The first sensation was cold iron beneath my back and the musty smell of coal smoke—nothing like the sterilized linoleum of a modern hospital. My eyelids fluttered. A feline silhouette—big, fluffy, definitely not my sister's obese chartreux—was perched on my chest, green eyes glinting in lamplight.
A cat. A fireplace. Timber beams overhead.
Where am I?
Then the pain arrived, not sharp but distant, as though someone else's memories were leaking into my skull. A carriage wheel, a sickening crunch, and darkness. I, Louis Durand—17, soon‑to‑be university applicant, collector of replica Chassepot rifles—had died crossing the Boulevard de la Croix‑Rousse.
Panic surged. I bolted upright…and smacked my forehead on an oak canopy. Groaning, I scanned the cramped bedchamber. No electric bulb, only a brass oil lamp. A tricolor cockade hung beside a dusty mirror. In its tarnished surface I saw an unfamiliar face: still French, but broader cheekbones, sunken eyes, a livid bruise across the temple.
Definitely not my face.
I touched the bruise; it ached. The cat mewed disapprovingly and leapt to the floor.
Heart hammering, I staggered toward the window. Outside, fog wrapped narrow streets. Gas lamps? No—torches flickered on wrought‑iron brackets. Somewhere a church bell tolled, echoing across roofs tiled in faded slate. A newspaper boy shouted, "Le Moniteur! Special edition—General Bonaparte assumes command of the Republic!"
Bonaparte. General. Not Emperor. My stomach flipped.
I spun, seeking confirmation. On the desk lay a fresh broadside:
"Decree of 19 Brumaire, Year VIII of the French Republic…"
Republican calendar: Year VIII. That meant 1799. 18 Brumaire was yesterday—Bonaparte had just seized power as First Consul.
I gulped. I was two months shy of the 19th century.
An impossible exhilaration washed over me—then dread. Wars of the Second Coalition loomed; Europe would bleed for fifteen more years before Waterloo. Unless…
Unless history could be nudged.
I sank onto the chair, mind racing. Rifled barrels could outclass smoothbore muskets, if only production tolerated tighter tolerances. Percussion caps would slash misfires compared to flintlocks. Even interchangeable parts—still a novelty—could revolutionize arsenals. And steam, glorious steam: portable engines to haul artillery through mud where horses failed.
I swallowed. Could I turn the tide? Or would I birth horrors a century early?
A sharp rap on the door jerked me from reverie.
"Citizen Leclerc? Are you awake?" A female voice—refined, faintly amused.
My new body's name, then. "Y‑yes, coming!"
I fumbled with the coat hanging by the bed: threadbare navy wool, copper buttons stamped with RF. The moment I opened the door, a young woman in an empire‑waist dress swept inside, bringing a swirl of cold November air and the fresh scent of lavender.
She was perhaps sixteen, with chestnut hair tied by a tricolor ribbon, grey eyes keen with curiosity. Recognition clicked: Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daughter, later Queen‑Consort of Holland—and mother of Napoleon III. History whispered that she would marry for politics, pine for affection, and die before seeing her son crowned.
In the year 1799 she was merely Bonaparte's stepdaughter, newly arrived in Paris.
"Citizen Leclerc," she said, smiling. "My stepfather requests your presence at the Tuileries. He has questions about your—ah—'survey of manufactories.'"
Manufactories? I coughed, stalling. Perhaps the prior owner of this body was some provincial clerk dispatched to inspect foundries. Fate was handing me credentials.
"I will attend at once, Mademoiselle," I managed, mimicking the clipped Parisian accent heard in period dramas.
Her gaze lingered on the bruise across my temple. "You look pale. Should I summon a surgeon?"
"No!" Too loud. I softened. "Merely slipped on the stair. Nothing serious."
She studied me a moment longer, as if sensing the dissonance between soul and flesh, then nodded. "Very well. A carriage waits." She turned, but at the threshold added, almost conspiratorially, "Paris changes every hour lately. Best keep your wits, monsieur."
She left. My pulse thundered. In thirty minutes I would stand before Napoleon Bonaparte—the man who would soon crown himself Emperor and redraw Europe. If I spoke of rifling or steam turbines, would he embrace me as a prodigy or imprison me as a lunatic?
I faced the mirror again. "Louis Durand died," I whispered. "François Leclerc"—I glanced at papers spilling from a satchel—"lives."
Outside, hooves clattered on cobblestones. I inhaled the smoky air, stuffed the satchel's contents—ledgers, quills, a half‑finished letter—into my coat, and patted my pocket. My phone was gone, of course, but muscle memory sent my fingers searching, yearning for Wikipedia and schematics. All I possessed was what I'd memorized: ballistics tables, cross‑section diagrams of the Lebel 1886, the steam cycle of a Watt condenser.
It would have to suffice.
I blew out the lamp and descended creaking stairs to the street. Dawn's first light painted the Seine a dull pewter, and in that glow Paris felt both infant and eternal—ripe for revolution, yet fragile as parchment.
As the carriage rolled toward the Tuileries, I mouthed dates, inventions, cautionary tales of trench warfare. I recalled the smell of cordite, the staccato of machine guns, and wondered if introducing them early might deter endless cavalry charges—or simply slaughter thousands sooner.
Across the river, factories belched thin plumes from squat chimneys. Small workshops, I corrected myself; real industrial skylines would not rise for decades. Unless I built them.
Hortense sat opposite, hands folded, watching me wrestle with thoughts I dared not speak.
"Do you believe France will triumph, Citizen Leclerc?" she asked softly.
A simple question. My answer would forge trust—or suspicion.
I met her steady gaze. "France holds the future in her palms. With wisdom and…innovation, we may close our fingers and keep it."
Her lips curved into a mysterious half‑smile. "Innovation," she echoed. "That is precisely why the First Consul wishes to meet you."
The carriage slowed; palace gates loomed, soldiers in blue greatcoats saluting. My grip tightened on the satchel.
History already bears the weight of countless ghosts, I reminded myself. If I meddle, I must carry them too.
But the alternative—standing aside and letting destiny crush millions as before—felt like cowardice. I had been given a second life; I would not waste it.
I stepped onto the palace gravel, morning frost crunching beneath borrowed boots, and followed Hortense toward Napoleon's council chamber—toward the hinge on which a new timeline might swing.
Beneath the rumble of distant drums and the murmur of courtiers, I heard an echo only I could recognize: the metallic cough of a future Maxim gun and the shriek of artillery propelled by smokeless powder. Shadows of a century yet to come.
Whether they would rise sooner—or be banished forever—depended on the choices I made from this day forward.
And thus began the chronicle of a shy French otaku who set out to rewrite the Napoleonic Wars, armed with nothing but knowledge, a bruised body, and a heart dangerously close to falling for the stepdaughter of the very man he hoped to save.