In the Champagne Composite Regiment, André was not stingy with live-fire training. Any recruit who completed three–four weeks of basic instruction, once assigned to a company, received ten live rounds per week. As an instructor, Augereau envied them: “These clumsy fellows fire more live rounds in one month than I did in a year in the Prussian camps.”

  Back to the present lesson: the part Augereau had just covered was only the attack formation against defensive infantry in Comte de Guibert’s system. There were also defensive formations against attacking infantry, and defensive formations against attacking cavalry, and more. Counting terrain variants, there were twelve patterns in all.

  Next came knowledge of the Austrian Army. Augereau recited their horse and transport allocations: “...five men per tent; one wagon per company; per battalion (six companies) 4–6 carts and wagons and ammunition (average 36 rounds per man). Officers may keep pack horses, but senior officers and Generals haul too much baggage—convoys slow the march. Each infantry regiment has 26 pack horses; frontier infantry regiments seven; j?gers twelve; cavalry regiments none. Each infantry regiment consumes 13 wagons (four-horse teams) and 26 pack strings...”

  As for the Prussian Army—his old service—Augereau was exact: “...three battalions per regiment, two musketeer battalions and one fusilier battalion. A musketeer battalion has 830 men including twenty-two officers; a fusilier battalion 690 men including nineteen officers. A Prussian cavalry regiment has 400–600 men in three–four squadrons, four ranks per squadron. An artillery company fields six guns and two howitzers with four officers; artillery is usually assigned no lower than the divisional level...”

  In André’s original timeline, the Prussian–Austrian coalition would be the main force of the anti-French alliance two years hence. Officers of the Champagne Composite Regiment were therefore required to learn the enemy’s organization and tactics; the British were discussed too, but André kept that to private conversations with Hoche, Moncey, and a few others.

  When Augereau finished, his comrades applauded.

  “I guarantee the boss will be pleased,” Hoche laughed. “He won’t lock you in his study all night again like last time just to make you memorize every clause of the camp hygiene code.”

  Before the abashed Augereau could flare up, a familiar voice came from the door.

  “Who just called me a brute?” It was Colonel André.

  Facing the doorway, Lieutenant Chassé snapped up, squared himself, and called: “Company—attention! Salute the commander!”

  Hoche, Augereau, and Macdonald followed—face front, attention, salute.

  “At ease, gentlemen. This isn’t the barracks—humor the host,” André said. In civilian dress, he merely waved and did not return the salute.

  He then pointed to the man who had followed him in from the garden. “This is Nansouty—yes, a cavalry Second Lieutenant. Starting tomorrow he’ll join the cavalry troop of the Champagne Composite Regiment. Hoche, you have the troop—introduce Second Lieutenant Nansouty to his colleagues.”

  “And you, Moncey,” André called to the host as he arrived. Without waiting for an answer: “Show me your estate.”

  “With pleasure.” Moncey shot Nansouty a dark look and led the Colonel away.

  “Don’t blame your wife or Nansouty,” André said once they were out of earshot. “Last year’s court-martial against him is full of legal holes. As a lawyer I suspect dirty work. On merit, he’s a fine hussar officer. Also—he is the Comtesse’s brother. I trust you take my meaning.”

  Moncey understood. The reason was the commander’s mistress; the résumé and verdict were cover. He was neither a moral arbiter nor a provost, and Nansouty would not be under his infantry battalion anyway. The Colonel’s word would stand; he would simply keep his distance.

  A lawyer twice over, André read the doubt in Moncey’s face. He did not press the point; some things could not be cleared with a sentence or two.

  Though André did not know what had happened to Nansouty in the Lauzun Hussars, he chose to trust the future cavalry notable. As someone had said: “Compared with the greedy Murat, the lecher Lasalle, and the sot Montbrun, General Nansouty was pure as an angel in the saddle.”

  Guided by Moncey and his wife, André toured the baroque country house: lawn at dusk, dense trees, a murmuring brook, a pond with wild ducks. Back in the main building, the host quietly sent his wife away—André had business to discuss.

  Upstairs in the study, André took a fine Havana cigar, sipped white wine, lit up, drew and held, then exhaled slowly—pure satisfaction.

  Watching the rings rise, he remembered something and lifted the cigar: “What’s the cheapest cigar on the Bordeaux market?”

  “The cheapest? Inferior Dordogne leaf—about fifteen sous a stick,” Moncey answered at once; one of Charlotte’s dowries was a modest tobacco plot.

  “Fifteen sous a stick is too expensive,” André said.

  “Too expensive? The one in your hand is worth over ten livres,” thought Moncey—but the Colonel’s next words made the point clear.

  “I need something a common soldier can afford.”

  Yesterday André had circulated a discussion draft of the “1790 Outline of Regulations of the Champagne Composite Regiment”: fifteen chapters, 142 sections, 9,200 words—duties, internal relations, courtesies, discipline, courts-martial, schedule, routines, duty, guard, roll-call, emergency readiness and assembly, weapons, horses, rations, hygiene, and camp management.

  Several items sparked debate.

  One proposed keeping chaplains—Catholic priests and Protestant ministers—at battalion level. Chaplains “serving between God and the soldier” had been standard in the Bourbon army; in the National Guard and volunteers after the Revolution they were no longer mandatory. André was testing sentiment. The result satisfied him: no fanatics, no rabid anti-clericals; discussion centered on rank and noninterference in command. He shelved the measure for now as “contentious.”

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  Another was the standard for field entrenchments. Under the draft, upon taking the field, units would erect a perimeter 100 yards out: 2-meter palisades and barbed wire, with breastworks, trenches, and mine belts—a composite defense around the camp. No one objected in principle, though no one knew how effective wire would be. Quartermaster Lieutenant Petiet dissented on cost: drawing wire was expensive and the budget was tight. André insisted; the quartermaster held his peace.

  From André’s perspective, wire made sense: simple to emplace and remove, easy to transport, and—despite the price—enabling rapid fortification in the open; even without finished breastworks and trenches, it could blunt attacks by forces several times larger.

  The hottest debate was over excluding alcohol from routine supplies and empowering the gendarmerie to crack down on drunkenness. From the start the regiment had struck at indiscipline—prompt pay, sustained rations—yet violations persisted, and alcohol was behind over half the cases. The two medical officers jointly proposed limits; Colonel André supported them.

  Veterans like Moncey, Augereau, and Masséna opposed, openly or not. In their view, men lived under constant threat of death; alcohol was the only practical relief to keep them from cracking. André brokered a compromise: quantitative limits; no drinking in the two hours before duty; no alcohol at breakfast or lunch, and so forth.

  Even so, they warned him: in the press of battle, not even the gendarmes could suppress mass drinking without risking riots—unless the men had some other safe, legal relief.

  On the table, André could only “release another demon”: nicotine. Cigars calmed the nerves—but were too costly for the ranks unless the price fell to one sou a stick, which Moncey said was impossible.

  “It’s not just leaf prices,” Moncey explained. “It’s the fermentation and the hand-rolling.”

  André nodded, recalling another addictive tool. “Perhaps not cigars, but a new word—cigarettes. Paper-wrapped. Unlike a pipe, you light one end and draw on the other—quick and convenient. Compared to pricey cigars, cigarettes should be far cheaper.”

  In another timeline, modern cigarettes spread from the Crimean War, the British learning from Ottoman troops; in June 1843, France made the first commercial cigarettes; later they spread widely. Their effect resembled alcohol: stimulating, restoring energy, sharpening alertness—useful under combat stress. The health harms—nausea, dizziness, headaches, long-term disease—were not uppermost in the minds of commanders when soldiers’ average life expectancy in war would be under thirty.

  Two hurdles remained: a simple way to make fire—even unsafe white-phosphorus matches would do; and a semi-mechanical assembly line to drive efficiency and cut costs.

  When his cigar burned two-thirds down, André concluded: “My dear Captain, cigarettes could be a lucrative industry. Have the Charlotte family study it. If a 20-stick pack can retail at ten sous with volume production, I’ll order the quartermaster to procure.”

  He further urged Captain Moncey to bring in well-off comrades. As an example, the Colonel would invest 50,000 livres for equity, and the Bordeaux Union Commercial Bank would extend loans if needed.

  Prompted by the commander, the Monceys were moved—and moved quickly. Charlotte rallied her kin to subscribe in kind—tobacco plots, workshops, ships—for 50% of a 1,000,000-livre capital. Officers of the regiment subscribed cash from 2,000 to 50,000 livres. The rich youth Suchet swaggered with 50,000—Moncey vetoed him: apart from Colonel André, no one in the regiment could invest over 20,000.

  Within three days, the French Cigarette Company was formally established.

  Meanwhile, Phase 2 of the officer course ended. With a nudge from Colonel André, everyone passed. Battalion Major Moncey rose to Chef de bataillon (Major); cavalry commander Hoche to Captain; Chassé, Petiet, Augereau, Macdonald, Masséna, and others advanced one grade. All were acting ranks; formalization required approval by General Lafayette in Paris.

  Posts: Major Moncey remained in command of the infantry battalion; Lieutenant Augereau stayed with First Company; Lieutenant Macdonald and Second Lieutenant Masséna took Second and Third Company respectively.

  Cavalry: Lieutenant Nansouty and Second Lieutenant Villed became Captain Hoche’s two aides.

  Artillery: Captain Senarmont, recruiting gunners at Metz, remained acting commander of the forming battery.

  Gendarmerie: Captain Chassé took command; Second Lieutenant Penduvas was his deputy.

  Quartermaster: Captain Petiet continued over supply and trains, and also pioneers.

  Medical: Captain Percy remained chief medical officer; Lieutenant Larrey was his assistant.

  Staff: Suchet received an acting Second Lieutenant’s commission to the staff room. Until Lieutenant-Colonel Louis-Alexandre Berthier assumed the chief of staff post, Suchet would serve as the Colonel’s orderly with Lussac outside the commander’s office.

  As for acting Captain Saint-Cyr and acting Lieutenant Finic, they sailed with Navy Captain Allemand’s privateer Le Renard to Cap-Fran?ais in Saint-Domingue, to prepare the ground for the itinerant colonial court and for Magistrate Luchon.

  To send them off to the Caribbean, André had 1,000 mosquito nets and 50 large barrels of cheap insect-repellent cologne made up and loaded aboard Le Renard.

  He briefed the men bound west: “Yellow fever is spread mainly by local mosquitoes. Observe the hygiene code, boil drinking water, eat cooked food, clean drains in and around the barracks, and destroy breeding sites. In the day, apply repellent; at night, stay under nets. This will curb large-scale transmission. As for treatment, follow the military doctors on site… Don’t ask me why—just obey.”

  Then he kept Saint-Cyr and Allemand back, produced a document marked “Top Secret,” and had them read and memorize it in turn. It was a digest of intelligence on Saint-Domingue compiled over three months at great expense through multiple channels. For security, only the two of them were to know it.

  An hour later, when the paper returned to André, he asked, “All of it—memorized?” They nodded. He struck a steel and lit the sheet, watching it burn to ash. “If the slave uprising breaks out, your task is not to plunge into suppression, but to concentrate on evacuating French residents—mulattoes included—to the relative safety of Cap-Fran?ais. For the next year, hold the colony’s northwest—hold Cap-Fran?ais.

  “I have listed the names Boukman, Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe. Watch them. They may lead the revolt. If needed, Saint-Cyr, act on your discretion; Magistrate Luchon will give you legal cover.

  “Your enemies may not be only rebellious slaves—extreme royalists and radical democrats can both threaten you. When the great rising comes next year, seize absolute control of the National Guard in and around Cap-Fran?ais. Magistrate Luchon will authorize you and the Guard to do whatever is necessary to maintain order. Do not be soft. Against irrational mobs, cannon and bayonets persuade best.

  “If the line at Cap-Fran?ais is about to break, you are authorized to seek help from Spanish or British forces. In Spain’s case, I have an understanding with Ortega, Governor of Santo Domingo—he will side with you. As for the British—if they try to profit and occupy Cap-Fran?ais, do not resist. I will handle it by other diplomatic means. After all, the King of Great Britain is also sovereign of Hanover.”

  “As for your primary task beyond supporting Saint-Cyr,” André turned to Allemand, “it is more to do with...”

  In the Seven Years’ War, Louis XV’s one sound move had been to strike Britain’s soft spot on the Continent—Hanover. Though France lost Québec and many Indian posts, it kept key colonies in the Caribbean, Guiana, and Senegal.

  …

  From late July to early October, André never left Gironde. In London, 800 km away, Say and the Joint Steam Engine Company’s mission had been gone from Paris for 72 days. By plan, Say, Périer (the elder of the Périer brothers), Fourier, and the others would leave London in late September for France. A chain of mishaps delayed them.

  On the Channel crossing a storm struck. A seasoned captain ran the ship clear, but they veered off course, and the hull took enough damage to require repairs for a few days at Dunkirk. Fortunately, beyond the fright, the party suffered no harm.