I certainly hope not, but then again you never know with these things.
Indeed. This is a VERY different 17th Century. Both in Europe and America.
I hate to ruin a surprise, but I think I've left enough clues not to make this much of a spoiler: ITTL, there is NO War of Spanish Succession. Spain does gets sucked into a Civil War at the start of the 18th Century, but for different reasons altogether.
Yabbut Leopold, Joseph, Charles, Prince Eugene, and Wilhelmine Amalia are all present and accounted for. An Austrian Habsburg claiming (?) Spanish Habsburg territory, just at the same time as OTL.
Two million is the consensus estimate for the number of Huguenots that left France throughout the 17th Century. Not all at once, of course. Some historians estimate lower numbers, but not significantly. It's just that ITTL, they have a Promised Land.
Which is a howling wilderness infested with ferocious natives on the other side of an ocean. There are lots of other places to go, civilized places where Protestants are welcome, much nearer places. I don't say that a policy of explicitly encouraging Huguenot settlement couldn't get a significant number of them to be colonists, but not more than 10%. Which is way more colonists than France sent overseas OTL.
Oh, but we are far, far away from Spanish territory at this point. We're talking Acadia, Quebec and Louisianne. New Spain doesn't come into play until the 18th Century.
It was described as "Northeastern and Central Mexico", which is very confusing. Even if Charles founds a "Mexican Empire" that includes all North America, "Mexico" would still be the area between the Rio Grande and Honduras; just as "Prussia" remained the area around Konigsberg, even as the "Kingdom of Prussia" expanded to include Silesia, Brandenburg, and Westphalia. I don't think anyone ever spoke of Finland as "eastern Sweden".
Louisiana is not "far, far away from Spanish territory"; Florida is Spanish, and Spain claims Texas. Sea access to Louisiana is through Spanish dominated waters.
OTL, Spain ignored French settlement; it was very small, and the French were Catholics. After 1713, France and Spain were both Bourbon kingdoms. However, here you have massive French Protestant settlement on the edge of the Spanish hegemony at a time when France and Spain are bitter rivals.
Finally, there is no way that New France and Acadia could accommodate hundreds of thousands of colonists. Unless there was immediate expansion into the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley - two hundred years early. And you know what? The Indians aren't going to like that one bit.
A bit of a backhanded compliment, but I'll take it.![]()
Meant sincerely.