AHC: Paris not the Capital of France

Easy.

French monarchy manages to withstand the political crisis of XVIII well better (a shorter Louis XV's reign might help) and Versailles remains as OTL some sort of symbolical capital, while the executive and legislative power likely stand in Paris, and the judicial being more decentralized.
 
Easy.

French monarchy manages to withstand the political crisis of XVIII well better (a shorter Louis XV's reign might help) and Versailles remains as OTL some sort of symbolical capital, while the executive and legislative power likely stand in Paris, and the judicial being more decentralized.

De facto capital. Original Post edited.
 
De facto capital. Original Post edited.
Okay. Longer WW2 or failed Overlord, Alger remains de facto capital of France longer.

Seriously, with a post-1648, it's near impossible.
Paris was the larger by far, city in France since the XII century (also of Europe for centuries), relativly well centered, explaining why french kings began to settle there quite early (around the X century) and finally to settle their administration there (In the XIII century).

After 1648, this is not going to change save for some catastrophic event such as nuked Paris (and even there, I've doubts quite frankly, unless it's nuked to death).

Well, French Kings were crowned at Reims. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to have one of them decide to establish his court there?

Yes it would be. First, it won't happen with a post-1648 PoD for aforementioned reasons.
And even in Middle-Ages, Reims was too excentered, too small and critically not belonging to the king or even pre-Hugues Capet Robertians.
 
I'm not sure moving the date by 30 years would be enough. Considering the situation that lead to Paris being where the kings lived (or at least around it) for what...more than 700 years not counting Versailles, I really think you need a Xth century Pod (or at best a XIth), possibly earlier but let's keep things simple (critically because an earlier PoD could butterfly away France as well).
 
The Paris commune completely takes over Paris during the Prussian siege in 1871. A group of French aristocrats supporting a Monarchy are established in Orleans in France. As Paris is shelled is experiencing a leftist revolution and tearing itself apart Orleans establishes a right wing government. It is also able to gain support from the rest of France and makes peace with the German Empire. Continued German siege of Paris is drawn out until late summer of 1871. When they finally finish Paris off it is in ruins and nobody wants their capital in such an unstable ruin. The new Orleans monarchy is terrified of near communist Paris and establishes a new capital Orleans.
 
Agree with LSCatalina. Aside from its geographic advantages, Paris became tha capital because it was it's rulers who created modern France. Even look at modern Germany. Berlin was really a provicinal backwater and out-of-the-way, but when the Hohenzollerns united Germany it became the capital. You would need to butterfly away if not the Capet's then at least the early Valois, and replace them with a dynasty based in another province. But who and where? Brittany is too remote, Lorraine is part of the Empire. Lyon also looked east and South, not North and West. Perhaps if the Normans never went after either England or Sicily and took advantage of a sudden extermination of the Capetians to sieze most of northern France you might have Rouen as the capital. Another possibility would be a dynastic split in the Capetians with one ruler based in Paris and the other in Orleans and the Orleans faction winning and making Orleans the capital. I think no matter what Paris evolves as the largest city becauseof geography, but there could be a viable capital elsewhere if the initial ruling dynasty was not based in Paris. But that POD must be well before the 14th century.
 

katchen

Banned
If Charlemange does not divide up his empire between his sons (or gives Lothaire only Italy) the capital of Francia can remain at Aquien (Aachen).
 
If Charlemange does not divide up his empire between his sons (or gives Lothaire only Italy) the capital of Francia can remain at Aquien (Aachen).

Unlikely, Frankish inheritance practices at that point said he had to split it up between his sons. The only way to get around that is if he only has one living heir.
 
Another way is a nuclear detonation in Central Paris from a terrorist groups or a separatist group or something. It's fairly easy to create a TL involving Paris nuked or bombed by suicide bombing etc...
 
Unlikely, Frankish inheritance practices at that point said he had to split it up between his sons. The only way to get around that is if he only has one living heir.
Technically he did, but that doesnt help when the empire was split in the next generation anyways.
 
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. When they finally finish Paris off it is in ruins and nobody wants their capital in such an unstable ruin. The new Orleans monarchy is terrified of near communist Paris and establishes a new capital Orleans.
Unlikely. Even if Paris end as a pile of rubble, Royalist would still use Paris as capital eventually (even if they can make a temporary de facto capital in Orléans or elsewhere). Look at Berlin : after WW2, it was basically a gigantic ruinfielf, and it didn't prevented DDR to put its capital there and BRD still considered it as at very last, the most probable future capital after reunification.

Again, we're talking about a city that was the seat of king's residence and of power since more or less 700 years. The symbolical and political charge of it can't be overestimated easily. That and the strategic emplacement, the wealth of the city and its demigraphic importance (making it probably one if not the most important city of Christiendom after the XIII century).

Since Robertians (the direct ancestors of Capetians, you use Robertian to name the dynasty before Hugues Capet) had their power base, their lands in Neustria, Paris was quite an obvious choice (as it was granted to them, Odo being the first robertian count). It was clearly their most important city (and was considered as the capital of Francia by carolingian scholars, as Fulk of Reims).
Eventually, you would need a PoD able to weaken enough Robertians to make them not able to take Paris, but admittedly, it would cause likely them being prevented to accessing the crown and becoming Capetians if they are weakened too much; and you would only end with Girardides or other Austrasian family taking over.

For reaching the OP objective, we "simply" need a late Carolingian PoD. And the ammount of butterflies is going to be epic.

Another way is a nuclear detonation in Central Paris from a terrorist groups or a separatist group or something. It's fairly easy to create a TL involving Paris nuked or bombed by suicide bombing etc...
I'm not that expert on "dirty bomb", but I doubt it would be enough to raze a city of 12 millions up to the ground. It would certainly have really bad impact (loss of population due to fear more than explosion, economical impact), and would possibly make the use of a temporary capital necessary (likely in Versailles, or in the Parisian region nevertheless). But to say it would be enough to get rid of Paris as capital, I'm really not sure.

France is a centralized (while having decentralized most of its features), politically, economically, culturally, administrativly. Hell, it shows even on highway system.
Eventually, it would recover its role as such, save a real destructive nuke (as a nuclear war, MDA scale)

Technically he did, but that doesnt help when the empire was split in the next generation anyways.
Well, he had only one surviving heir at some point, but he had three surviving sons up to the late part of his reign : Charles, Pepin and Louis, which led him to split his kingdom in 806.

So yeah, the division of royalty (while not automatically equivalent to division of the empire or kingdom, it was more considered as a power division inside a same continuum, ruled by the elder) was pretty well rooted (and still exist in later time or outside Frankish demesne, as Kentish Gavelkind, most probablying underlining a more general western germanic practice).

Anyway, Aachen wasn't a capital, or if it was you should count all the carolingian palaces as such. See, carolingian courts were semi-nomadic : they moved them from palaces to palaces depending of the urges of the moment. Now, it's true that Charlemagne and Louis (at least he tried so), maintained a longer presence in Aachen.
Seeing the challenges of the time (Norses, Hungrians, by exemple), I doubt even a lucky sucesscor having sawn all his brothers dying would maintain a permenent presence (the palace did have a political importance OTL, as disputed among Carolingians. With only one sucessor, this importance could actually lower).
 
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Dijon would be an interesting capital if the Burgundians some how end up with the throne of France.
 
Or they'll do as Bourbons that didn't used Pau as capital, or Valois didn't reigned from Crépy-en-Valois.
Because Paris was considered as capital since, at least, late Carolingians and knew a continuous role while the others were "only" regional capital.
 
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