How you play
One night, three pairs of eyes
The night of 16 to 17 December 1793 looked very different depending on where you stood. In Slowmarch you choose whose eyes you see it through: the commander, the sergeant beside him, or a woman inside the town they are besieging.
Buonaparte, commander of the artillery
The original story. You are 24 and your plan has to work: take the fort on the hill of Le Caire and the British fleet must leave. You decide when to attack, whom to believe and who gets the credit. What you do here carries over into Episode II.
Sergeant Junot, at the battery
You are Andoche Junot, 22, a volunteer from Burgundy. You stand in the battery when a cannonball covers your letter with earth, you question a deserter, you choose where to go when the reserve storms the fort, and you answer your father, who wants to know who this Buonaparte is. The siege runs as it really did; what kind of man Junot becomes is up to you.
Thérèse, inside the town
Toulon has been in British, Spanish and Neapolitan hands since August. Thérèse washes the officers’ linen, has a son who dreams of the Republic and a neighbour who welcomed the British. When the fleet leaves, she must choose: the boats, the cellar or the tricolour. Thérèse and the people around her are invented, and the game says so; what happened to the town is not.
“They are leaving, Thérèse. Come with us, you and the boy. Now.”Madame Roux · Toulon, 17 December 1793
Questions
About one night, three pairs of eyes
Can I play all three?
Yes. Finish the night, restart the episode from the menu and pick another perspective. Your library shows which ones you have lived.
Which perspective continues in Episode II?
Buonaparte’s. What carries over into 13 Vendémiaire comes from his night.
Are Junot and Thérèse real?
Junot is real, and his famous joke with the sand is a known tradition. Thérèse, her son and her neighbours are invented, to show the town from inside.