Paris, FranceSummer 1848
Paris had never felt more important than it did that summer.
From sunrise until deep into the night, the city moved with constant energy. Rail stations remained crowded almost every hour of the day as trains arrived carrying diplomats, businessmen, military observers, engineers, industrial advisers, and foreign envoys from nearly every corner of Europe and the Americas.
The streets near the center of the capital barely rested anymore.
Hotels had been fully booked for weeks. Restaurants and cafés overflowed with conversations spoken in French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, and dozens of other languages. Carriages rolled endlessly across crowded roads while newspapers changed headlines almost daily depending on which delegation had arrived or what new agreement was rumored inside Versailles.
The war across the Atlantic was ending.
And now the world had come to Paris.
Not for conquest.
Not for battle.
For business.
For industry.
For the future.
