In the 200 years they ruled (1589-1789), the Bourbons turned France from, (as one of Richelieu’s biographers put it) the toy of jumped-up lackeys and chambermaids to the premier power of Europe. By contrast, the Valois (in particular from Charles VIII to Henri III) nursed imperial ambitions (attempts to acquire Naples, Milan, Scotland, England and the Netherlands) that all ended in smoke and ash. Would it be possible for the Valois to emulate their Bourbon cousins should they have survived their OTL demise? Or was it a specific set of circumstances that allowed the Bourbons to acquire not only the French throne (or rather, centralize all the power in the person of the king), but others as well?