Reincarnated: Vive La France
Chapter 219: Speech of the Century

Chapter 219: Speech of the Century

April 26, 1937

The streets of Paris stood still.

In the cafés of Toulouse, the salons of Nantes, the crumbled alleys of Marseille, and the farmhouses of Burgundy.

From bunkers near the Rhine to hamlets by the Pyrenees, they listened.

Men in boots, women with children on their laps, soldiers with rifles still hot from yesterday’s fire all waited.

Then, at precisely 11:00 AM, the voice began.

Clear.

Low.

Uncompromising.

"This is Étienne Moreau.

For the first time in a century, France speaks not through its parliaments, nor through its pamphlets, but through one voice not a tyrant, not a prophet, not a king... but a soldier.

I will not ask for applause. I will not beg for loyalty. I do not come as a savior or a substitute for the Republic.

I come because the ground beneath our feet collapsed and no one moved to hold it.

For too long, France has been ruled not by men of character, but by shadows in polished shoes.

They let our factories rot. Our soldiers starve. Our honor bleed.

They signed papers while we buried sons.

I am not here to replace the flag but to remind you what it meant before it became a stamp for cowards.

There are those who today call me traitor. To them, I say this, I have betrayed nothing but betrayal itself.

You speak of democracy and I ask where was your democracy when a thousand villages begged for grain and were given reports instead?

Where was your Constitution when half the Navy sold rifles to Spain behind your back, or when your Ministers traded public land to foreign banks for casino debts?

Do not mistake collapse for legitimacy. A house that crumbles is not a home it is rubble.

Let me say now, to the people of France from the baker in Lille, to the miner in Alès, to the young girl walking home through the ruins of Montreuil you were not abandoned because you were weak.

You were abandoned because they needed you poor, afraid, and silent.

And when you rose, even in whispers, they called you radicals. Criminals. Fools.

I have heard your whispers.

And I have given them form.

My name is Étienne Moreau.

I was born to a bureaucrat in the French government, handling administrative work for the Ministry of Finance in Lyon.

I joined the army because I believed it was the last honest place left in this country.

People might still remember in 1935 when I was called a hero for fighting against treachery, traitor’s and saving my own men’s.

You might still remember my speech from the presidential palace which saved the republic from civil war.

You might still remember how I fought for the people of Spain.

But even after everything, those in the high castle always excluded me, feared me, tried to kill me.

I was told I didn’t understand the Republic.

But I understand it now.

The Republic, as it was, became a mask worn by men who never planted a tree, or fought a war, or held a shovel.

It was a Republic of cocktails. Of charades.

Of men who called themselves leaders and never walked through the muck of their own policies.

They buried the idea of France beneath paperwork and perfume.

Well, I have dug it back up.

They say I want to be Emperor.

That I stage this coup for my ego.

No.

This is not a coup.

This is a correction.

If you leave a man bleeding on the roadside and I carry him to the hospital you do not call me a thief because I used your horse.

I have not stolen France. I have rescued her.

People speak of precedent and law. I speak of duty.

For twenty years, every soldier, every teacher, every peasant has been asked to suffer for an elite that considers their pain a statistic.

No more.

No more mothers without bread while bureaucrats sip wine in Brussels.

No more farmers taxed into starvation while Parliament votes on theater subsidies.

No more soldiers forgotten, medals sent by mail, while their widows can’t afford to bury them.

I am not a Caesar. I do not ride into the Senate with laurels.

But if defending what is true about this country makes me a traitor to what it has become then I am guilty as charged."

To those who still fight against us..."

He paused.

Taking a deep breath and continued.

"...I do not hate you. I understand you. You loved France too and you thought I was ending it.

But France is not its Ministries.

France is not the golden chairs of the Palais Bourbon.

France is not the titles.

France is a baker rising at 4:00 AM.

A violinist who plays in the subway.

A nurse bandaging a wound with no gauze and a prayer.

You fight me because you think I destroy your country.

But tell me what country?

The one where ministers declare war from vacation villas?

The one where politicians vanish into cars while the rest of us walk in the rain?

That is not France.

That is its shadow.

I do not promise peace.

There will be days of steel.

Of correction.

Of silence.

That is the price of rebirth.

But I swear to you the Republic of tomorrow will not be built behind curtains.

We will reforge France, brick by brick, hand in hand.

Factories will reopen.

Bread will be affordable.

Every child will learn history not as memorized dates but as courage written in blood and fire.

And soldiers will not be paraded like tokens.

They will be honored.

Their wounds will not be ignored.

Their voices will be heard in policy, not just parades.

We will not become fascists.

We will not become communists.

We will become French.

There are those in London and Berlin, in Madrid and Rome, who watch this moment with fear or amusement.

I tell them this, France does not bow.

We are not your puppet. We are not your museum.

We are the mother of revolutions.

The nation that sang in trenches and bled on barricades.

You will not intimidate us with your doctrines.

We write our own.

Let them watch.

Let them whisper.

Because today, France has done what none dared to.

She has cast off her costume.

She has stood bare in front of the mirror and chosen, not to fade but to fight.

Many ask what now?"

He exhaled softly.

"We begin with silence.

We let the smoke clear.

We bury the dead.

We heal the wounded.

Every soldier who fell loyalist or rebel will be named.

Honored.

Buried as sons of France.

There will be tribunals but no witch hunts.

There will be discipline but no revenge.

I am not here to punish.

I am here to build.

Reconstruction will begin in the ministries.

In the factories.

In the countryside.

Banks will be audited.

Education will be rewritten.

The Army will be restructured.

Promotions will not be for bribes but for bravery.

Elections will return but only when they are worthy of you.

This is not dictatorship.

This is a transition.

To those in the resistance still holding weapons I ask you this."

He paused again.

"Look at your hands. Then ask do you still know what you’re fighting for?

If you believe in liberty so do I.

If you believe in order so do I.

If you believe France must never again be ruled by cowards who sell her soul for a seat in Brussels then lay down your arms.

Not in surrender, but in reunion.

There is no glory in shooting your brother to protect a title that betrayed you.

I do not want statues.

I want wheat fields.

I do not want schools named after me.

I want children in classrooms with windows that don’t leak rain."

He exhaled.

Slower now.

"As I speak, cities are calm.

Resistance is retreating.

Borders are secure.

I thank every soldier who did not fire unless fired upon.

I thank every nurse who dressed wounds regardless of uniform.

I thank every civilian who made food for strangers.

You are the soul of this nation.

I ask only this.

Before you judge this moment look around you.

Ask yourself is the air thicker or cleaner?

Are your hands more afraid... or more certain?

If I must fall to make France rise then so be it.

But I will not let her fall without a fight.

To the world, watch us.

To the people, join us.

To the future, forgive us.

To France, stand.

Not as you were but as you were meant to be.

And when they ask in fifty years how it began you will not say my name.

You will say We remembered who we were."

The radio clicked.

Silence returned.

But it wasn’t the silence of fear.

It was the silence before applause.

Before history.