The transport/trade infrastructure explanation seems plausible. The British governments sponsoring of canal development begun in the
1760s, and Manchester(cottonopolis) was one of it's biggest
beneficiaries. It seems intuitive to me that, without the canals(and later the railways) enabling efficient bulk shipments to multiple different markets, mechanized production's viability would nixed because it depended on an enormous upfront investment compensated by a lower construction cost per unit. While manual production is favoured when you're selling a relatively smaller amount of product.
It is true that the British had development of canals, but the French had their own canal projects; as I had noted earlier they were for example preferred over the German Rhine for delivering goods, and while I do not know about the infrastructure development of the French canals during the 18th century (I think the 17th century and the early 19th century were more pronounced for canal construction), they did achieve a very major rationalization of tolls on the canals. La commission des péages (toll commission), from 1724 onwards vetted toll owner's titles, outlawed illegal charges, reformed collection of legitimate ones, and by the French Revolution there had been some 2/3ds of all tolls abolished (this being according to
Financing transport infrastructure: The French case in a European context in the eighteenth century). So, while the physical advancement of the French canals might not have improved that much (although that's only from one article, I'm not actually terribly well acquainted with the physical nature of the French 18th century canal network), they did make improvements on them through such reforms.
Concerning the capital side of things, to my knowledge, stemming from
A Financial History of Western Europe (that's the site I downloaded it from), and
Commercial expansion and the industrial revolution, the role of capital in industry itself was limited. To quote from A Financial History of Western Europe, pages 191-192;
Investment in industry prior to the spread of the corporation, discussed in the next chapter, was moderate. Initial views of the role of capital in the industrial revolution have been sharply revised by economic historians. Large amounts of capital were needed for chartered companies, like the East India, and for public works. J. H. Plumb has stated that the growth of local authorities was the most important development in the eighteenth cen- tury in England, and the least stressed. Streets were widened, new approa- ches built to bridges, such as the London bridge; physical improvements took place in cities throughout England after 1750, plus construction of turnpikes, followed by digging canals (quoted in T. S. Ashton, 1959, p. 97). The needs of industry were miniscule. The opinion of W. Arthur Lewis a number of years ago, echoed by W. W. Rostow, that the industrial revolu- tion (or economic take-off) involved a leap of savings from 5 percent of national income to 15 percent turns out to have been wrong (Lewis, 1955, p. 208; Rostow, 1960, pp. 4lff.). Deane and Cole refuted it initiallybyestimat- ing that savings rose from 5 or 6 percent of national income in 1750 to perhaps 7 percent by 1800, at which figure they stayed level until the railway boom of the 1830s and 1840s (1967, pp. 261-2). More recent work by C. H. Feinstein has modulated the figures to a degree: the ratio of savings to national income rose from 6t percent in 1770 to 9 percent by 1790, 8 per-cent at the end of the war and 11 percent by the time of the railway boom (1978, Vol. 1, p. 91). Whatever the numbers, one can no longer accept the opinion of T. S. Ashton that held sway for so long:
... the importance of the lowering of the rate of interest in the half- century before the industrial revolution has never been properly stressed by historians. If we seek-it would be wrong to do so-for a single reason why the pace of economic development quickened about the middle of the eighteenth century, it is to this we must look. The deep mines, solidly built factories, well-constructed canals, and substantial houses of the industrial revolution were the products of relatively cheap capital. (1948, p. 11)
Capital to start most enterprises came from an individual, his family, friends, neighbors, in very informal ways. For ships, the funds were initially amassed in a given port where the shipowner lived until the middle of the nineteenth century when the increasing size of ships went beyond the capacity of local markets. Fixed capital in mills was small. Buildings were often rented and frequently converted from other uses, such as abbeys or convents (Fischer, 1962, pp. 209ff.; Uvy-Leboyer, 1964, p. 450). The big need was for working capital; this was often scrounged by buying on credit and selling for cash (Crouzet, ed., 1972; Pollard, 1965). Growth came usually from retained profits. Something depended, of course, on the technique used. In textiles in Britain, plants relying on horse power required an initial capital of only £1 ,000, waterpower £3 to £5,000, and steam power, a minimum of £10,000 (Chapman, 1971, pp. 61-3).
One can find exceptions. That of the iron and coal mines has been men- tioned. The deeper coal mines went, the more capital they needed, not least for keeping the mine free of water by pumping. And one can find the occasional industrial plant, like Bolton & Watt, producing steam engines that grew very rapidly, in excess of the profits being generated, went through Bolton's money, that of his wife, and finally turned in despera- tion to Hope & Company in Holland from which it borrowed £30,000 (Smiles, 1865, pp. 268, 278). They were rare.
It might have said something about Manchester and greater investment in it, but well, I'm not really willing to trawl through the last several hundred pages from where I currently am in the book (I've been reading it on and off for the last, maybe month or so), to try to find it. Maybe later.
However, capital certainly was important for the canal construction, and French 18th century capital markets weren't as developed as the English; there was some banking (other than the famous Mississippi bubble that is) contrary to stereotypes in France, but it was pretty marginal and limited. I presume that would do a lot to account for what I've read concerning the French canal system not being extended as fast throughout the 18th century, but then, the English Canal Boom wasn't until the later part of the 18th century anyway. The French canal boom happened in the first part of the 19th century. Napoleon had major canal projects planned according to
Planning the French Canals: The "Becquey Plan" of 1820-1822, for uniting Western Europe, so in your proposed circumstances the French canal boom might get off the ground earlier.
One thing I had forgotten to mention as a potential insulator for the British if French cloth was cheaper was simple protectionism; the British were quite willing to apply protectionist policies vis a vis Indian imported cotton manufactured goods (its always wonderful when you can protect your markets against cheap imported goods, then take over said place and turn around and flood it with cheap imported goods), so if French textile goods were cheaper they could have easily have had protectionist barriers up. Alternatively, they could simply have not done much competing in Europe; I was under the impression that much of the French textile export trade went to the French colonies, and to West Africa (there was a competition with Indian textiles in those regions), and the actual competition in Europe could have been limited.
As far as political costs are concerned, France's recent experience has been that Britain will try to thwart them given the opportunity, so I'm skeptical that they'd be deterred by the prospect of inciting greater British opposition. If they're cognizant of just how much potential there is in industrialization. from both a economic and military perspective, then not smothering it in Britain if they have the chance would seem to go against both realpolitik and mercantilist logic.
I was thinking of their continental European allies more than the British, in that if they want to keep them on their side without them being a burden, but it sort of applies to the British as well; if France has won on the continent with 1797 borders, and the British have lost both India and America in your scenario, and presumably various other colonies. In that case the British aren't anywhere on the same level of danger any more, but still enough to be able to make trying to keep them down forever. I expect that eventually they'd be re-integrated on a level sort of akin to OTL France; maybe sometimes a rival, but operating a tier below, although its sort of not really the same since the British only had control over the sea, while a French hegemony would probably have control over both the land and the sea.
I assume the point you're making regarding railroads is that the French might profit from the construction of railroads in other countries? True. Whether the French government believes that will depend on what economic school of thought predominates in France.
One thought on the Silesian coal- Silesia might well come under the control of a revived Poland in a France-wank scenario. Given that Poland was probably Napoleonic France's closest and most reliable ally, and given that an industrialized Poland is a Poland more capable of holding it's own militarily speaking, might we see this Polish industrialization as a point of tension in France between the mercantilist faction and the realpolitik faction?
The railroads operate on the same principles, French (and British, so it wasn't just a product of a more backwards French industrial sector) investors found them profitable to invest in originally, so logically they should be profitable here. Concerning Poland, Poland is far away, starts from a lower base, and is very poor. Eventually the Silesian fields, if they have them, will start bearing major industrial fruit, but I was under the impression that the Germans didn't begin iron/coal/steel industrialization in Silesia until the 1840s, and the Poles don't seem like they would industrialize faster, so that's quite a distance in the future. A lot of stuff could have changed by then, and alliances and hostilities could survive despite strong trading links between enemies; the Russians were one of the major trade partners with Germany in 1914 (well, France was too, and there was an upsurge in trade before the war, although it sometimes is exaggerated from my recollection), but were allied with France - who admittedly did have a lot of capital investment in Russia, but still, trade patterns were the opposite of diplomatic arrangements. Franco-Polish relations will ultimately matter much more on political rather than economic footings.
I'm not so sure about that. The history of industrialisation shows some early adopters of industrialisation who did not have their own significant coal reserves, and did not rely on importing coal either. Sweden is a prime example, in their case using abundant wood/charcoal as their energy to industrialise. They did have abundant iron ore, of course. So I can conceive of alternative industrial revolutions where the pioneer country does not necessarily have coal reserves.
Wood was used in some places in lieu of coal, such as British India (for railroads as an example), and I thought that it saw substantial use in the US, I also think the Russians produced steel with wood at the beginning of the 19th century and exported it to Europe, but it sort of seems like the nature of those places is what's driving that; relatively small per-capita utilization of industrial energy resource or low population density allowing wood to compete with the higher production density of coal. Shortages of wood caused the shift to coal in the UK, who had a larger and more dense population, so personally I'd ascribe wood to being a stage before the move to coal, and the special characteristics of the after mentioned countries being what kept wood feasible for a longer period of time.
Other than occupying a coal-rich region, the easy solution would be hydroelectricity. Clean source of energy for countries with big rivers (mostly tropical). It only became a thing during the 20th century, but I don't think it would be too far-fetched to have a technology capable of constructing super dams during the 19th century. A large interventionist state would probably be capable of gathering resources for this kind of project. China comes to mind.
Until electricity comes around (and that's in the later part of the 19th century for even secondary use, and not until the 20th century when it starts to become really important), there isn't really much industrial application to dams other than for directly applying waterpower. Now, watermills for textile mills and the like certainly were a big thing, but that doesn't translate to things like steel production, steam engines, and fuel, and even said watermills got outpaced and are fundamentally inflexible due to where they have to be located. The lack of coal is going to cause problems for the rest of the economy; its hard to get the benefits of railroads, improved metallurgy, and the huge productivity advances from steam engines without it, and that trickles through throughout. Now, this isn't to say that hydro-electricity isn't a possible way to reduce dependency on coal; France was big on hydro-electricity in Grenoble as an example, and French coal was notoriously scarce and naturally expensive. Italy, which similarly lacked large quantities of coal, was one of the major adapters of the electric arc furnace for steel production (in addition to some early work into geothermal power). But these are both mainly 20th century examples (and the Italian example didn't work...); unless if we see hugely earlier invention of electricity (I'd assume that's impossible due to the amount of precursor tech that has to go to make that), then seeing a first industrializer doing that is infeasible. Finally, even in the modern day, coal still provides a lot of importance for industry and power generation, so a nation with a lack of it will still be at a disadvantage even in a 20th century industrial revolution, if not by as much, and they'll have been pulled ahead of by then.