could exist if ruled with vision. He was everything the Republic had forgotten it could be. The funeral was swift in planning but slow in ceremony. On December 3rd, the flags across military posts in Paris fell to half-mast. Orders were issued to observe a full state mourning. The President issued a brief communiqué: "Marshal Lyautey served France not merely as a warrior, but as a statesman in the truest form he ruled not with conquest, but with construction. His death is the closing of a Chapter in our history." The public, slowly returning to their lives after weeks of protests and speeches, now gathered again but this time in quiet. Along the Rue Saint-Honoré and across Place des Invalides, they stood, hats in hand, as a black-draped carriage made its way to the Dome Church. Moreau stood in full uniform among a line of officers and dignitaries. Beside him, Beauchamp kept his eyes fixed ahead. "He should’ve been buried a decade ago in marble and with music," Beauchamp muttered. "Instead, we bury him when we are just remembering what honor is." Moreau glanced sideways. "Sometimes fate waits for us to remember, sir." Inside Les Invalides, where Napoleon’s tomb lay under the golden dome, Lyautey was interred with a ceremony befitting only a Marshal of France. The President spoke briefly, with genuine emotion: "He warned us of folly when we marched to war. He guided our colonies when they were more wounded than conquered. And when the Republic looked elsewhere, it was Marshal Lyautey who held her dignity in the farthest corners of the earth." Renaud, standing behind Moreau, leaned forward. "How is it this man ruled half of Africa and the East... and yet died with more love from his soldiers than our own ministers?" "Because he never ruled," Moreau murmured. "He built. That’s rarer." Later that evening, back at the Ministry of Defense, a quiet reception was held for senior officers. The hall was filled with murmurs not the political whispers of recent weeks, but genuine reverence. Old officers who had served with Lyautey in Algeria or Morocco raised glasses to a man who had been larger than life. Some spoke of his battles, others of his policies, his belief in civil society, his refusal to let religion divide rule. "He never believed in the missionary sword," one officer said. "He said it was better to build a school than a garrison." Another added, "He quoted Descartes more than any general I’ve known. Said every campaign should begin with a question, not an order." Even Beauchamp lifted a glass. "To the only man who made colonialism feel like a duty instead of a business." Moreau didn’t speak. He stood beside the window, watching the last light of the December sun vanish behind the rooftops of the city. "He hated the Third Republic," he whispered. Beauchamp nodded. "He hated most governments." "But he never hated France." "That," Beauchamp said softly, "was his gift. And his curse." As night deepened, Paris was quiet again. Not in mourning now but in contemplation. Moreau walked the empty street alone, his boots ranging over the stones of the square. His coat was buttoned tight, but the cold didn’t bite. A group of veterans walked silently past, pausing to salute him. He returned it without a word. Then he looked to the sky. "He said a war between Europeans was madness," Moreau whispered to no one. "He said it before Verdun. Before the Marne. And we laughed." His voice was low. "We won the war. And lost the men who warned us." Moreau remembered him when he was studying in future. His famous words that showed his iron will and vision. "Whoever does not impose his will submits to that of the enemy." Marshal Lyautey was gone. But in the heart of at least one young officer and in the nation he tried so desperately to build the flag still flew. And the flame still burned.

Chapter 82:

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