The morning of May 21, 1937.
Trains hissed with steam across a dozen key junctions, orders were whispered in telegraph offices, and under the ceilings of ancient cathedrals, priests lit candles not for the dead, but for those yet to march.
Moreau's speech had detonated like a shell across the landscape of French consciousness.
Where once there had been hesitation, there now stood resolve.
At 16:00 hours the previous day, the Head of State had not merely declared a decision, he had rekindled a national identity.
His voice, serious yet clear, had reached factory workers and university professors, homemakers and soldiers, ringing across radio sets from Calais to Corsica.
And France, battered by years of internal division and economic uncertainty, had answered.
At the Ministry of War, General Gamelin's office.
Lines of aides yelled rail schedules, ciphered telegrams, and annotated deployment maps with charcoal pencils.
