AHC: aHC get france to b a constiutional monarchy where the king holds executive powe

alright here is the challenge. With a POD after 1700 get France to become a constitutional monarchy with the king having executive powers and exact same role as the POTUS. Is it possible
 
Comte de Chambord dies suddenly in 1870. Legitimists (or most of them) grudgingly accept the Comte de Paris.

CdP is chosen King after Franco-Prussian War. Rules with a Parliament but with more executive power than Queen Victoria.
 
Napoleon III isn't quite so successful in grabbing power and the referendum to institute the second Empire is modified to introduce a constitutional Emperor in 1852.

Napoleon III ends up with similar powers to the future german Kaiser.
 
Why not having the cadet branch of Orléans on the throne earlier?

Louis, Duke of Anjou (OTL's Louis XV) dies in infancy and Philip V of Spain dies childless before 1707. Louis XIV dies in 1715 and Philip of Orléans becomes King (instead of Regent as in OTL).
 
Technically the challenge is met -- France was a Constitutional Monarchy from 1815 to 1830, under the Restoration. While the voting franchise was quite strict, the King held executive power: ministers were responsible to him, not the parliament, he commanded the arm forces, had the right to declare war and make treaties of peace, and he also appointed all people of the public administration. He alone proposed laws and sent them to the Chamber of Deputies of the Chamber of Peers (aside from bills concerning the budget, which were sent to the Deputies alone). He certainly had significant powers, and if the reign of Charles X had been avoided, the senior branch might've retained the throne. The powers of the king, however, would certainly be weakened throughout the 19th century as a more constitutional monarchy became the norm.

The July Monarchy (1830 to 1848) also meets the challenge, but the Charter of 1830 was much more liberal than the one of 1815. The King could no longer propose laws, for instance.
 
Pretty much what DrakeRlugia said. The Restoration and July Monarchies were Constitutionnal Monarchies with the King as leader of the Executive Power. Saving one of them is a pretty good way of keeping France as a Constitutionnal Monarchy.

I would also mention the short Constitutionnal Monarchy of 1789-1792 : the constitution of 1791 also meets the criteria I think. If Louis XVI hadn't fled to Varennes or had been able to get along with the Revolutionnaries, I think you could have had a Constitutionnal Monarchy meeting the Criterias of the Challenge.

Having the First or Second French Empire could also work. There was a parliament in the both of them, though it was pretty weak compared to the powers of the Emperor. Maybe a successor could have changed that situation though.
 
In 1871, Henri d'Artois, comte de Chambord proves less intransigent and accepts one of the many compromise proposals regarding the tricolore (perhaps the one with a large fleur de lys in the white field of the tricolore or the one shown below) and is thus proclaimed King Henri V. of France. Since he died without issue, the Orleans branch succeeds in 1883.

Flag_of_Constitutional_Royal_France.svg
 
Not everyone accepts that the Comte de Chambord's obstinacy over the flag question was mainly or even largely responsible for the failure of the restoration. This is on a legitimist website and argues in a very scholarly way (lots of untranslated French but not too hard to follow with what remains of the schoolboy variety, and there's always Google translate and the like) that in fact the Orléanists were chiefly responsible, with or without the direct knowledge of the Comte de Paris.

The suggestion in essence is that Chambord was willing to make reasonable compromises, described, but that his position was deliberately misrepresented by Orléans supporters in the hope that he would throw up his hands and abdicate in favour of the Comte de Paris, who could then get all the credit for being reasonable and so allowing the restoration to take place. I don't really have an opinion myself, but I have read quite a lot of stuff by Guy Stair Sainty, the owner of the website who I think though I'm not sure is the author of this piece, and while he is a scholar of genuine renown in the heraldic and genealogical fields I have known him to be, in my opinion, tendentious in argument, and certainly would be amazed to find him admitting the smallest fact that might undermine the legitimist and support the Orléanist position. That said he is a recognised scholar and I do not doubt that everything quoted here is from authentic historical sources. Certainly it would not be a surprise that the story is not nearly as straightforward as is often represented; very few things are.
 
My guess would have been the other way round. Chambord was childless and by the 1870s reasonably sure he would remain so. I suspect that he did not relish the thought of reigning as, in effect, a caretaker for his old enemies, the Orleans. But neither was he prepared to stepaside in their favour, so he brought up the flag issue to sabotage the whole scheme.
 
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