Versailles, France
Summer 1850
The rain had stopped by morning, but the smell of wet stone and coal smoke still lingered across Versailles.
From the palace balconies, the world beyond looked different now compared to even a few years earlier. Rail lines stretched farther across the countryside while distant steam locomotives moved constantly through the horizon carrying steel, timber, coal, machinery, and passengers between growing industrial cities.
France no longer looked like the Europe of old paintings and royal portraits.
It looked alive.
Mechanical.
Restless.
And every month, it became harder for the world to ignore what France was becoming.
Inside the Palace of Versailles, the conference halls remained crowded again.
