Hello, and sorry for the delay in today's update.
I've had a very busy week, and it started with an unpleasant surprise. I was informed that my novel had appeared on the Google Play Store. Someone, certainly not one of my readers, copied and pasted my chapters and put the entire novel up for sale at a ridiculously low price, without my permission.
The person claiming my work as their own didn't even bother to hide the evidence of the theft. They left my author's notes, acknowledgments, and chapter footnotes completely untouched.
Needless to say, I'm furious. Unfortunately, I know I'm neither the first author this has happened to, nor will I be the last.
I've already submitted a copyright infringement report to Google requesting that the ebook be removed, and I'm currently waiting for their response.
To help establish ownership, I'll be adding a short notice at the beginning of the first chapter, and I'll probably update my profile to display my real name alongside my pen name. Hopefully, that will be enough to demonstrate that I am the rightful copyright holder of this novel.
Don't worry, this won't change anything for you. I'll continue publishing as usual. There's no reason for my readers, or for me, to be punished because of one person's dishonest actions.
In the meantime, thank you all for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!
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Five months had passed since François had sent off his latest manuscript, simply titled Titanic. While he and Onatah endured the most devastating grief imaginable, his manuscript continued its own journey.
Carefully wrapped like a gift, it had remained stranded in Quebec, along with countless letters, passengers, and cargo, until the end of winter, when the ice finally melted. Only then, in the spring, did it set sail for Brest aboard La Comète.
The ship dropped anchor on May 18, 1771, and two days later the manuscript resumed its journey toward Paris among a mountain of official dispatches, family letters, commercial contracts, and ordinary parcels.
It arrived on May 29 in the hands of Martin Morrel de Lusernes and his wife, Rose van Schaick. The package also contained a long letter in which François described the growth of Montrouge, Onatah's pregnancy, the approaching birth of their child, and the mixture of excitement and anxiety he felt at the prospect of becoming a father once again.
When that letter had been written, nothing had suggested the tragedy that would soon strike them.
There was, therefore, no mention of Angélique's death.
Martin read the letter from beginning to end before handing it to his wife with a sincere smile.
It was not until the following day that he personally delivered his friend's manuscript to the Bureau de la Librairie, where it would be examined before any authorization to print could be granted.
Like dozens of other works every week, Titanic was quickly registered, cataloged, and assigned to the Department of Belles-Lettres et Histoires. There, it joined an imposing stack of manuscripts awaiting review.
The man responsible for examining them, Gilles Gervais, was a respected man of letters whose judgment was considered reliable enough for the royal administration to entrust him with novels, narratives, and works of imagination. New manuscripts arrived constantly on his desk, ranging from a few dozen pages to several hundred.
Reading them with the care his position demanded required time, patience, and considerable endurance.
The censor, none other than the same man who had approved Peter Pan the previous year, gave the manuscript only a brief glance before returning to the play he had been painstakingly reviewing for the past two hours, a bland and harmless piece.
Titanic would have to wait nearly two more weeks.
It was not until the middle of June that Gilles Gervais finally discovered François's work.
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Paris was already basking in the gentle warmth that heralded summer.
In the surrounding countryside, although the harvest had not yet begun, reports already predicted disappointing yields. The painful memories of the previous year's famine remained fresh in everyone's mind, and few believed the price of grain would return to normal anytime soon. Bread, too, would remain expensive.
The women were always the first to take to the streets, gathering outside bakeries to demand fair prices.
Even the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Germain was not spared.
A quiet tension lingered there, like a fog everyone wished would finally lift.
Yet only a few streets from Les Invalides, behind the understated but elegant façade of a townhouse belonging to the Bureau de la Librairie, profound silence reigned.
The calm rivaled that of a small provincial monastery.
Its thick stone walls muffled both the sounds and smells of the city while keeping the summer heat at bay.
In an office overlooking a small inner courtyard, Gilles Gervais sat bent over an extraordinary manuscript, his expression calm and thoughtful.
The title, Titanic, had immediately misled him.
He had expected a tale set in antiquity, inspired by the Greek classics and their many gods—powerful, ancient, and deeply flawed. The title had naturally made him think of the Titans, those primordial deities said to have ruled before the Olympians.
Instead, he had embarked upon a remarkable journey into the future.
From the very first pages, the manuscript had captured his curiosity.
The prose was astonishingly clear.
Each sentence flowed effortlessly into the next.
Even more remarkable was the author's attention to detail.
Without ever weighing the narrative down, those details enriched the world he had created, allowing every scene and every character to spring vividly to life in the reader's imagination.
"Well, this is refreshing," he murmured, his pen still hovering above the evaluation sheet on which he had written nothing but the title of the work.
He continued reading.
Surprisingly, unfamiliar words such as automobiles and elevators did not confuse him.
The author never interrupted the narrative with scholarly notes or lengthy explanations. Instead, he slipped concise descriptions of each unfamiliar object naturally into the story, explaining both its appearance and its purpose in only a few lines.
The censor looked up and smiled.
I understand.
For the elevator, he pictured a cabin designed to move vertically between the ship's decks.
He imagined the vibrations, the mechanical noises, and the groaning of its machinery.
Just as the characters themselves treated these inventions as ordinary parts of daily life, the reader never felt overwhelmed by unfamiliar concepts.
Everything unfolded naturally.
"Clever..."
He made no note.
He simply kept reading.
One page. Then another. Then ten more.
Time slipped away unnoticed.
He forgot entirely about his duty as a censor. He was completely absorbed by this world described with extraordinary precision.
The drawing rooms. The staircases. The corridors. The dining rooms. The cabins.
Guided by the words of this François Boucher de Montrouge, he immersed himself more completely than he ever had before.
His office disappeared.
There was no polished wooden floor. No daylight. No summer warmth.
Only a freezing night. A sea as smooth as oil. Stars scattered across a pitch-black sky.
His throat tightened and his reading slowed.
He was standing beside the two lookouts in the crow's nest at the bow of the Titanic, his face lashed by an icy wind that bit mercilessly into his skin.
And he could feel that something was wrong.
Gervais's fingers tightened around the pages.
He could no longer stop reading.
"The two lookouts went pale.
Their wide eyes remained fixed on the pale mass that had emerged from the darkness like a ghost. It looked unreal.
And yet it was coming toward them.
Or rather, the Titanic was sailing straight toward it.
Its shape became clearer.
An iceberg."
Gervais held his breath.
The word had already been explained earlier in the manuscript, so he immediately understood the danger.
His body reacted instinctively.
A chill ran down his spine.
"The lookout on the right reacted first. He lunged for the warning bell.
Its frantic ringing shattered the silence of the night.
Without wasting a second, he grabbed the small communication device hanging beside his post and held it to his face.
'Answer... Answer, damn it...'
His voice trembled.
His eyes darted back to the iceberg.
It was so close."
To his own surprise, the censor found himself silently praying alongside the two men that disaster could still be avoided.
"A sharp click sounded, and a voice came through the device.
'What is it?' asked the officer on watch from the bridge.
'I-iceberg! Dead ahead!'
On the bridge, the officers instantly grasped the danger.
James Murdoch, the officer whom the captain had left in command of the helm during his absence, shouted,
'Hard a-starboard! Full astern!'
A mechanism was engaged, and the order raced to the engine room in the blink of an eye.
The duty engineer, alert despite the deafening roar of the pistons and the immense steam engines, looked up sharply.
He did not know what had caused the order, but he did not need to.
'Full astern!'
His voice cut through the thunder of machinery as the engineers sprang into action.
Furnace doors slammed shut.
Countless levers and valves were thrown.
The enormous reciprocating engines slowed... then stopped.
Only seconds later, the entire colossal mechanism began turning in the opposite direction.
It had all happened quickly.
But every second mattered.
Meanwhile, the ship continued charging straight toward the iceberg.
On the bridge, Murdoch stared at it without daring to blink.
The rudder was responding...
But too slowly.
It was far too small for a ship of this size.
'Turn... Dear God, turn...' Murdoch whispered, every muscle in his face taut with strain.
At last, Titanic began to alter her course.
Slowly.
Far too slowly.
A breath of hope swept across the bridge.
Then the ship and the iceberg drew alongside one another.
Titanic passed to the left of what looked less like a drifting block of ice than an icy mountain...
But she had not turned far enough to avoid contact.
The steel screamed in agony."
Gervais imagined a long, piercing shriek accompanied by a dreadful vibration.
He could almost feel it in his bones.
His eyes remained fixed on the manuscript, but in his mind he saw only the iceberg scraping along the hull of the ship on which he now felt himself to be standing.
"The entire vessel shuddered from bow to stern.
Strong as it was, the hull could not withstand the ice.
It tore apart like paper.
Deep within the ship, where, among other things, the wealthy passengers' automobiles were stored, the men searching for Rose froze in place.
They did not understand.
Before their horrified eyes, the bulkhead buckled...
Then burst open as though some gigantic beast with razor-sharp claws were ripping into the ship from outside.
A wall of black water exploded through the breach with a deafening roar, sweeping away everything in its path.
Even the heavy automobiles were hurled aside like children's toys.
The men had no time to run.
No time even to scream.
The torrent swallowed them as though they had never existed."
Gilles Gervais stared at the page, his mouth slightly open.
He was stunned.
The author had planted clues long before this pivotal moment.
They had been there all along. He simply had not noticed them. Just like the hints of what was still to come, they had been skillfully woven into the details, the dialogue, and the descriptions.
And because he was now completely trapped in the present moment, the censor could no longer imagine what would happen next.
He was living the story as it unfolded.
From that moment onward, the novel changed its very nature.
The love story faded into the background, replaced by a desperate race against time.
Every character introduced since the beginning suddenly felt vulnerable. No one, not even Jack and Rose, was safe anymore.
Gilles Gervais leaned farther over the manuscript, both fists clenched.
He had long since stopped being merely a royal censor.
He would need to read the novel a second time if he wished to focus on annotations and recommendations.
For now, he wanted only one thing. To know how the story ended.
The pages turned faster and faster.
His fingers trembled as he reached the scene where Rose realized that Jack, still clinging to the wooden door that had served as their raft, had finally frozen to death.
Until the very last moment, Gervais had believed, had hoped, that help would arrive in time to save them both.
Thanks to a single sentence, cleverly placed at the very beginning of the story and to which he had paid no attention at the time, he could now imagine the unbearable agony endured by those who had fallen into the freezing water.
He pictured the terrible silence surrounding the place where the Titanic had sunk.
Hundreds of lifeless bodies drifting across the dark sea.
And Rose's despair.
He bit his lip.
It was with a bittersweet sense of relief that he reached the moment when Rose was finally pulled aboard a lifeboat, the only one that had returned to the disaster site in search of survivors.
Rose had been saved.
But Jack was gone forever.
Suddenly, a warm, slender hand rested on his shoulder, making him flinch.
The world of the Titanic vanished in an instant, replaced by the warmth and comfort of his study in Paris.
When he turned around, still shaken by what he had just read, he found Charlotte, his mistress, watching him with an amused smile.
"I startled you that much?" she asked with a soft laugh. "I knocked twice."
Gervais blinked several times.
"Did you? Ah... forgive me. I truly didn't hear you."
He managed a weary smile, his mind still aboard the Titanic, then set the manuscript aside and rose from his chair.
On impulse, he drew the woman into his arms and embraced her warmly, almost as though he were Jack and she were Rose.
Charlotte looked genuinely surprised.
Gilles was not usually so demonstrative.
He was affectionate and courteous, certainly, but rarely spontaneous.
Her cheeks flushed pink as she looked up at him.
"You must have been completely absorbed in your work, my dear."
He chuckled softly.
"Yes... I truly was." He paused. "I didn't even notice how late it had become."
He glanced at the handsome pendulum clock near the entrance.
"Oh! Is it really this late?"
It was indeed the hour they had arranged to meet.
Tilting her head, Charlotte gently slipped out of his embrace before extending one slightly plump arm toward the thick manuscript.
Gervais let her.
She was accustomed to doing more or less whatever she pleased whenever she visited.
"Titanic..." she read aloud.
She frowned skeptically.
"That isn't a particularly inviting title. What is it?"
"The name of a ship," Gervais replied as he settled back into his rather uncomfortable chair. "A fictional vessel unlike any we know."
Charlotte nodded, though she still seemed unconvinced.
"Oh... then it's a travel story?"
"Not exactly. There is a voyage, and the ship is at the heart of the story, but above all... it's a romance."
He paused.
"And a tragedy."
Charlotte's eyes lit up immediately.
She had always loved stories like that, especially impossible romances.
She opened the manuscript and flipped through several pages without truly reading them.
"So?" she asked. "How is it?"
"Remarkably well written," Gervais answered honestly, absentmindedly letting his fingers glide along his mistress's left arm.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? It's rare to hear you praise a manuscript so highly."
"Because very few deserve it."
He smiled faintly.
"Most of what arrives on my desk is mediocre. Authors are forever rushing straight to the point, forcing readers to fill in all the gaps themselves."
He gestured toward the manuscript.
"This one is different."
"It takes the time to introduce its world and its characters. It is exceedingly rare."
His smile broadened as he remembered the emotions the novel had stirred in him.
"It has been a long time since I became so immersed in a story that I completely lost track of time."
He laughed quietly.
"Fortunately, remarkable manuscripts still appear from time to time. Otherwise, I believe I would have lost my love of reading years ago."
Charlotte studied him for a moment before looking at the label attached to the manuscript and the author's name written on the title page.
"François Boucher de Montrouge..."
She frowned.
"The name means nothing to me."
She looked back at Gervais.
"Is he a new author?"
He shrugged lightly.
"I'm not certain. All I can say is that he has written at least one previous work, a sort of fairy tale called Peter Pan. Perhaps you've heard of it?"
She shook her head.
"No."
"It doesn't matter. I enjoyed that one as well..."
He looked thoughtfully at the manuscript.
"...but this one is better."
"Then why do you look so troubled?"
Gervais let out a long sigh.
"Because I won't be able to approve it. I haven't begun annotating the manuscript yet, but the revisions required are... substantial."
As a royal censor, he was not free to do as he pleased.
If he allowed such a work to pass unchanged, both his name and his reputation would suffer.
His duty was both simple and essential: to protect the established order by preventing the publication of dangerous works or those considered a threat.
Knowing this, François had already altered the story he knew. He had removed the nude scene in Rose's cabin and the lovemaking scene in the cargo hold.
But it was clearly not enough.
"The romance at the heart of this story is..."
He searched for the right word.
"...scandalous. The heroine defies her family, her fiancé, and every social convention in pursuit of a passionate love affair with a commoner."
He gently rested his hand on the manuscript.
"The entire novel rests upon that relationship."
He slowly shook his head.
"And I'm afraid that if the author removes it..."
He sighed once more.
"...there won't be much left. It would be like serving a meal after removing all its seasoning."
Charlotte's eyes sparkled even more brightly.
Scandalous.
What an enticing word.
Full of promise.
A faintly mischievous smile curved her crimson lips as she began reading.
Only enough to meet Rose, her fiancé...
...and then Jack.
She snapped the manuscript shut.
"May I borrow it?"
Gilles Gervais looked toward the ceiling.
"Charlotte..." he sighed.
This was hardly the first time she had made such a request.
And she knew perfectly well that he could never refuse her. Instantly, she adopted her most innocent expression.
"Please... You just said yourself that it will never be printed, not in its current form. I promise I'll take the greatest care of it."
Gervais pressed his lips together and looked away.
She knew exactly where his weakness lay, and she was not above taking advantage of it.
"As you wish, madam. But please, don't keep it for too long. Three days. No more. I still have to write my report and return it to its owner."
Her face lit up.
"Thank you!"
Hugging the manuscript tightly against her chest, she leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the censor's cheek.