Well, a similar climate could still happen. If Revolutionnary armies are encountering difficulties and Louis XVI still shows his opposition to the Revolution, suspicions against him could rise. In which case, there could be an inquiry about his correspondance.
Could be as it was a pretty messy situation.
Suspicions are not the same than "Look, it seems the royal family just decided to leave to join with Emigrés". I agree the situation would probably not evolve towards a more relaxed outcome, but the radicalisation of revolutionnary Left and its political influence on urban clubs and sections may be really limited ITTL.
You simply have more chances for ant-royalist denounciations to not happen, for Louis XVI not considering himself jailed in his own palace enough to safe his correspondance, etc.
That said I was more saying this wasn't really standard procedure. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pillage, Burning, Looting and Slaughter are generally not encouraged by direct orders.
Well, on top of my head, there's the
Sack of Palatinate.
Both of them.
I'd have to check but as far as I know, there were still Republicans left in Vendée. The whole department didn't became "Blancs" (Monarchists), there are a number of areas that were firmly "Bleus" (Republicans).
From what I gathered, 25% of the deaths in Vendée Militaire (more than just Vendée, then) are accounted as Republicans.
Just to point out: the first one to use the term of Populicide to describe what happened in Vendée was Gracchus Babeuf. So I find saying this is limited to far-right historians is a bit of a generalization considering Babeuf is considered as a proto-communist.
I'd really temper this : Gracchus Babeuf use "populicide" in a geneal stand. As in Robespierre's policy having depopulated the country, not only Vendée that is used as one of the exemples of the
Démocrates' policies
Giving that he wrote that in his pre-"communist" days (when he was still a stunch anti-Robespierrist), arguing of his later positions is a bit...twisted. We could as well argue that Trotskists ruled france in 1997-2002 because Jospin was in charge and that he was a former lambertiste.
And yes, as I tried to point above, the main historians that argue today of the use of génocide are endlessly whining about marxist omerta, but don't like it as much when their ties to far-right (and not just your old far-right, but the really radical ones).
Even if controversial, I doubt the people bringing it up would be ready to use the term "genocide" if what happened in Vendée was really comparable to what you saw usually in times of warfare.
There's a tiny minority of people arguing about this. An handful against a whole universitary structure, including no international take on this.
That they exist and shout continuously "genocide" doesn't proove anything, save that you'd always find people to use it for any reason.
I saw people arguing of Arab Algerian genocide by French, Pied-Noir génocide by Algerians, etc.
I'm not exactly full of astonishment and wonder that people with a helluva loaded political background would hesitate to use, and rather misuse, concepts when it comes to the formers.
Obviously any transition for the monarchy throughout this period is going to be tricky, winning support in some places and losing it on others, but that doesn't mean it's not doable.
Take as a given that people back then weren't brainless idiots, that if only they beneficied from our genius would have resolved everything.
You did have an insane lot of programs from everything. The problem wasn't lack of reforms and propositions, but how to enact them with less financial means, with a lot of legitimacy gone, and a general agricultural and financial crisis.
Different choices could be made, but by the lmate XVIIIth, no one was going to be a magical answer and critically not a "let's adress to the nation" when this one's existance depended a lot from being represented.
Yes, it will piss off some of the bourgeosie and nobility, but if he gets the lower orders of the church and the mass of the population onside, he is on good grounds.
Again, you treat whole classes and orders as if they were politicall concious unified bodies. They weren't. On this regard, everything was to be built, and bourgeoisie simply had an easier time as their hegemon and rise didn't dependend from a declining structure.
He could use an Estates-General to win votes via the First and Third Estates, while then reverting back to Provincial-Estates once he has survived the immediate crisis.
I don't want to repeat myself, but the problem weren't the Estates, critically giving they joined in one structure very quickly, but the transersal ideological, social and economical situation. Enlightement influence (and support of legal equality), similarities of way-of-life between rural elites, and urban elites really prevented the maintain of a society by order : less and less people concieved themselves as such in 1789.
Provincial Estates were extremly conservatives
However, some of the things you say are not issues, like free education and corruption, were included as demands in the Cahiers, suggesting they're perceived as problems, at least.
Percieved as problems, most probably. It's to be noted that Cahiers de doléance from the Third Estates were essentially models written by urban and rural elites, and that were copied from parish to parish, with some additions based on local problems.
Not to say they weren't percieved as issues, and that it didn't justified a choice among different existing models, but they were more elite's or symbolical issues rather than the ones that were seen as more pressing (abandon of "feudal" charges, gabelle, etc.)
