A day later, in the Gare de Strasbourg, Napoleon II's carriage was parked outside the station. Inside, he watched through the window as the steam locomotive rolled in, pistons pumping, steam venting in short, controlled bursts.
In the past decade, Napoleon II had focused on transportation. Particularly, rails.
France had learned the hard way what fragmented systems did to empires. Different gauges. Different couplings. Different standards. Every transfer slowed movement. Every incompatibility became friction.
So he chose one gauge and forced everything to follow it.
Standard gauge. One width. One rule.
Rails laid in the east matched those in the west. Rolling stock built in Lyon could run to Strasbourg without modification. Troops, coal, steel—nothing stopped to be reloaded anymore.
The locomotive eased to a halt.
