Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 142: LÉON BLUM ELECTED PRIME MINISTER

The sky over Paris on the morning of May 24th held the color of copper neither gold nor gray, as though waiting to decide what kind of day it would be.

In the Ministry of War, a sharp crack broke the peace as Moreau closed his watch case and turned toward the room behind him.

The bulletin pinned to the board near the map wall confirmed that even with him flapping the butterfly wings.

What is supposed to happen will happen.

Like some of his student used to say something about a cannon event.

LÉON BLUM ELECTED PRIME MINISTER

Left-Wing Popular Front Secures Parliamentary Majority

Renaud leaned over the side table, pouring two glasses of black coffee from a thermos.

He slid one toward Moreau. "Three eighty-six seats. That’s a landslide."

Major Charles de Gaulle entered, still dusted with the morning’s drill.

"And the first socialist to take Matignon... also the first Jew," he said dryly.

"The Right won’t sleep for a month."

Moreau took the cup without drinking. "The Right won’t sleep because they believe the Republic just handed itself a loaded gun."

Renaud tapped a heap of telegrams. "They’re already calling Blum ’France’s Kerensky.’ Even the centrists are panicking."

Moreau turned back to the board. "The Left governs, the Army braces, the factories slow, and the street begins to whisper. Paris doesn’t fear revolution it fears repetition."

De Gaulle cracked his knuckles. "And yet the Army holds."

"For now," Moreau said. "But watch what happens when the Right realizes it’s not just politics that slipped from their grip. It’s command."

Across town, in the editorial offices of L’Action Française, pages ran hot through presses.

Journalists worked in tight, frantic circles.

"Headlines!" barked the editor. "Something biblical. Give me Lenin in tricolor!"

A cartoonist scratched out a caricature of Blum with a sickle in one hand, Marianne’s crown in the other.

"Print fifty thousand. Extra inserts for Orléans and Lyon."

One senior staffer murmured, "This isn’t fear. This is incitement."

The editor didn’t look up. "Exactly."

By evening, in cafés near Montmartre and Belleville, voices clashed like sabers.

"He will legalize the workers’ councils!"

"He wants peace, not revolution."

"Blum? Ha! A Jewish schoolteacher won’t save France."

"And Mussolini’s a shoeshine boy in a helmet. What’s your point?"

In Berlin, Adolf Hitler stood beside his private globe, slowly rotating Europe beneath his palm.

Goebbels read the brief from Paris.

"Popular Front victory confirmed. Jewish premier. Support from Communists."

Hitler’s voice was soft. "They’ve crowned a weakness."

"Shall we press our agents in Alsace?"

"No," Hitler replied. "Let France rot in its virtue. The fruit will fall on its own."

He turned to Keitel. "Begin redrafting Case Yellow. Accelerate training. The French think history is a salon game."

Goebbels smirked. "And we are the house fire outside."

In Rome, Mussolini’s face was red with fury.

He threw the morning’s Corriere della Sera at the floor.

"Paris has fallen without a shot fired!"

Marshal Badoglio sat still. "They’re fractured. That’s their nature."

"They elected a poet! A pacifist! A socialist who wears glasses and writes books on Dreyfus!"

Galeazzo Ciano attempted to intercede. "It may not last. The coalition is fragile."

"It will last long enough to ruin Europe’s spine," Mussolini growled. "Double our radio output. Increase youth parades. I want fascism louder than ever."

He turned to his aide.

"And no more hesitation on Abyssinia. Tell Graziani to prepare colonial citizenship laws. Latin rule must have Latin order."

Meanwhile, at Camp Sainte-Marie, clouds rolled over the fields, but the soldiers drilled without pause.

On the edge of the training yard, De Gaulle watched the 3rd Mobile Regiment conduct synchronized breach-and-clear exercises.

"Not bad," he said. "They would’ve embarrassed our border units last year."

Inside the command tent.

"Four regiments PAP-integrated," Renaud confirmed. "Two others near completion. Night tactics deployed in Ardennes simulations. The Germans have noticed."

"Let them study us," Moreau replied. "Spectre isn’t meant to be secret. It’s meant to make them nervous."

A junior officer entered, saluting crisply.

"Major, the 5th Night Company reports success. Full infiltration of their target village in under thirty-six minutes. No alarms."

Moreau nodded. "Rotate them to Lyon for urban coordination drills."

Renaud paused. "We’ve begun receiving letters from officers across the country. Some in support. Some... worried."

De Gaulle arched an eyebrow. "Worried of what?"

"Of change," Renaud said. "Of the government."

Moreau leaned forward. "If they want to play politics, they can leave their uniforms at the gate. I won’t command ideologues."

Back in Paris, Léon Blum addressed a jubilant coalition gathering inside the Palais Bourbon.

"My friends," he began, his voice almost too quiet for the room. "We have won something fragile. Not power, but a test."

"The test of whether liberty, justice, and fraternity can survive economic terror and political rot."

Murmurs gave way to full silence.

Blum raised his voice.

"We will not purge the Army. We will not crush the Church. But neither will we bend to fear. Not Mussolini’s, not Hitler’s, not any thug in a black shirt or brown coat!"

Applause surged.

Outside, the crowd chanted his name.

A reporter whispered to another: "This won’t last."

His colleague replied: "But maybe it’s the breath France needed."

An aide whispered in Blum ear.

"Sir, the military has asked for clarification on your stance toward officers sympathetic to the Right."

Blum frowned.

"I just said it out in public that we will not purge. What the fuck do they want...that I publicly become their puppe!!"

On May 25th, the French General Staff met quietly in Vincennes.

Names were reviewed.

"Moreau?"

"Untouchable."

"De Gaulle?"

"Watched but safe. Too useful."

They circled names of radicals in the officer corps.

"He must not politicize the ranks."

But all knew the Army no longer belonged wholly to the past.

In Madrid, two streets away from the Cortes, a bomb tore through a market.

The dead included a communist shopkeeper, a nun, and three children.

By nightfall, gunfire crackled over rooftops.

Spain was no longer approaching war.

Spain was already in it.