So, your thoughts on Louis XVII being described as "proto-totalitarian"? How accurate would such a label be?
Honestly I don’t think that’s very fair to King Louis. His comparison to the Sun King stems from both his authoritative style of rule, and the fact that he was the most effective Kings from the House of Bourbon in a long time. Louis XV was a complete disaster for the monarchy while Louis XVI was simply unlucky and was too naive and gentle of a King to put his foot down when he needed to. Louis XVI tried to be popular and was easily impressionable enough to empower the noble dominated Parlements that refused to register any of the King's reform plans. Louis XVII however utilized the army to effectively put down any whiff of rebellion or suspected Revolutionary activity. He saw himself as a continuation of the Enlightened Absolutism that was practiced by his ancestor Louis XIV. Plus Louis XVII wasn't a tyrant. He ruled with a pretty light hand towards the peasantry and worked to improve living conditions for the poor. His reconstruction of Paris while also beautifying the city, was also shrewd in the sense that the streets and alleys were widened such that armed mobs could no longer barricade themselves, and soldiers would have easy access through the city should they entrap the King and the Royal family like what happened to the Prussian King . He also effectively utilized propaganda to paint himself as a champion of the poor while framing revolutionaries as dangerous anarchist seeking to create chaos in France. He shrewdly observed the French Republic in exile and learned from Napoleon's use of the masses as a power base for the monarchy. The peasants of Vendee for example received personal attention from the King due to it being a large Royalist bastion during the Revolution. The peasants that were massacred by the Revolutionary government were declared heroes by the King and he even built a memorial for the people who died there. Vendee is one of the most monarchist regions in France today.
Yes, him had secret police but he too allowed some freedom to people altough any republicanism wasn't accepted and even smallest hint about such was enough for jailing. And he probably helped transfer France towards constitutional monarchy on his last years.
While Louis XVII recognized that some reforms were needed I doubt that could really be called a Constitutional monarchy. He hated the word Constitution and framed the document as Royal Decree stemming from his diving powers as King. Louis XVII hated Constiutions since it reminded him of the Constitutional monarchy of 1791 which saw his father reduced to a figurehead and ultimately executed by the National Assembly. He created a rump Parliament which still is effectively a rubber stamp much like the Estates General of the Middle Ages was for the Kings of France. This is comparable to Metternich's Reichsrat that was implemented in the Austrian Empire which was effectively an advisory body to the Kaiser. The French Parliament functioned in a similar manner until the reign of King Louis XX where the Parliament was allowed to debate on Legislation that was drafted by the King and his ministers. It was only until recently that the Parliament was allowed to propose laws of its own, but the King retained the power of absolute veto, and he still dominated politics by playing the Upper and Lower Houses Against each other. Furthermore he guised it as a traditional structure of the French monarchy by calling the "Parliament" the Royal Diet rather than a National Assembly, or a Parliament to specifically avoid connotations of the British Parliament or the Dutch Parliament where the Monarch's powers were quite restricted. In the case of Britain, Parliament was the sovereign rather than the monarch.
To call it a Constitutional Monarchy is a misnomer. A Constitutionally Absolute Monarchy would be a more appropriate label since the Royal Ordinance of 1870 established a legal framework and codification of the monarch's powers and governmental structures. Louis XVII in his personal memoirs drew inspiration from the
Danish Constitutional settlement of 1660 that established the monarchy as hereditary and established the King as an Absolute Monarch.
Well, much of the administrative structure of his regime, with how it combined a centralized, bureaucratic, and meritocratic state with the absolute control of the monarch, has been argued by political scientists to be a forerunner to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
That's a pretty skewed view of it since the Totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were radically opposed to monarchy in most instances. Plus most totalitarian regimes came to power via a military coup. With military actively involved in civil affairs they became more corrupt and less effective. Legionary Russia only benefited from army tradition and institutional knowledge of the Russian Imperial Army. They were the exception in most cases, and even with Legionary Russia, their economy was horribly mismanaged and reliant on plundering conquered territories.
Though I guess superficially it does somewhat compare to the totalitarian regimes. Since the darker aspects of Louis XVII's reign involved the censorship of the press and the activity of his secret police. Though unlike in most totalitarian regimes, Louis's secret police generally left most people alone as Louis wanted a form of controlled opposition and a way for people to air their grievances and petition for redress so that tensions that faced the nation didn't boil over into another revolution. This was why he established the Royal Ordinance of 1870 towards the end of his reign as he allowed for the Royal Diet to be established as a means for the people to air their grievances to the King and have a voice in the affairs of the King.
How do you guys see France evolving if say Louis XVII died in captivity? What would the Restoration government look like under Louis-Stanlaus or Charles the Count of Artois? Do you think a Republican Coup could have been successful in France? What would domestic policy and foreign policy look like in this alternate French Kingdom or French Empire should a military strongman manage to declare himself Emperor? Would either government have been able to retake the Rhineland? Louis XVII managed to re-establish Bourbon hegemony in Europe with him working closely with the Spanish Bourbons, the Bourbons of Parma, the Bourbons of Two-Sicilies, etc to create a French aligned military alliance and later economic partnership that would come to dominate Europe much to the chagrin of the British, the Austrians, and the Russians.
Do you think the Spanish Empire would have collapsed here? Louis XVII helped to bring order to Spain under the tumultous reign of Ferdinand VII that allowed the Spanish to raise a large army to crush most of the rebellions in the Americas. As a result Spain kept its empire in a much more diminished fashion with dominion over New Spain, Central America, New Granada, and Peru maintained while La Plata declared independence.
but he too allowed some freedom to people altough any republicanism wasn't accepted and even smallest hint about such was enough for jailing.
Louis' hatred of the Revolution and Republicans stemmed from the fact that his parents were publicly executed by Revolutionaries, he was and his sister were imprisoned in the Temple Tower where he was beaten and nearly died from illness in his filthy cell. In his later years he developed Germophobia because of his experiences. Though Louis XVII later established a Bill of Rights for the French after
How do you see the Orleans fare in this scenario? Louis XVII and his sister developed an immense hatred of that branch of the family since Philippe d'Orleans Louis XVI's cousin, voted to execute his father. Louis XVI's execution was split down to one vote, and Louis XVII personally saw the Orleans as responsible for his family being deposed and the horrible conditions he had to endure. Louis XVII wanted to execute Louis-Philippe in his wroth, but was only stopped due to the influence of Charles X who managed to reconcile with the Orleans branch and wanted to present a united front for the Royal family. The Orleanists were pretty liberal in French politics though they maintained a low profile until Louis began to "liberalize" France later in his life. Do you see Louis-Phillipe somehow leading a Liberal Opposition movement? Could he muster enough support to become King?
Heck, even his allowance of some form of parliamentary governance in his last years of his reign and how he reached out to the bourgeoisie of France could be considered an antecedent of how totalitarian regimes seek to maintain power through a single mass party and use the sham of a democracy to provide the regime legitimacy. Even if the lack of a male son led to a succession crisis which led to his daughter being the first Queen of France and eventually to France adopting a democratic system of government, it must not be forgotten that King Louis XVII was possibly the first totalitarian dictator of the modern age or at the very least had policies which foreshadowed the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th Century.
I think you're confusing the wrong Branches of the Houses of Bourbon. The House of Bourbon-Artois nearly went extinct due to the premature death of Henri Charles's grandson and Louis the Duke of Berry's son. In this instance Louis allowed for a special exemption to for salic law to be overturned so that the House of Bourbon-Artois would continue. Louis was quite fond of his uncle Charles who headed the Ultra-Royalists and played an instrumental part in his education as King.
Louis XVII had many sons with his wife. He took a play out of the Habsburg's book and arranged for various diplomatic marriages in Europe to help strengthen Bourbon hegemony in Europe.
The "Democracy" he permitted was local elections for local town councils and municipal governments. Louis was quite lenient towards the rural peasants especially in places like Vendee and granted them some autonomy in a sort of carrot and stick approach to rally them around the King.
A better comparison for a monarchical dictator would be the Russian Tsars or the Austrian Kaiser Rudolph I who became a hard-line reactionary after the assassination of his father Kaiser Franz Ferdinand.
