Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 182: "Then I’ll bring them a shovel. They can dig the graves.”

Chapter 182: "Then I’ll bring them a shovel. They can dig the graves.”

Paris was not a city that trembled easily.

But in early December, a tremor ran beneath the floor of the military quarter.

It began not with gunfire or scandal, but with a name whispered across corridors Delon.

Two years in exile hadn’t softened him.

On the contrary he’d returned leaner, quieter, colder.

There were no memos, no announcements.

He didn’t request meetings.

He simply arrived.

And when he did, people listened.

Or they remembered what happened the last time they didn’t.

Inside the Defense Committee, twelve names sat on a single page bearing the Ministry seal.

Twelve men whose signatures could decide whether Moreau’s invention would reach the battlefield or rot in a locked drawer.

Delon didn’t need all twelve to agree.

He just needed them not to resist.

At a dim study off Rue Cler, Delon met with Barbier.

He placed the test dossier down on the desk. "You’ll vote for this," he said.

Barbier folded his hands. "It’s not that simple."

"It is now."

"The budget committee..."

"I’ll visit them next."

"And if I refuse?"

Delon smiled. "Then you’ll spend your Christmas explaining yourself to the press, the President... and me."

The man’s hands trembled as he lifted his glass.

Delon’s voice never rose but it crushed every objection.

When Delon stood, Barbier had already reached for his pen.

At a gentlemen’s club clouded with cigar smoke, Delon met Lafont.

"France has no appetite for new toys," Lafont said.

"This is not a toy. It’s a weapon. And we’ll need it."

"If others object?"

Delon leaned in. "Then I’ll bring them a shovel. They can dig the graves."

Outside the room, aides paused when they heard his voice.

Inside, no one dared interrupt.

Even the walls listened.

In the Ministry archives’ reading room, Delon sat opposite Maurin.

"You’ve come to intimidate me," Maurin muttered.

Delon said nothing just slid a paper across.

A list.

"What’s this?"

"People who voted against reform in ’34. Where are they now?"

Maurin’s hands shook. "You’re bluffing."

Delon didn’t answer.

This was not a negotiation.

It was a reckoning.

Below Hôtel Matignon, in a cold storage room, Jolivet lit a cigarette with trembling fingers.

"You think this gun will save us?"

"No," Delon replied. "But your cowardice could still lose us the country."

A silence followed that felt like a verdict.

Delon didn’t threaten.

He dictated.

Jolivet nodded. "Fine. I’ll vote."

In a hunting lodge gallery outside Versailles, Courbet blustered.

"I have friends in the press."

Delon smiled. "I have friends in the ground. Shall I introduce you?"

The temperature dropped.

Delon left the room colder than when he entered.

At his mistress’s apartment in the 16th arrondissement, Piquet opened the door half-dressed.

"You shouldn’t be here."

"Neither should your patriotism."

"If I go against them...."

"They won’t see you coming. I did."

Delon didn’t argue.

He simply left Piquet with the folder.

In a winter garden behind his estate, Leclerc stood beside orchids in bloom.

"We’ve invested too much in legacy platforms."

"And if this weapon works better?" Delon asked.

"I’ll consider it."

"Wrong answer."

The general turned his back and began walking away.

Ten seconds later, Leclerc called after him.

"I’ll sign it."

On a train to Lyon, Darbois welcomed Delon with too much wine.

"I need consensus," he muttered.

Delon nodded. "Then I’ll help build it with or without you."

They didn’t finish their drinks.

Darbois signed before the train passed Fontainebleau.

In the cloakroom of the National Assembly, Delon met Marechal.

"Still carrying that revolver, General?"

Delon opened his coat slightly. "You asking as a friend or a target?"

Marechal cleared his throat. "You’ve made your point."

"I haven’t even raised my voice."

In a smoke-choked café basement, Villon looked exhausted.

"If this backfires, it’s my seat."

"And if it succeeds?" Delon asked. "It’s your legacy."

Villon didn’t respond.

But when Delon slid the file across, he reached for the pen first.

In a Ministry hallway.

Delon approached Soutre.

"What makes you so sure this boy knows better than the rest?"

"You are a idiot on the top of being an ignorant son of a bitch if you don’t even understand the prestige and work of moreau."

Soutre blinked, caught off guard.

He tried to speak again, but Delon had already turned his back.

At his estate overlooking Suresnes, Bréval stepped out from his study.

"You threaten me again and I’ll have you court-martialed."

Delon stepped forward.

"You mistake certainty for threat. You’ll sign. Or I’ll visit again with less patience."

Each meeting left behind a different kind of silence.

Some were stunned, others resigned.

Delon didn’t need to shout or show papers.

He relied on certainty, and a memory long enough to recall who failed France in 1934.

By the fourth day, aides stopped asking where he was going.

One officer swore he saw a senior committee man emerge from his office white as a sheet.

Another resigned citing "illness," two hours after speaking with Delon in a courtyard.

The fear was not dramatic.

It was practical.

Delon was a reminder of what consequences looked like.

By Friday, rumors spread.

Delon had spoken to the President, some claimed.

Others insisted he’d been granted emergency powers.

Neither was true but neither was denied.

That was enough.

At the Ministry gates, a junior clerk asked if he should alert security about Delon’s movements.

His superior laughed. "What would you do follow him? You’d get halfway and forget why you started."

Delon didn’t need a vote.

He needed their silence.

By the time the file reached the review board, twelve hands would rise not in belief, but in instinct.

In self-preservation.

And the boy with the mind of steel would get his weapon.

In a rare moment alone, Delon stood by a window overlooking the Seine.

Paris moved below him trams, boots, coal smoke.

Above it all, he saw the war coming.

"They’re still debating how to stop what’s already begun," he muttered. "And they think they can buy safety with delay."

He tapped the glass. "We buy it with steel. With men who don’t flinch. With boys like Moreau."

Then he turned and walked down the corridor, toward his next name.

In the hallway outside Committee Room D, two aides whispered.

"He visited Jolivet yesterday. Ten minutes later, signed."

"Threatened him?"

"No one knows. But Jolivet looked like he’d seen a ghost."

"He still carries that revolver?"

"I think no one’s brave enough to find out."

In the barracks near Saint-Cyr, young officers whispered by a dorm stove.

"My uncle was there when Delon cleaned house. Said he didn’t raise his voice once."

"What happened?"

"Six men vanished. Two reappeared in court."

"And now he’s back in Paris?"

"They say he’s making rounds. No paperwork. No aides."

A final voice cut in.

"He doesn’t need permission. He is permission."

That week, a sealed envelope reached Delon’s apartment.

Unsigned.

But he recognized the handwriting.

"Twelve locked. Well done. I’ll prepare the floor. B."

He read it twice, folded it, and burned it in the hearth.

Delon didn’t smile.

He picked up his coat and stepped into the snow again.

At midnight on the seventh day, Delon sat alone in a quiet bar near the Ministry.

He ordered nothing.

Spoke to no one.

He just watched the frost form on the glass.

Twelve names lighter.

One step closer to the fire to come.