How to butterfly First French Republic ?

Not necessarely French Revolution, I'm just wondering if there is a way to convince people and king to work together. I'm just talking about French people volunteerely keeping Monarchy (and Louis XVI) instead of having restauration imposed in Vienna, and if you can keep good relationships between France and Austria it's even better, but not mandatory (even though I guess that not beheading Marie-Antoinette is already a great plus).
 
If i remember correctly (it's been a long ass time since i read it) Louis had the opportunity to create very weak provincial assemblies of some sort decades before the revolution. He didn't of course, he pretty solidly rejected the proposal made by one of his advisers (Necker i think?) And kept to the absolutism of his forebears.

If he had inclinations to reform earlier, it might have made him more palatable as a constitutional monarch
 
If i remember correctly (it's been a long ass time since i read it) Louis had the opportunity to create very weak provincial assemblies of some sort decades before the revolution. He didn't of course, he pretty solidly rejected the proposal made by one of his advisers (Necker i think?) And kept to the absolutism of his forebears.

If he had inclinations to reform earlier, it might have made him more palatable as a constitutional monarch

As far as I know, Parliament had a strong power already, since the Regent of Orleans. He could have created some provincial stuff, of course, but who would he trust ? Poors were not educated, riches were the leaders of Revolution, and nobility was not able to lead anymore, except for small baronnies in countryside. It would of course work Overseas, and it would give France some colonial international recognition (like for Polynesia, why not, since Bougainville was there ?) but I'm not sure it would work on mainland ...
 
Found what i had read

As is usual in every new reign, that of Louis XVI. began with some reforms. Two months after his accession Louis XVI. summoned Turgot to the ministry, and a month later he appointed him Controller-General of Finance. He even supported him at first against the violent opposition that Turgot, as an economist, a parsimonious middle-class man and an enemy of the effete aristocracy, was bound to meet with from the Court party.

Free trade in corn was proclaimed in September 1774,[2] and statute labour was abolished in 1776, as well as the old and corporations and guilds in the towns, which were no longer of use except to keep up a kind of industrial aristocracy, and by these measures hopes of reform were awakened among the people. The poor rejoiced to see the breaking down of the toll-gates, which had been put up all over France, and prevented the free circulation of corn, salt and other objects of prime necessity. For them it meant the first breach in the odious privileges of the landowners; while the peasants who were better off rejoiced to see the joint liability of the taxpayers abolished.[3] Finally, in the August of 1779, mortmain and personal servitude were suppressed upon the King’s private estates, and the following year it was decided to abolish torture, which was used in the most atrocious forms established by the Ordinance of 1670.[4] “Representative Government,” such as was established by the English after their revolution, and was advocated in the writings of the contemporary philosophers, also began to be spoken of. With this end in view, Turgot had even prepared a scheme of provincial assemblies, to be followed later on by representative government for all France in which the propertied classes would have been called upon to constitute a parliament. Louis XVI. shrank from this proposal, and dismissed Turgot; but from that moment all educated France began to talk of a Constitution and national representation.[5] However, it was no longer possible to elude the question of national representation, and when Necker became minister in July 1777, it came up again for discussion. Necker, who understood very well the wishes of his master, and tried to bring his autocratic ideas into some accord with the requirements of finance, attempted to manoeuvre by proposing the introduction of provincial assemblies only and relegating the possibility of a national representation to the distant future. But he, too, was met by a formal refusal on the part of the King. “Would it not be a happy contingency,” wrote the crafty financier, “that your Majesty, having become an intermediary between your estates and your people, your authority should only appear to mark the limits between severity and justice?” To which Louis replied: “It is of the essence of my authority not to be an intermediary, but to be at the head.” It is well to remember these words in view of the sentimentalities concerning Louis XVI which have been propagated by historians belonging to the party of reaction. Far from being the careless, inoffensive, good-natured person, interested only in hunting, that they wished to represent him, Louis XVI for fifteen years, until 1789, managed to resist the necessity, felt and declared, for new political forms to take the place of royal despotism and the abominations of the old régime

As to who he could trust? I don't know, though to be honest autocrats tend to trust very few people, if any at all, and it is as oft to their good fortune as their misfortune. Thats just the nature of the beast.
 
Louis needs to accept the new normal (constitutional monarchy) instead of trying to escape the country.
 
Get the pope to agree to changes.Louis accepted changes(not happily of course) until the pope criticised the revolutionaries’ proposed changes.
 
Get the pope to agree to changes.Louis accepted changes(not happily of course) until the pope criticised the revolutionaries’ proposed changes.

Louis needs to accept the new normal (constitutional monarchy) instead of trying to escape the country.

Well if you were trapped in a castle where everyone can enter and look at your windows as curious beasts, and some riots even happened INSIDE the castle. How would it be liveable ? I guess Louis XVI would die in the Tuileries instead of being behaeded.

And you both have a very negative image of Louis XVI in my opinion. He was not fond of ruling in fact, he was nothing like it's elders. He was ready for a compromise at many points ...
 
He was ready for a compromise at many points ...
After it was clear who was in control, namely, not him.

If he hated governing so, he would not have bothered maintaining his absolutist stance until forced to do otherwise, and he had many opportunities to do so before the tennis court oath
 
After it was clear who was in control, namely, not him.

If he hated governing so, he would not have bothered maintaining his absolutist stance until forced to do otherwise, and he had many opportunities to do so before the tennis court oath

Filial duty, that's the same problem as Marie Thérèse de France and that's why she married her cousin. It would have been easier if he let the power to a council but he would probably keep the control of the marine (he loved boats and sea even though he saw them only once). He is mostly described in France as a honest man with good intentions but too weak to make reforms.
 
too weak to make reforms.
Again, he had plenty of opportunities to make political reforms, he chose not to each time.

To quote my source again

At any rate, in 1778, at a time when it was already evident to all minds of more or less perspicacity, as it was to Turgot and Necker, that the absolute power of the King had had its day, and that the hour had come for replacing it by some kind of national representation, Louis XVI could never be brought to make any but the feeblest concessions. He convened the provincial assemblies of the provinces of Berri and Haute-Guienne (1778 and 1779). But in face of the opposition shown by the privileged classes, the plan of extending these assemblies to the other provinces was abandoned, and Necker was dismissed in 1781.
 
But in face of the opposition shown by the privileged classes, the plan of extending these assemblies to the other provinces was abandoned, and Necker was dismissed in 1781.

He was far to weak to resist, it's what I said
 
Well if you were trapped in a castle where everyone can enter and look at your windows as curious beasts, and some riots even happened INSIDE the castle. How would it be liveable ? I guess Louis XVI would die in the Tuileries instead of being behaeded.

And you both have a very negative image of Louis XVI in my opinion. He was not fond of ruling in fact, he was nothing like it's elders. He was ready for a compromise at many points ...

I can understand why he sought to flee. But it was a gamble that backfired completely and started the chain of events that led to war and his downfall. If he takes the opposite approach and embraces the new constitution (which was quite fair to him, allowing him to veto the legislature) maybe he could improve his public image and regain a normal life.
 
I can understand why he sought to flee. But it was a gamble that backfired completely and started the chain of events that led to war and his downfall. If he takes the opposite approach and embraces the new constitution (which was quite fair to him, allowing him to veto the legislature) maybe he could improve his public image and regain a normal life.

I think if we want it to work this way, the easiest way would be that an accident occurs, that forces authorities to give a true protection. In this way, Tuileries would be safe, and Louis XVI would probably consider to continue with this ...
 
Not necessarely French Revolution, I'm just wondering if there is a way to convince people and king to work together. I'm just talking about French people volunteerely keeping Monarchy (and Louis XVI) instead of having restauration imposed in Vienna, and if you can keep good relationships between France and Austria it's even better, but not mandatory (even though I guess that not beheading Marie-Antoinette is already a great plus).

It was quite probable that, after the French Revolution happened in 1789, the monarchy would be overthrown.

The point is that, as a quite recent historiography convincingly demonstrated, that the radicalism that was fully unleashed in 1792, was at the core of the revolutionary movement from the start.

The first French constitution made the king officially subordinate to the Parliamentary Assembly, placed him under strict and hostile control of the Parliamentary Assembly, and gave the king a mere temporary veto over the Assembly’s decisions. Which, to make comparisons with Britain, did not happen before the Parliament Act of 1911 and merely concerned the British House of Lords, not officially the king who remained the nominal sovereign of Britain.

The French first constitution had gone both too far and not far enough.

And this latent radicalism led the majority in the Assembly and its supporters to bully the king in order to prevent him from using his constitutional right to temporary veto.

This could not work because the conception of power among the French revolutionaries was not democracy but absolute power of the Assembly mimicking the abolished absolute power of the king.

So, once the revolution happened, the only way to maintain the monarchy was some kind of brutal repression of the revolutionaries and restoration of a more balanced devolution of power between the king and the Parliament. That’s basically what Napoleon did in 1795 for the Directorate regime and in 1799 for his own power. Expel the members of the Assembly by force and shoot a few hundreds violent demonstrators in the streets.
 
And what about avoiding French Revolution from the very beginning ? (French Revolution in the meaning of Bastille, kidnapping the King, ...)

This would require that someones motivates Louis XVI into just facing nobility and be truly absolutist during the time he would need to enforce democracy ? (Or at least basic human rights in the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom)
 
And what about avoiding French Revolution from the very beginning ? (French Revolution in the meaning of Bastille, kidnapping the King, ...)

This would require that someones motivates Louis XVI into just facing nobility and be truly absolutist during the time he would need to enforce democracy ? (Or at least basic human rights in the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom)
He should have just forced the tax reforms through without any consultations.The Parlement should never have been re-opened.
 
He should have just forced the tax reforms through without any consultations.The Parlement should never have been re-opened.

Ha was not trained for this kind of rule, but I think tax reforms would just make nobility as angry as riches ... it can not be pursued alone.
 
Louis XVI dies from natural cases in 1789, just after Revolution starts, Louis XVII is still child, revolutionaries could hope to dominate child-king, only regents would be problematic, but change of regent is not the same as execution of king, monarchy could survive it.
 
Louis XVI dies from natural cases in 1789, just after Revolution starts, Louis XVII is still child, revolutionaries could hope to dominate child-king, only regents would be problematic, but change of regent is not the same as execution of king, monarchy could survive it.

True, but the could also just disolve the Monarchy at the dead of Louis XVI ...

That is what absolutism meant.Not being trained for this kind of rule =/= what he should not have done.

Yes, I guess if he was really trusting his advisors he could have just enforced this ... some kinid of enlighted despotism ?
 
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