Versailles, France
Autumn 1848
The war was over.
Officially this time.
The treaties had been signed weeks earlier, diplomats had returned home, and newspapers across Europe and the Americas now referred to the conflict in the past tense instead of the present. The great battles that once dominated headlines had faded away, replaced instead by endless discussions about reconstruction, railway investment, trade agreements, industrial expansion, and international shipping.
But despite the peace, the world did not slow down.
If anything—
It accelerated.
France felt it everywhere.
Rail stations remained crowded day and night. Factories expanded faster than local officials could approve permits. Steel prices fluctuated almost weekly because foreign demand had become overwhelming. Steam locomotives crossed the countryside nonstop carrying machinery, coal, engineers, and industrial equipment toward Atlantic ports that had grown busier than anyone imagined possible ten years earlier.
