Without the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III will rule until 1874 at best since he planned to abdicate when his son Napoleon IV would have come of age (18). He might still be dead in 1873 in my opinion, as he suffered from urinary calculi and died while they were trying to got rid of one: it wasn't something simple at the time, even though medicine had greatly evolved.
Napoleon IV has two possible wives: there were talks about him marrying Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria. However, Beactrice was Victoria's favorite daughter and the Queen showed quite protective of her. Given Victoria and Napoleon III's wife, Eugenie, got along quite well, it's possible she might give her consent though.
The second possibility is a daughter of Isabella II of Spain, Infanta Maria de Pillar. Rumors, not all untrue, said Napoleon IV was quite attached to her.
The Second Empire will probably continue to liberalize in this scenario, which will lead to a more democratic regime. Maybe the Second Empire ends up as a Britain-style Parlementarian Monarchy as a result, althoug I suspect the Emperor would still have a lot of power.
The Colonial Policy of the Second Empire might follow a different path that the one chosen by the Third Republic though: Napoleon III expanded the rights of the Algerian Natives and apparently planned for indirect rule of the colony. Maybe Napoleon IV will do so with his colonies?
galileo-034 said:
I'm working on a TL with the assumption of a surviving Second Empire.
I planned the following political scene in early 1890's:
- Revolutionnaries (anarchists, blanquists, marxists...)
- Parti Républicain [Clemenceau]
- Union Sociale-démocrate [Tolain]
- Parti Libéral
- Liberal Bonapartists [Prince Jerome Napoléon]
- Authoritarian Bonapartists[Cassagnac]
- Legitimists
To this lead, I'll had the Orleanists: though the Legitimists were the main group, I think it's likely to see a Legitimist-Orleanist split up like OTL. If the two branches didn't reconcile like OTL though, the Legitimist side might be larger than it is, and as a result the Orleanist weaker.