What if France held on Lombardy to the present, would Lombardy be a French industrial center like what it did OTL in Italy?
When did they hold onto it? during the Italian wars?
I think it would be rather interesting for a Napoleonic Victory that leaves a Kingdom of Italy (one that could later be incorporate into france)
It could certainly be an industrial center, not sure if a French one though. I was always of the belief that even if the French managed to take and keep Milan, it might eventually be spun off to a second son. After, the claim of Milan was also often the claim of the Duke d'Orléans. The Valois Duke of Orléans brought the claim into the kingdom through Valentina Visconti, and her son Charles d'Orléans (the poet) even effectually tried to claim the Duchy... preliminary treaties between François Ier and Charles V also offered François' second son either Milan or the Netherlands, ect.
That's just me though.
Wait, the Netherlands? How did Francois have a claim to that?
To make peace between France and Spain, Charles V offered François' son Charles, the Duke of Orléans two choices around 1545. Marry his daughter who would have the Netherlands as her dowry, or marry his niece the daughter of Ferdinand and take Milan. The Duke of Orléans fell ill and died though; it was most likely a plot by Charles V to divide the French Royal Family, as the Dauphin protested his own claims to Milan: plus either match would make Orléans a sovereign in his own right, practically.
The French Kings claimed Flanders primarily, but flimsily they could claim the entire Netherlands through the Burgundians. In their mind, the entire inheritance should've been theirs once Charles the Bold died.
Flanders also was a French fief until the 16th century, legally speaking, so the French king in his role as feudal overlord could claim it in the event that the line of the liege holding it went extinct.
The same thing happened in the Angevin Empire actually, the King of England also ruled French Fiefs.
i agree on that.Linguistically, it wouldn't be impossibile, provided the dominant social strata change their literary and beurocratic language from Italian to French, which could happen not beyond the late Renaissance. Our vernacular Lombard speech, as a Gallo-Italic dialect, was and is indeed somewhat phonetically closer to French than to standard Italian.
Hrm. You know, I'm not so sure Lombardy wouldn't remain part of "France." What territories were spun off from France under second sons in this period? None as far as I can tell.
To make peace between France and Spain, Charles V offered François' son Charles, the Duke of Orléans two choices around 1545. Marry his daughter who would have the Netherlands as her dowry, or marry his niece the daughter of Ferdinand and take Milan. The Duke of Orléans fell ill and died though; it was most likely a plot by Charles V to divide the French Royal Family, as the Dauphin protested his own claims to Milan: plus either match would make Orléans a sovereign in his own right, practically.
The French Kings claimed Flanders primarily, but flimsily they could claim the entire Netherlands through the Burgundians. In their mind, the entire inheritance should've been theirs once Charles the Bold died.
OTOH Mary the Rich and her descendants also claimed the entire inheritance, including the duchy of Burgundy. Furthermore it could be argued that the way Burgundy ended up in the hands of the house of Valois, that they held it as the heirs of old Capetian house of Burgundy. When king Henri of France gave Burgundy to his brother Robert, to end the succession dispute, he gave it away to his line and all natural (male and female) heirs.
The Valois king Jean the Good later inherited Burgundy through proximity of the blood, it didn't revert to the crown, in fact Burgundy explicitly demanded to stay separate from the French Crown (royal demesne).
However the ''final'' compromise of the treaty of Senlis, probably popular with neither party, proved to be somewhat stable.
Regarding the treaty it also stated that duke Charles of Orléans at the same time should receive some IIRC 5 French duchies in appanage.
A French Lombardy separated from the rest of France, could eventually be lost. Especially if something like Italian nationalism develops, which probably won't discriminate against French, Germans, Spaniards etc.