French constitutional monarchy.

Louis XVI manages to avoid burning all his bridges with the revolutionaries (perhaps by not trying to flee the country).

Louis Phillipe I actually stays liberal.

Napoleon III avoids war with Prussia (or at least such a crushing defeat).

Of course, with the seeds of republicanism already planted, both the July Monarchy and the Second Empire are very fragile institutions and I'm not seeing them survive any major crisis. So any permanent Constitutional Monarchy in France will have to come from the Constitution of 1791.
 
With a POD after the end of the 100 years war make France a constitutional monarchy like Britain.

None because there were some radical differences between the 2 countries. And most of all the structure and the role of the nobility.

In France, the king relied on his administration, the communes and the burgesses to strengthen his power and curb the nobility down.
In England the nobility allied with the communes to check and limit the king's power.

Now if you want France to evolve into a constitutional monarchy, you need the king to make radical changes under Louis XV or in Louis XVI's first years.

Louis XV wanted far too king to make radical changes. He began only in his last 3 years.
Louis XVI had the opportunity for a huge and decisive reform with Turgot in his first 2 years. Then he ruined everything, including his own authority, and It was too late.

The french revolution was most probably too late. The first french constitution kept a king but organized the opposition between the assembly and the king rather than cooperation.

Britain never proclaimed the principle that the Parliament held sovereignty instead of the king. It was much more subtle.
 
The comte de Chambord has an accident in the 1860s and dies. French monarchists largely rally around the comte de Paris, so that when monarchists win the parliamentary election after the fall of the Second Empire, they have an obvious, and fairly universally agreed upon, candidate to accept as the new king.
 
Or France is not defeated in the franco-prussian war and its imperial regime completes its evolution into a constitutional monarchy a few years later, when Napoleon III dies.
 
There are so many opportunities during the French Revolution that it would take... an arbitrarily long time to list them all.

So, pretty much from the moment the Estates General were called to the point at which Louis was sentenced to death, the Revolution could have resulted in a Constitutional Monarchy, relatively easily (after all, it did, until they executed him).
 
Louis XVI manages to avoid burning all his bridges with the revolutionaries (perhaps by not trying to flee the country).

Conversely, he and his family successfully escape the country, leading the moderate revolutionaries to proclaim the next in line, Louis Phillipe, the new king.
 
The best PoD (meaning one before a large rejection of monarchy to large indifference*) in the late XVIIIth would be during the XVIth century or early XVIIth century with regularity of Estates Generals and increase of Parlementarian power (which, should it be remembered, had a really distinct role).

You'd need to weaken Valois (interestingly enough by having them survive, as it would keep Bourbons as important lords in France as well a rival political force), making the use of EG more systematical to gain legitimacy and support.

More factionalism amongst nobility would probably see an uneasy alliance akin to the IOTL Fronde, but with more chances of success in this context.
Basically nobility and parlementarian elite calling for regular EG as the rule and no longer the exception.
The diversity of Parlements could be as much as an obstacle than a motivation to this evolution, especially with the idea of a common body for all the kingdom, but eventually your goal is to keep them as much as possible while having one permanent EG issued from them.

It wouldn't be a constitutional monarchy, more obviously a parlementarian monarchy while itself far from being akin to IOTL British parlementarian monarchy but as the latter, it could provide the structures to evolve more liberaly.

Apart from that survival of Second Empire might work, especially because it didn't considered itself as a monarchy, but as an imperial republic. That said, it depended a lot on the charismatic possibilities of the emperor, as the whole political mythos was made around him, and may fail due to a different crisis as easily it did in 1870 while it looked for everyone as particularly strong.

*The fall of Second Empire is the typical bad PoD for reasons listed there
 
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But without Chambord to gum things up, aren't we almost certainly going to get a monarchical restoration, whether or not the Legitimists are reactionary? The question then becomes whether Philippe VII can actually hold on and unite the country behind him, but that's going to have more to do with whether he can win over the Opportunists than with the Legitimists. I'd not be at all surprised if a monarchical restoration in 1871 doesn't work out, but I think that if Chambord is dead, it's highly likely to happen in the short term.

The best PoD (meaning one before a large rejection of monarchy to large indifference*) in the late XVIIIth would be during the XVIth century or early XVIIth century with regularity of Estates Generals and increase of Parlementarian power (which, should it be remembered, had a really distinct role).

You'd need to weaken Valois (interestingly enough by having them survive, as it would keep Bourbons as important lords in France as well a rival political force), making the use of EG more systematical to gain legitimacy and support.

More factionalism amongst nobility would probably see an uneasy alliance akin to the IOTL Fronde, but with more chances of success in this context.
Basically nobility and parlementarian elite calling for regular EG as the rule and no longer the exception.
The diversity of Parlements could be as much as an obstacle than a motivation to this evolution, especially with the idea of a common body for all the kingdom, but eventually your goal is to keep them as much as possible while having one permanent EG issued from them.

It wouldn't be a constitutional monarchy, more obviously a parlementarian monarchy while itself far from being akin to IOTL British parlementarian monarchy but as the latter, it could provide the structures to evolve more liberaly.

Apart from that survival of Second Empire might work, especially because it didn't considered itself as a monarchy, but as an imperial republic. That said, it depended a lot on the charismatic possibilities of the emperor, as the whole political mythos was made around him, and may fail due to a different crisis as easily it did in 1870 while it looked for everyone as particularly strong.

*The fall of Second Empire is the typical bad PoD for reasons listed there
 
But without Chambord to gum things up, aren't we almost certainly going to get a monarchical restoration, whether or not the Legitimists are reactionary?
It's really not certain. You have two opposed conception of state and of monarchy, not just disagreements.
Orléanistes are the ancestor of center-right, more or less liberal/conservatives, more ready to act on concessions.
Légitimistes range from traditionalist conception of state to outright counter-revolutionaries conceptions.

(A bit, if you're more familiar with, like Carlists and Liberals in XIXth Spain)

It's not exaggerating to say there's blood between them (would it be only because the latters blame 1830 Revolution on the former)
Chambord is more a symptom of this deep division than a cause, really.

The question then becomes whether Philippe VII can actually hold on and unite the country behind him,
It's forgotting one thing : Orléanistes and Légitimistes managed to get relative dominance over the Assembly due to specific circumstances :
- Republicans were for continuing the fight against Prussia, they were against, winning the voices for peace while popular support for monarchism wasn't exactly vibrant.
- Elections without campaign, under foreign scrutiny.
- Low turnout

And even there the said political dominance was far from being obvious
- 223 Republicans
- 23 Bonapartists
- 98 Liberals (non-monarchists)
- 214 Orleanists
- 182 Legitimists


Time for next elections to happen (or even the partial elections of 71 that gave Republicans 80% of the remaining votes), and monarchist presence melted down as spare change under a fiscal sun, as in 1875 :

- 291 Left-wing Republicans
- 102 Moderate Republicans
- 76 Bonapartists
- 40 Orleanists
- 24 Legitimists


Eventually there was a really tiny and limited time window for a monarchic restoration, that depended on two really distinct and opposite conception of monarchy to suddenly get along.
Even assuming it worked, giving the quick political decline, the said restoration would be over before anyone saying "Guillotine".
 
So with any POD after the Hundred years war peoples can't see France becoming a constitutional monarchy.

That would be really far-fetched : there's plenty of possibilities.

But the best, IMHO, would be to prevent or limit the rise of absolutism and building it on traditional institutions such as Parlements and/or Estates Generals. (Wars of Religion being a good PoD for me)

Even there, adapting well enough french absolute monarchy before a revolutionary crisis (as in an earlier death of Louis XIV, before his system began its sclerosis) would be doable.

Surviving First or Second Empire could do the trick, but it would be relativly harder to maintain on the long run than a more classical constitutional/parlementarian monarchy, as all regimes depending on the charisma of the leaders (imperial or republican, regardless).
 
It's really not certain. You have two opposed conception of state and of monarchy, not just disagreements.
Orléanistes are the ancestor of center-right, more or less liberal/conservatives, more ready to act on concessions.
Légitimistes range from traditionalist conception of state to outright counter-revolutionaries conceptions.

(A bit, if you're more familiar with, like Carlists and Liberals in XIXth Spain)

It's not exaggerating to say there's blood between them (would it be only because the latters blame 1830 Revolution on the former)
Chambord is more a symptom of this deep division than a cause, really.

I think you are right. The Count of Paris might get a chance without Chambord but the Legitimists would never really accept him due to his ancestry (Egalitie who voted for the execution of his cousin, something even the Jacobins were surprised for, and who disclaimed the crown for himself and his line and then Louis Phillipe who betrayed the senior Bourbons and had them escorted into rest of their life exile for the second time). There was a lot of bad blood there and it wasn't only on Chambord's side. Unless the new Orleanist king became as conservative as say, Nap III, there was no way the Orelanists hold forever into the 1900s (particularly with a large Republican contingent).

There were however several opportunities. Republican France was not a certainty.

-The Petit Dauphin (Louis, Duke of Burgundy) does not die with his wife, Mare-Adelaide and oldest son (leaving the 3 year old future Louis XV the only survivor) and becomes King in 1715. He follows through with his plan to decentralize the government away from Versailles and Paris to the Provinces (which would butterfly away some of the French Revolution since they eliminated the Provinces). Marie-Adelaide was a canny political player and Petit Louis was a very devout, intelligent (and popular while he was dauphin). Their sons would be raised very differently than in OTL where Louis XV becomes King at 5 with Orleans as regent.

-Many possible way Louis XVI and a surviving Louis VII could have retained a constitutional monarchy if different decisions were made. Likewise if Charles X had behaved differently and the Duc de Berri hadn't been assasinated, we night not have had the "revolution" of 1830.

-Also if Nap III hadn't lost to the Prussians (or even gotten involved) and lived long enough for the Prince Imperial to becomes Napoleon IV (and then fufill his mother's wish of marrying a Spanish Infanta) we could have seen a Bonaparte/Bourbon consolidation of the crown into a new generation that would have been accepted by the rest of the crowned heads of Europe.
 
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