France in this scenario is almost certainly more uniformly Catholic than IOTL, especially among the working class, and limit the stiffling conservative and politically interventionist influences the court at Vienna put upon it
Yeah totally, the perilous situation of the french kings after the death of Louis XIV pushed them to tolerate the religious minorities that were badly treated before (don't forget the dragonnade). the Edict of Reims that gave to the non-Catholics in France a legal and civil status, including the right to contract a civil marriage without having to convert to the Catholic religion, the freedom of worship, ... will never happened the same for the creation of a Grand Sanhedrin for the Jew. In this alternate scenario the french would still play a big role in the catholic affair and continue to mistreated their minorites so we will never see the immigration wave of some european religious minorities that wanted to avoid the persecution of their countries.
The knock-on effects of more liberal influence via the Church; especially if she retains her material importance and presence in South American and Italian/South German society that she enjoyed in our timeline, would be interesting to see. It could actually make conversion a more appealing option among the native peoples of Spain's later overseas acquisitions and give the missionary attempts in the Far East and Africa some successes.
i don't think that the Church could have kept their material importance and presence in South American and Italian/South German society without the period of trouble, because this revoluttionnary taxes put in place by the king create a counter-revolutionary shock in Europe and started a new pact of reform lead by the church
allowing them to maintain themselves until today.
I know, I know; it sounds a bit crazy considering how politically charged the label "Catholic" carries, but like I said; this is a timeline where they're less literalist and bent out of shape by centuries of warping their doctrine in circles to satisfy the goals of their patrons and somehow fit, however crudely, their worldview against advances in scientific thought.
It would be easy because the eighteen century was a turning point of the catholicism, in this period some religious authority in France by legalism choose the king side but the majority chose the Frondist side, in the same time a lot of catholic power in reaction started to banish the Catholic reformist in their country, conflict some of them choosed to flee in France and some of the most conversative element in France fleed in the other country to escape the king, because he exiled them, or to find fortune elsewhere, ... also during this period the religious authorities see the french conflit and see little by little the Ultramontanism fall while their victory seemed inevitable in begining it was a deep shock for them.
During this period the Ultramontanism searched a leader to help them and the Habsburg gladly accetpted, this alliance was really reactionnaries by nature and this support allowed them to take the lead in the religious affair and strangle the Jansenism and the Gallicanism (that belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarchs authority or the State's authority—over the Catholic Church) these reforms allowed them to safeguard and preserve the power of the papacy as well as to fight effectively against corruption but unfortuntaly in the same time more and more reformist started to flee in France to take advantage of the power vacuum left by the reactionaries preventing the emergence of a countercurrent in other countries so the Ultramontanism became more and more reactionnary and started to fight against the progress because they were affraid that the same thing will happen in their country a lot of scientific progress werre heretical for them because they were affraid that these developpement will lead to their downfall. Without these conflit Catholicism would surely keep an ambiguous look at the technology but their authroity would surely fade away with the time their influence will be really less strong in their stronghold but they would still kept an influence in the other Jansenist catholic country like France, Spain mainland, Poland or (Res publica regni Polonici, Republic of the Three nation, or whatever people call this country ... ), ... so in this alternate scenario we coulsd see the Papacy play a role of soft influence instead of their actual role.
Also the conflit between the Jansenism/Gallicanism would play latter a vital role in Spain and explain their weak success in the conversion of the natives in their african and eastern possession.
but it also butterflies away the bishops' issues with the taxing of Church property and infringing on their old areas of privileged production for their dioceses that ultimately lead to them aligning themselves with the landed nobility and peasentry against the King and his backers in the rising mercantile class and urban-artisan professionals during the various battles (legal, bodily, intellectual, or otherwise) that so divided French society through the 18th century.
the famous French waltz of power, a passionate century so many theoligical, political, social, judicial, economic, ... debate so much existential question put on the table
the principle of Liberty, equality, fraternity the first and more important principle of the France would never existed.