List of monarchs III

[TheBeanieBaron]

I claim Gaul.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

What if ... Charles VIII and Anne of Britanny's first son lived?

King of France
1507-1534: Charles IX "Orlando" of France (House of Valois) [1]
1534-1550: Louis XII of France (House of Valois) [2]
1550-1561: Jean III of France (House of Valois) [3]
1561-1565: Charles X (House of Valois) [4]
1565-1594: Charles XI Amadée (House of Valois) [5]
1594-1619: Charles XII Étienne (House of Valois) [6]
1619-1630: François I Joseph (House of Valois)[7]
1630-1701: Louis XIII (House of Valois)[8]
1701-1749: Charles XIII Alphonse (House of Valois) [9]
1749-1757: Rodolphe II (House of Valois) [10]
1757-1806: Robert III Stanislas "Le Roi Soleil" (House of Valois) [11]

Emperors of Gaul
1806-1815: Charles XIV Paul (House of Valois) [12]
1815-1819: Regency Council of Louis XIV (House of Valois) [13]
1819-1820: Rodolphe III "Le Empereur Hiver" (House of Valois) [14]

Spoiler: Previous Monarchs

[1] Charles Orland was the first and only son of Charles VIII of France and Anne of Britanny, and one of their two children to live to adulthood with his sister Anne. He was born in 1492 and became the Dauphin to the French throne. Because of his father's absence and his mother's waning health after the late birth of Anne, he was mostly raised between Amboise with his godmother Jeanne de Laval and Moulins with his aunt Anne de Beaujeu and her husband. His father was often at war, mostly in Italy, where his three expeditions earned the French control over Milan through the Louis D'Orléans and some influence over Savoy, but at the cost of many lives. Charles Orland was really marked by the death of one of his older friends at court, Charles de Bourbon, who died in the Battle of Florence in 1506, imprinting on him a very negative idea of war. His godmother taught him all about French and Italian literature, influencing him in his future patronage.

He rose to the throne in June 1507, after his father died from horrible convulsions. His mother died in the same year, and his sister inherited the throne of Britanny, conforming to the clauses of the marriage between their parents. She got engaged to Ferdinand II of Naples, in order to appease the situation in Italy, and ensuring a match that benefited her brother without creating a potentially dangerous alliance like the Austrian match that had thrown the diplomacy of her mother into disarray: Anne II was firmly on her brother's side, and did everything in her power to tie every loose Briton end with a French string.

The young King's ordre du jour in 1507 was simple: clean up his father's mess. His father had a political vision: he wanted to shoot an arrow through the Mediterranean that did have to transperce Naples in order to lodge itself deeply in the Ottomans' heart, before landing in Jerusalem. This vision, however, was essentially built on a muddy foundation of wishful thinking, and his son, already disgusted from war by the death of his confident Charles de Bourbon only one year prior. He got engaged to Yolande, sister of the heirless Duke of Savoie, five years older than he was. The King's vision was not directed towards the East like his father's, but towards a consolidation of the French territory: he wanted to ensure peace and exchanges between France and the rest of Europe, and especially with Italy. To this end, he wanted to create a solid, cohesive estate in Italy (for which he married the unofficial heir apparent to the throne of Savoy and waited for his heirless and married to an infertile wife uncle to die, ensuring a rich, cohesive and connected estate from Lyon to Milan and Arles to Crémone. With this powerful and legitimate collection of territories, the quarel with Naples squashed and burried through his sister's alliance (especially as the King of Aragon was starting to show displeasure at the idea of Naples belonging to this bastard line instead of them), he hoped to make France too big of a piece to chew, while being resolute to keep polite relations with everyone.

Being quite a seductive diplomat, he managed to sweet-talk the Queen of Castille into an arbitration with her husband and her sisters: there, he let the conflicting interests of Juana, Philipp von Hapsburg, the Queen of Portugal and the still unmarried Princess of Aragon collide, while attempting to reconcile them to France if not to each others. It was thought for a very long time that he had masterfully played his hand to lead to an uneasy Regency by the for now unmarried Catherine of Aragon, designated to last until a potential marriage, making her, for now, a mostly neutral actor, effectively depriving the Hapsburgs of a major asset while making himself look like the neutral, benevolent, smiling arbiter of peace for his time. In fact, from a diary of his favourite, Lucien d'Albignac, retrieved in archives in Amboise in 1967, show that even to his most intimate partners, he declared to be very disappointed for the poor Queen who did seem quite lucid to him, especially taking into account her difficult situation, and that he wished he could have done more to satisfy everyone with a fair distribution.

It was also this sort of earnest enthusiasm and benevolence that led him to be the patron of many prominent thinkers, poets and writers at first, and then inventors, sculptors, painters, ... among them Leonardo da Vinci, the painter Raphaelle, botanist Giovanni Manardo, ... he saw the early beginning of his reign as an invitation to a long-term and ambitious vision for his Kingdom. He wanted to create a strong base, and has the charisma to invite to reflexion, but sadly little of the actual administrative competence to make it happen.

When Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and Milan, died in 1527, he inherited the possessions of his uncle, and toured his newly acquired estates in Italy to meet his new subjects, promising to protect their way of life, and even inhabited Milan for a few months. He integrated much of his uncle's administration and personel to his own Court, hoping to acquire new talents, and recruited a bilingual secretary from Milan, André d'Alciat, for his correspondence with Italy. When in 1537 Charles II of Savoy died without issue from his legitimate wife Jeanne of Naples, Yolande, a very ambitious woman, claimed the Duchy for herself, against her brothers who were all excommunicated, ordinated to some ecclesiastical positions, or born illegitimate, and gained approval from the Pope and her illegitimate-born brother René. Happy to have time away from his wife, and her to finally own this Duchy she had seen falling from hands to hands for years without ever arriving in hers until now, the King and Queen were both very personally satisfied of this development.

The royal couple, despite the both's much more pronounced interest in older men than each other, was quite a harmonious household, and they managed to sire four children: Louis (B. 1510), Anne (B. 1512), Charles, Duke of Orleans (B. 1514), and Henri, Duke of Berry (B. 1517). The King died at the age of 42, being remembered in his Court for his charming personality and Italian mannerisms, and was even more fondly remembered by his subjects who were glad to finally be awarded a generation without wars, without conscription and with lower taxes. After his death, he throne of France went to Louis XII.

[2] Louis XII ascended the throne in 1534 at the age of 24. At the time of his ascension, Louis was a widower, with his wife, Princess Margaret (B. 1508), having died the previous year while giving birth to their third child, who died not long after their Mother. With no sons, Louis was eager to remarry and would do so the next year when he married the Neapolitian Princess (and his cousin) Giovanna (B. 1517), which renewed the French alliance with Naples. The two would get along well throughout the ups and downs of Louis's reign and would share 5 children.

Louis continued his Father's cultural policies, hiring and sponsoring many artists, poets, playwrights, and writers. This would inevitably lead to him coming into contact with renowned reformer, John Calvin. John like Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon believed that the time of the Catholic Church had come to an end, and began preaching a new Christian sect known as Calvinism. Louis took an interest in this new sect and would meet with John in 1538, to discuss theology with him. After several debates between the two, Louis, and his family converted to Calvinism and were baptised in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, by John Calvin himself.

Some French Nobles, such as the Duke of Bourbon, Alencon, and Berry and the Count of Auveregne, Boulogne, Angouleme and St Pol, agreed with Calvin and the King and converted as well. Others such as the Count of Foix, Montpensier, and Duke of Nemours and Orleans, opposed the King and would raise against him in 1540, in what would become known as the First War of French Religion. The rebellious nobles wanted the King to revert to Catholicism and were supported by England and Spain, who sought to antagonise the French.

Louis would prove himself quite the general however and would lead an army against the nobles, defeating them battle after battle. Many took this as a sign of Divine Backing and abandoned the Catholic Cause, while others fought on. Their efforts would prove futile however and in 1542, the Duke of Berry would be killed in the Battle of Albi. With that the first War of French Religion came to an end.

Louis would soon begin instigating Calvin's reforms, weakening the power of the Church, reforming their practices, and introducing new ones, most notably the concepts of Predestination, a Vernacular Bible, and allowing the Clergy to marry. John Calvin was also appointed to the role of Archbishop of Reims, and would later crown Louis's successor, His eldest son.

In 1545, France would be invaded by England and Spain, who claimed they were invading in the name of the Pope. Louis would raise his armies to fight the invaders, and would personally lead a force to attack Calais, the last English possession on the continent. After a brutal and gruelling 500 day siege, which saw no more than 4 relief attempts by the English, Calais fell to Louis, who entered it in triumph. It was soon followed up by the French victory at the Naval Battle of Wight, which saw 34 English ships destroyed.

Meanwhile, things were going less well on the Spanish front. The new Duke of Berry was killed in battle by the Spanish, with his Dukedom being inherited by his brother. The city of Toulouse and Bordeaux were also being besieged, with English forces assisting the Spanish. Louis would march down south with his army to stop them, and would request Neapolitan assistance. Naples would accept and would donate 20 ships and 10,000 Gold coins to the French cause. From 1547 to 1550, Louis fought the English and French in several battles, winning some and losing others. By the time of his death, he managed to relieve Bordeaux and kick the English and Spanish out of Gascony but failed to relieve Toulouse, which fell to the Spanish in 1549.

In early 1550, Louis would contract smallpox and would die on March 29th. He would be succeeded by his senior son; Jean, Dauphin of France, otherwise known as Jean III.

[3] Jean was the eldest son of Louis and his wife, and named so for his father's ally, confidant, and friend; John Calvin. Raised in the freedoms of the Calvinist court of his father, the young Dauphin has been extremely pious and obedient even as a child, in one instance where his tutor lamented the death of the Pope, the young Dauphin ordered him whipped, and uttered the infamous statement; N’épargnez pas le papiste, car il n’abrite que la corruption. When his father died, the ten-year-old Jean inherited both a throne and a war with England and Spain. The war rapidly turned against France, with the Anglo-Spanish Alliance, headed by William III of England, son of Henry VIII Tudor, and Joanna of Castile and Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Jean III, his Regent, and his advisors were forced to rapidly seek a peace, and they found one in the form of the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554, losing Guyenne and Calais to the English, with Calais being directly ceded to England, and Guyenne split off a new crown in the quiver of William III and losing the majority of the Languedoc to Spain. After the Treaty of Toulouse, Jean III descends in religious extremism, finding Calvinism too lenient upon Popery, and he developed a merciless and extreme interpretation of the Doctrine, commonly called Jeanism (Puritanism), and in the year 1560, seventy-five churches in France were following the Jeanist doctrine. In 1557, Jean III had taken a wife; Christine of Hesse, but their marriage was pained, and a single daughter; Christine of France, was born to the pair in 1559. At the age of 21, in 1561, Jean III did suffer a deep melancholy and after much soul-searching and thought, the King did end his life. He was succeeded by his uncle; Charles of Orléans.

Duke Charles II of Orléans before his ascension
[4] Duke Charles of Orléans was born in 1514, to Charles IX "Orlando" of France and Princess Yolande Louise of Savoy. In 1527, he was made the Duke of Orléans, after the death of Louis, who was the Duke of Milan, but also the Duke of Orléans. Unlike his father, Charles aspired to be a warrior, like in the stories that were told to him by courtiers.

He opposed his brother’s conversion to Calvinism and was joined by several other nobles, thus kicking off the First War of French Religion. Charles distinguished himself in various battles. However, he always remained skeptical of his English and Spanish allies, fearing that they would take lands from France. His fears would finally be realized by the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554. After this, he pledged his services to his nephew, King Jean III. However, the French king continued to despise him and even imprisoned him once.

Upon the King’s suicide in 1561, Charles succeeded him as ruler of France. Immediately, after his ascension, he had to put down a revolt caused by revolting Calvinists and Puritans. Fearing swift reprisals, a plot was formed to install Jean III’s two-year-old daughter, Christine onto the throne, but this also failed.

After an exhausting four year reign, Charles X died in 1565, from a bad case of the fever, he was succeeded by his eldest son; Charles Amadée, Dauphin of France..

[5] Charles Amedée was born in 1533, before his Grandfather's death to Charles, Duke of Orleans and his Savoyard wife, aged nineteen and eighteen respectively and sadly his birth resulted in the death of his mother. For much of the early years of his life, the Prince lived a relatively austere and Spartan life, as his father took a new wife and had further issue, and the young Charles Amedée was left to himself. At the age of sixteen, he purchased the Lordship of Becelaere in Flanders from the de la Woestyne, and moved his small band of retainers and friends to his new property. In 1553, Charles Amedée married Manuela, Princess of Portugal (B.1534) as part of the negotiations of alliance conducted between Portugal and France, and was a gift his father abdicated Milan to his son, who was crowned as Amadeo I, Duke of Milan.

The Young prince, both a sovereign Lord in Milan and a vassal of his cousin; Jean III, had to sit upon a fine line, preserving the interests of Milan and Becelaere, as well as maintaining the confidence his cousin had in him. In 1559, Charles Amedée officially sanctioned the Jeanist doctrine be expanded into Milan, despite toeing the line of Catholicism himself, and it was in 1560, during the 7 months of his fathers fourth imprisonment under Jean III, Charles Amedée did travel to Rome and meet his Holiness himself, and reconciled with the church, immediately banning the Jeanist doctrine in Milan.

During the reign of his father, Charles Amadée became a respected diplomat and representative of his father, notably signing the Truce of Winchester between England and France. After his father's reign, the Dauphin returned to Paris and was crowned as Charles XI Amadée, but the event was struck by more tragedy as his wife; Manuela, did collapse and pass after the coronation, leaving Charles Do and their four children without a wife or mother. It was in 1568 that Charles discussed remarriage, and so by the end of the year had taken the young Immaculeta of Lorraine (B.1545) as his second wife, and she would give him a further four children. The reign of Charles XI Amadée was a golden age of peace and prosperity, with a sword never raised in anger during the twenty nine years of rule. In 1594, the King passed and was succeeded by his third child; Prince Étienne Charles.

[6] Prince Étienne Charles was the third of the Prince Charles Amadée and his Portuguese wife, born in 1557 after the birth of his elder siblings; Prince Louis Jean (B.1554) and Prince Charles Philibert (B.1555). Born on the Saints Day of Saint Stephen, his mother and father named him for both his paternal grandfather, father, and the saint of the day. being the third son, Étienne occupied a strange place, being raised in Flanders undergoing a tutorship by the Prince-Bishop of Liege himself, marking the young Étienne against his Milanese older siblings. A tumultuous time, the young Étienne flirted with faith his entire life,having been put forward for a Flemish bishopric at the age of eleven (1568), before converting to Lutheranism by the influence of his retainers and friends (1571) and in 1575, he converted to Calvinism, before returning to Catholicism at the age of twenty two.

It was in 1576 that Tragedy struck the House of Capet, as Louis Jean, the Dauphin of France was thrust from his horse travelling through Normandy, and but a year later where Charles Philibert, who had been made Governor of Milan in his father's stead, died of a venereal disease, thrusting Étienne into the picture as the Dauphin of France. The death of their full-sister in 1591; Maria of France (B.1558), who in 1580, briefly married Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria until his death in 1585, and afterwards took her vows and became a Nun, made Étienne the sole surviving child from his father's first marriage, and in the mind of strengthening the Franco-Portuguese alliance, Étienne took a Portuguese bride, the niece of his mother; Infante Teresa of Portugal.

The death of his father placed the thirty seven year old Dauphin upon the throne, who granted significant titles and lands upon his four half-siblings, the eldest being a full decade and a half younger than Étienne, or Charles XII as he was crowned. It was in 1601 that Henry IX Tudor, son of William III and King of England died, and the male line of the Tudors has died out, and by the Treaty of Toulouse the Kingdom of Guyenne had been tied to the survival of the Royal House, and so Charles XII approached the Papacy for arbitration, and it was in 1609, after an eight year Cardinal-Regency in Guyenne that His Holiness Julius V decided in favour of the French, and so Guyenne was once more United to France after fifty five years of Tudor rule. By the 1610s, Charles XII was old beyond his years, while only in his fifties, he was obese and bald, but jovial in his manners. In 1619, after a twenty five year reign, he passed, and the throne went to his son, François Joseph.


[7] Born in 1583, the young duc de Bourgogne François Joseph was the spare to the throne of Charles the XII, following his older brother Robert Xavier, dauphin of France. Brought up in the diverse environment of the court of Charles the XII, François would have an excellent education by the standards of the time - along with his many siblings, François was considered one of the greatest princes of the age, famous for his patronage of both military inovators and famously, sculpters.

François' coronation painting, circa 1620.
His status has a second son allowed François plenty of liberties (and money) to pursue his two passions - religion and the sea. Unlike his father and brother, who were moderate catholics, François was himself a moderate calvinist, who believed that the various christian theologies spread in France, both protestant and apostolic, should be consolidated into one, and it would be thus that François' court in Dijon would became a center of French theologians, and it would be during this time that the future Gallic Church would be born.

Another of François' aforementioned dreams was of gold in the Americas and the spices of India, and an Empire that stretched over all land touched by the sun. It was thus that François would earn his famous moniker "Le Prince Pirate", as he would become the famous and rather public patron of many French and foreign corsairs that would almost lead France and Spain to war many times. It would be these same corsairs that would be responsible for the setting up of France' first colonies - In Acadie, (OTL New England and OTL Acadie), the two towns of Port du Prince (OTL Halifax) and Montjoie (OTL Boston) would be founded, while the town of Port Royal (OTL Capetown) in the southern tip of Africa would be founded by the famous calvinist corsair, Louis Xavier d'Esprée.

The death of his brother short of the re-annexation of Guyenne would see the previously unmarried François forced to seal the peace with Spain by marrying the daughter of the Spanish King Ferdinand, Infanta Maria Catalina. Despite their difference in religion, the marriage would go rather well - while the couple were certainly not the image of the romantic couple, they complemented each other well and often more than not agreed - however, Maria Catalina would prove to be unable to bear healthy children, with all children not stillborn the couple had dying soon afther birth. For the most part, François and his wife would eventually agree to stop trying, as François would famous state that "God has given me a barren wife: But he has given me a fertile consort, who stands at my side and counsels me better than most men."

The death of François' father in 1619 would see the Dauphin arise to the throne, and it would be one of joy as François would succesfully negotiate with Spain for the return of Languedoc back to France, as Spain would enter a period of hostility with it's old allies in England and the Empire due to piracy, tarrifs and a lack of financial certainty. It would be thus that François would be able to use the division between the Austrian and Dutch houses of Habsburg to invade what remained of Imperial Burgundy, Luxemburg and Lille, conquering all three.

After these adquiring these things, François would finally move to establish the Gallican church, that would become the first state religion of the french. François would spend much of his later reign taking over monasteries and properties of disgruntled nobles.

François would eventually die from a chill he would catch while visiting the coast.

[8] Louis de Valois was born to Charles de Valois, first son of Charles XI Amédée and Immaculée of Lorraine, and Magdalena de Medici, sister of Pope Leo X, in 1625. The young baby was then far from being the French Dauphin. He was, however, his parents' treasure, and they made sure to give him the best education. The young Dauphin de Lorraine was raised in both Calvinism (from the Valois) and Catholicism (from the Lorraine and the Medici), and was taught from a young age what a ruler needed to do. However, when his father died in 1629, he became heir to a much bigger pressure, and his mother raised a true council of scholars and tutors to attempt to teach him everything a youn King needs to know. When François I died, the young King was hastily baptized in the proper Gallican rite and was then crowned Louis XIII, King of France.

From 1630 to 1640, the Regency was assured by a Council including his mother, the Duke of Bourbon, his uncle's advisors and the Archbishop of Reims. This council would mainly focus on overseeing the administration of the new Gallican Church and attempts to stich back the Gallican and Catholic Church in some capacity: Magdalena di Medici was, after all, the Pope's cousin, and wanted an arrangement that would allow the Gallican Church to exist within the Catholic Church, instead of creating a latent conflict. The Council of Besançon of 1637, led by the Archbishop of Reims himself and the Legate Giulio de Medici, was a very long and frustrating endeavour on both parts, only held together by the intransigeance of the two Medicis. The Edict of Besançon that came out of it was a weird attempt at compromise, that did however allow for peace in Louis XIII's time: the Gallican and Catholic priests would both be allowed to give sacraments, and sacraments from one clergy was valid in the other, and Gallican bishops could oversee Catholic priests and vice-versa on their respective dioceses. This joint religious administration actually presented a sort of boon: the religious administration was forced to recede in the back, while the secular administration was in full swing, finally unburduned from the religious administrations and the bogus accusations from both clergies to one another.

Now somewhat reconciled with the Catholic nations, and dynastically linked to the Iberians, the Valois' future seemed a bit more certain. The young king was betrothed to the Spanish Infante, Isabella Trasmastara, in order to mend the relationship between the two countries, although it was clearly stated that the second child, and not the first, would inherit the Spanish throne. His cousin, Anne de Bourbon, was betrothed to the cousin of the King of Portugal, in order to keep some blood relations between the two families. The King's main obsession was the same as his predecessor's : the expansion of France beyond the sea. Acadie expanded towards the Saint-Louis River (St-Laurent), connecting the Lakes to the Ocean, through the alliance with many Native tribes. When it became clear that the administration could not be left to the mayors of the two cities anymore, a viceroyalty was elected with a colonial assembly. In Africa, Port-Royal evolved into the Confédération du Bon-Espoir, French and Milanese colonists establishing many coastal cities in order to trade glass and manufactured objects for ivory and gold. The conversion of several Malagasy princes to Christianity was considered as a great victory by France and the Gallican clergy. But by far, the most influential decision taken by the king was the establishment of the villeneuves along several trails, creating trading and diplomatic outposts with the Natives, and easing colonization inland. The longest of those trails, the Great Southern Road, lead to Sainte-Geneviève (around OTL Memphis), a fort town in the Pays des Illinois, where one could take the Sissipiou River down to the Ocean.

This, however, sparked a controversy that France (and, once they were let in on the goal of the operation Portugal and Spain) would gladly instrumentalize: if you could convert Africans and Natives, it necessarily meant that they have a soul. And how can you own a soul? The Bordeaux Controversy surrounding the soul of non-Europeans and the ethics of enslaving potential converts was not, mind you, motivated by ethics, but by a calculation to undermine England, Norway and Denmark's colonial attempts. Indeed, whereas Spain and France had massive populations to draw from, and Portugal had become accustomed to coopting local monarchs, the Northern kingdoms were shorter on population. Thus, the final decision to forbid Christian kings and merchants from buying slaves was mostly an attempt to club the colonial ambitions of rival kingdoms down, using theology. While far from ending slavery in the colonies, this declaration of intent did slow down the development of the slave trade in America. The French expédition led by Capitaine Jules d'Aubigny towards India and Japan, leading a royally-sanctioned alliance of merchants and privateers named the "Flotte Royale de l'Orient", led to the purchase of several fishing ports as trading posts: Potupithyia on Taprobane (OTL Sri Lanka), the island of Lantau in South China and the southern quarter of the island of Udo (close to Jeju) in order to provide French ports in the Orient, facilitating trade with China, Japan, Korea, India and the Malay Archipelago.

Economically, the Kingdom was badly affected by the awful summer of 1654, a stromy summer that prevented any harvests from reaching its goal and forcing the Kingdom to import expensive Italian rice and wheat, causing a great debt that hampered Louis's dreams of great cities overseas whose magnificence could make Orléans or Bordeaux blush. However, this agricultural crisis led to intense work from France's growing population of scholars to improve France's agriculture, especially through the introduction of New World plants such as the Indian wheat they called "maiz", or the golden apple (potato) that could both withstand wet summers, greatly improving France's agricultural security. A certain lady scholar, named Marguerite de Florensac, who had participated to the study of butterflies and gained great renoun for proving they were actually caterpillars with wings, and not pebbles animated by Satan [yes, it was actually the theory on butterflies for the longest time in medieval and Renaissance Europe] also found ot the secret of the silkworms, importing them to France and presenting them to his majesty. This gave the French monarchy a quasi-monopoly on silk, keeping the secret of the silkworm a well guarded one for nearly four decades, until another similar exploration led by Portuguese captain Sebastian de Oliveira arrived to the same conclusion and introduced the silkworms to his birthplace: Alentejo.

In his old years, the King, proud of having repaid most of the Kingdom's debts, began the renovation of the Louvres into a comfortable castle, in order to reconnect with the center of power that is Paris, and with the small people that lived in the great city. The very old man died in his sleep at 75, after one of the longuest reigns in history, most likely from old age and from the sawdust of the renovations, he who had moved back to the Louvres before the rest of his family in order to oversee the works. His widow followed him in the grave seven months later, after the two had a very long life and six children together. After his reign came his Great-grandson; Charles-Alphonse, Comte de Vermandois.

[9] Charles-Alphonse de Valois was born in 1691 to Louis-Rodolphe de Valois (B.1671) and his Este wife; Beatrice of Modena (B.1672). Louis-Rodolphe was the son of Pierre -Charles de Valois, Comte de Vermandois (B.1649), the third child and second son of Louis XIII. Pierre-Charles has been granted the County of Vermandois upon his marriage to Princess Euphemia of Scotland (B.1650) in 1670, and the pair welcomed their first child in 1671; Pierre-Jacques de Valois, followed by Louis-Rodolphe de Valois the year after. Pierre-Jacques has been born stunted, both physically and mentally, so in 1690, his father disinherited his eldest son, placed him in a monastery and named his second son as his heir and orchestrated his sons marriage to Beatrice of Modena. Tragedy struck in 1692 as Louis, Dauphin of France (B.1647), the eldest son and heir of Louis XIII died childless, thrusting the Comte de Vermandois and his progeny into the limelight, and a year later, Louis-Rodolphe also passed, after a bout of the pox, pushing Charles-Alphonse further to the throne.

The Comte de Vermandois himself died in 1699, two years before his father, and so the young Charles-Alphonse became the second Comte de Vermamdois. From this point, Louis XIII took his descendent under his wing, but alas, perhaps he pushed too strongly. Rumours said Louis had his great-grandson sleep in his bed and tales of groping and "acts unbecoming of the Great King" taking place. It was said that in the Kong's funerary procession, that the young heir did not weep once. Upon his own coronation, Charles XIII Alphonse ordered the demolition of the Palais du Louvre, his predecessors personal project. Guided by his Catholic mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, the young king did personally conduct a pilgrimage to Rome, and received the Eucharist by the pope himself in 1710, in an effort to further distance himself from his Calvinist-inclined Great-Grandfather. His colonial policy was to favour expansion in the East Indies, and Africa, authorizing more french merchants to purchase trading posts and warehousing particularly in India. In 1714, the King would take a bride, a non too distant cousin; Isabeau of Berry, another great-Grandchild of Louis XIII. It was a happy marriage, with five children being born.

Perhaps to further divide himself from his forebear, Charles XIII did actively seek warfare, notably forming the Soldat à louer de Paris, a Corps recruited from the region surrounding Paris, whom the French state would hire out to kingdoms and nations who could pay the men, and the French crown for the pleasure. The Soldat à louer de Paris notably fought in the War of the Hessian Succession (1714-1719), the Salzburg War (1716), the War of the Portuguese Succession (1723-1726), the Cordoba War (1729-1736), the War of the Parmese Succession (1739-1742), and the Algiers Corsairs War (1727-1741). Charles XIII 's France herself was a peaceful kingdom, but religious discontent boiled under the surface; the Calvinists of the South and West, the Lutherans in the Rhenish lands, the Catholics in the East and North, and the Gallicanists in the centre all bore grudges against another. Thankfully perhaps, the King did see no religious strife, and passed in 1749.

[10] Prince Rodolphe was born in 1715 as the first child of Charles XIII Alphonse and Isabeau of Berry. He and his siblings were raised in both the Catholic faith as part of his father’s distancing from their forebear Louis XIII. Rodolphe married Princess Margaret of Scotland (b. 1712), daughter of David IV, in 1736. The marriage was an loving one and the pair had seven children together.

Rodolphe succeeded his father Charles XII Alphonse upon the latter's death in 1749, and converted to Gallican to promote religious tolerance arcoss France. This didn't work as in 1754 his Calvinist nephew François (b. 1718), son of his uncle Louis-Jean (b. 1692), proclaimed himself King of Occitanie, beginning the Second War of French Religion.

Burgundy would join Occitanie in their fight against France when they declared Ernest Louis, Elector of Hanover, their King. Thus the war became an one v. two between France and Occitanie and Burgundy, with the latter two not only supported by Denmark, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire, but also quite good in combat, defeating the French in battle after battle.

Rodolphe would not see the end of the Second War of French Religion, as he was assassinated in 1757 by an Calvinst stabbing him in the back. He was succeeded by his son, Robert Stanislas.

[11] The man who would grow to become the Sun King was born Louis Robert Stanislas Xavier, duc de Bourgogne, son of Rodolphe of France and Margaret of Scotland, born on a misty eve of 1742, third child and first son of the couple. His many tutors would remark highly upon the young Dauphin, as a bright boy heading for a bright future. Indeed, the injection of the rather diluted Stuart line (Scotish kings, in their pursuit of centralization, had married on and off their nobility and different royal families, being by far the "cleanest" royal house of the age.) served well for the French royal house, as Robert and his three brothers, the duke of Chartres Louis Phillipe, the Duke of Luxembourg Rodolphe Louis and the Duke of Provence, Gaston Louis, would all four go on to become three of the hall-marks of the French Revolution.

The King would have barely reached his majority when news of his father's death would reach him. Louis and his short regency led by his only remaining loyalist uncle left, Phillipe of Orleans, would lead a two year final confrontation that would see both Burgundy and Occitannie destroyed. Occitanie, riddled with civil conflict over the would be ambitions of Robert's cousin, would quickly be reconquered, while Burgundy, supported by many german states, would take longer, but would see the birth of a military renaissance in France that would see France reach a level of military technology well above their neighbours. France, divided at the start of Robert's reign, would reach the Rhine only three years after it.

Robert the Victorious, by Jacques Louis David.
​

The reconquest of Burgundy and Occitania, alongside the inclusion of new provinces on the Rhine, would see a level of deep reform that would take almost twenty years to complete, from tax to finances to administrative and the military. The end of the regional parliaments and the introduction of la Carte Royale of 1770, widely regarded as as the first modern constitution of the world. It clearly distributed the powers of the regenerated Senate of France, the tribunals and the French Monarchy proper. Robert's reign would see finnaly the end of France's religious turmoil, as the head of the Gallican Church was made Primate of Gaul, and the church became autonomous and properly established. Most of France would come to adopt Gallicanism in turn. Acadia, Canada and Artactique, (OTL South Africa) and Australie (Australia) adquired in the 1º War of the Coalition (1779-1783) would see all three of France's major settler colonies explode in population, resources and autonomy, with the first statute of "Les Provinces Ultramarines" being given to Acadia in 1786 as a reward for Acadian efforts in the coalition wars.

Robert's sternest legacy would be surely in the building of infrastructure. From the renovated Palais de Tuileries to the meagrest road in Aquitaine, Robert's caring hand would see all. France and it's colonies would see a renovation and building spree that would reach all, especially in education facilities as Robert would be the personal patron of at least 43 confirmed universities.

The high-mark of Robert's Kingship would be the three coalition wars. In the first, many of the German Princes defeated in the second French war of Religion and the Kingdom of the Netherlands would attempt to wrestle the conquered parts west of the Rhine from France, but they would be quickly defeated in a sucessive series of battles in Flanders and Westphalia by the Duke of Luxembourg and Duke of Chartres, would see all of Roman Gaul and all Dutch and German land west of the Rhine annexed into france. It was at this time that Robert would name himself "Robert, King of the French and master of Gaul". In reaction for this massive land-grab, England, Austria and Spain would all declare war on France. It would be a futile effort that would see these powers defeated not once, but twice.

Robert's would not take any territtory from any further power but England, which would see Catholic Ireland separated from it, with the last of the Dukes of Bourbon, Antoine of Bourbon made it's first king. Robert would furthermore see Poland, which had been diminished by France's ally Prussia, Austria and Russia to just it's central region (Congress Poland) back to having Galicia from Austria, and would support the candidature of his cousin, François of Orleans, to the Polish throne.

To cement his victory and assure peace, Robert would organize a warming of Polish-Russian relations by marrying himself to Anna Pavlona, princess of Russia, with whom he would have plenty of children.

Robert would live his last years in peace, growing fat in the Tuilleries. Remembered as one of France's most beloved monarchs, Robert would be the last of the infamous "Thunderbolt Quartet" to survive, dying after one of France's last victories during his reign - the invasion of the Ottoman Empire in cooperation with Austria-Hungary and Russia, which would see France annex Algeria and Egypt, and becoming a patron of the newly formed Kingdom of Greece from it's capital in Thessalonika, where Robert would place one of his nephews by his youngest brother, the Duke of Provence, on the throne.

By his death by cardiac arrest, France had an Empire upon which the sun never set, ranging from Canada, Acadia, Saint Domingue, Artartique, Algeria, Australie, and a hundred and more trading ports in both the East and West Indies, alongside plenty of land in India, Indochina and China proper. He would be succeded by his son Charles Paul.

Charles XIV Paul of Gaul, Primate of Gaul​

[12] Born in 1785 as the first of three children of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, Charles Paul grew up to be an capable and ambitious man who upon succeeding his father in 1806 delcared France to become the Empire of Gaul. He worked on consolidating his vast empire and gave the title of Chief Minister more power in internal affiars, although the Emperor still had control over millitary and foreign policy.

In his personal life, Charles married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, whom he had four children with. He was assassinated in 1815 when an bomb that was placed in the carriage he was riding in exploded, killing the Emperor. He was succeeded by Crown Dauphin, Louis, his eldest son.

[13] Louis XIV was born in 1810, second child but eldest son of Charles XIV and Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria. From birth he was of fragile health.
Within the first five years of his life, Louis suffered from a multiple of illness, such as measles and smallpox; this made him a quiet talker and slow learner.
Upon the news of his fathers death, Louis was named the new Emperor and a regency council was set up, with members including but not limited to his mother, his uncles Rodolphe, Duke of Orléans and Robert, Duke of Anjou, Cardinal Francis, Archbishop of Paris and a distant relative, Henri, Duke of Burgundy.
His death came four years later, when 9 year old Louis XIV, contracted tuberculosis, it was a shock to many who thought the young emperor was finally gaining strength. He was succeeded by his uncle Rodolphe, Duke of Orleans.

[14] Rodolphe was born in 1786 as the second child of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, and was made Duke of Orleans upon his birth. In 1805, his brother Charles Paul succeeded their father as the first Emperor of Gaul, and Rodolphe would serve as an advisor for him, until his untimely death in 1815. He had also married Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1808, and had five children with Her.

Rodolphe then became an member of the regency council (which his brother Robert was also part of) for his nephew Louis XIV until his death from tuberculosis in 1819, at which point he became Emperor of Gaul at the age of 33. He would not be Emperor for long however as he died of pneumonia in early February 1820 after taking an walk through Paris without wearing an overcoat. He would later be known as the Winter Emperor (as he reigned from November to February) and was succeeded by his ____________.

 

[Reyne]

What if ... Charles VIII and Anne of Britanny's first son lived?

King of France
1507-1534: Charles IX "Orlando" of France (House of Valois) [1]
1534-1550: Louis XII of France (House of Valois) [2]
1550-1561: Jean III of France (House of Valois) [3]
1561-1565: Charles X (House of Valois) [4]
1565-1594: Charles XI Amadée (House of Valois) [5]
1594-1619: Charles XII Étienne (House of Valois) [6]
1619-1630: François I Joseph (House of Valois)[7]
1630-1701: Louis XIII (House of Valois)[8]
1701-1749: Charles XIII Alphonse (House of Valois) [9]
1749-1757: Rodolphe II (House of Valois) [10]
1757-1806: Robert III Stanislas "Le Roi Soleil" (House of Valois) [11]

Emperors of Gaul
1806-1815: Charles XIV Paul (House of Valois) [12]
1815-1819: Regency Council of Louis XIV [13]
1819-1820: Rodolphe III "Le Empereur Hiver" (House of Valois)[14]
1820-1893: Phillipe VII Orlando (House of Valois)[15]

Spoiler: Previous King and Emperors

[1] Charles Orland was the first and only son of Charles VIII of France and Anne of Britanny, and one of their two children to live to adulthood with his sister Anne. He was born in 1492 and became the Dauphin to the French throne. Because of his father's absence and his mother's waning health after the late birth of Anne, he was mostly raised between Amboise with his godmother Jeanne de Laval and Moulins with his aunt Anne de Beaujeu and her husband. His father was often at war, mostly in Italy, where his three expeditions earned the French control over Milan through the Louis D'Orléans and some influence over Savoy, but at the cost of many lives. Charles Orland was really marked by the death of one of his older friends at court, Charles de Bourbon, who died in the Battle of Florence in 1506, imprinting on him a very negative idea of war. His godmother taught him all about French and Italian literature, influencing him in his future patronage.

He rose to the throne in June 1507, after his father died from horrible convulsions. His mother died in the same year, and his sister inherited the throne of Britanny, conforming to the clauses of the marriage between their parents. She got engaged to Ferdinand II of Naples, in order to appease the situation in Italy, and ensuring a match that benefited her brother without creating a potentially dangerous alliance like the Austrian match that had thrown the diplomacy of her mother into disarray: Anne II was firmly on her brother's side, and did everything in her power to tie every loose Briton end with a French string.

The young King's ordre du jour in 1507 was simple: clean up his father's mess. His father had a political vision: he wanted to shoot an arrow through the Mediterranean that did have to transperce Naples in order to lodge itself deeply in the Ottomans' heart, before landing in Jerusalem. This vision, however, was essentially built on a muddy foundation of wishful thinking, and his son, already disgusted from war by the death of his confident Charles de Bourbon only one year prior. He got engaged to Yolande, sister of the heirless Duke of Savoie, five years older than he was. The King's vision was not directed towards the East like his father's, but towards a consolidation of the French territory: he wanted to ensure peace and exchanges between France and the rest of Europe, and especially with Italy. To this end, he wanted to create a solid, cohesive estate in Italy (for which he married the unofficial heir apparent to the throne of Savoy and waited for his heirless and married to an infertile wife uncle to die, ensuring a rich, cohesive and connected estate from Lyon to Milan and Arles to Crémone. With this powerful and legitimate collection of territories, the quarel with Naples squashed and burried through his sister's alliance (especially as the King of Aragon was starting to show displeasure at the idea of Naples belonging to this bastard line instead of them), he hoped to make France too big of a piece to chew, while being resolute to keep polite relations with everyone.

Being quite a seductive diplomat, he managed to sweet-talk the Queen of Castille into an arbitration with her husband and her sisters: there, he let the conflicting interests of Juana, Philipp von Hapsburg, the Queen of Portugal and the still unmarried Princess of Aragon collide, while attempting to reconcile them to France if not to each others. It was thought for a very long time that he had masterfully played his hand to lead to an uneasy Regency by the for now unmarried Catherine of Aragon, designated to last until a potential marriage, making her, for now, a mostly neutral actor, effectively depriving the Hapsburgs of a major asset while making himself look like the neutral, benevolent, smiling arbiter of peace for his time. In fact, from a diary of his favourite, Lucien d'Albignac, retrieved in archives in Amboise in 1967, show that even to his most intimate partners, he declared to be very disappointed for the poor Queen who did seem quite lucid to him, especially taking into account her difficult situation, and that he wished he could have done more to satisfy everyone with a fair distribution.

It was also this sort of earnest enthusiasm and benevolence that led him to be the patron of many prominent thinkers, poets and writers at first, and then inventors, sculptors, painters, ... among them Leonardo da Vinci, the painter Raphaelle, botanist Giovanni Manardo, ... he saw the early beginning of his reign as an invitation to a long-term and ambitious vision for his Kingdom. He wanted to create a strong base, and has the charisma to invite to reflexion, but sadly little of the actual administrative competence to make it happen.

When Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and Milan, died in 1527, he inherited the possessions of his uncle, and toured his newly acquired estates in Italy to meet his new subjects, promising to protect their way of life, and even inhabited Milan for a few months. He integrated much of his uncle's administration and personel to his own Court, hoping to acquire new talents, and recruited a bilingual secretary from Milan, André d'Alciat, for his correspondence with Italy. When in 1537 Charles II of Savoy died without issue from his legitimate wife Jeanne of Naples, Yolande, a very ambitious woman, claimed the Duchy for herself, against her brothers who were all excommunicated, ordinated to some ecclesiastical positions, or born illegitimate, and gained approval from the Pope and her illegitimate-born brother René. Happy to have time away from his wife, and her to finally own this Duchy she had seen falling from hands to hands for years without ever arriving in hers until now, the King and Queen were both very personally satisfied of this development.

The royal couple, despite the both's much more pronounced interest in older men than each other, was quite a harmonious household, and they managed to sire four children: Louis (B. 1510), Anne (B. 1512), Charles, Duke of Orleans (B. 1514), and Henri, Duke of Berry (B. 1517). The King died at the age of 42, being remembered in his Court for his charming personality and Italian mannerisms, and was even more fondly remembered by his subjects who were glad to finally be awarded a generation without wars, without conscription and with lower taxes. After his death, he throne of France went to Louis XII.

[2] Louis XII ascended the throne in 1534 at the age of 24. At the time of his ascension, Louis was a widower, with his wife, Princess Margaret (B. 1508), having died the previous year while giving birth to their third child, who died not long after their Mother. With no sons, Louis was eager to remarry and would do so the next year when he married the Neapolitian Princess (and his cousin) Giovanna (B. 1517), which renewed the French alliance with Naples. The two would get along well throughout the ups and downs of Louis's reign and would share 5 children.

Louis continued his Father's cultural policies, hiring and sponsoring many artists, poets, playwrights, and writers. This would inevitably lead to him coming into contact with renowned reformer, John Calvin. John like Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon believed that the time of the Catholic Church had come to an end, and began preaching a new Christian sect known as Calvinism. Louis took an interest in this new sect and would meet with John in 1538, to discuss theology with him. After several debates between the two, Louis, and his family converted to Calvinism and were baptised in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, by John Calvin himself.

Some French Nobles, such as the Duke of Bourbon, Alencon, and Berry and the Count of Auveregne, Boulogne, Angouleme and St Pol, agreed with Calvin and the King and converted as well. Others such as the Count of Foix, Montpensier, and Duke of Nemours and Orleans, opposed the King and would raise against him in 1540, in what would become known as the First War of French Religion. The rebellious nobles wanted the King to revert to Catholicism and were supported by England and Spain, who sought to antagonise the French.

Louis would prove himself quite the general however and would lead an army against the nobles, defeating them battle after battle. Many took this as a sign of Divine Backing and abandoned the Catholic Cause, while others fought on. Their efforts would prove futile however and in 1542, the Duke of Berry would be killed in the Battle of Albi. With that the first War of French Religion came to an end.

Louis would soon begin instigating Calvin's reforms, weakening the power of the Church, reforming their practices, and introducing new ones, most notably the concepts of Predestination, a Vernacular Bible, and allowing the Clergy to marry. John Calvin was also appointed to the role of Archbishop of Reims, and would later crown Louis's successor, His eldest son.

In 1545, France would be invaded by England and Spain, who claimed they were invading in the name of the Pope. Louis would raise his armies to fight the invaders, and would personally lead a force to attack Calais, the last English possession on the continent. After a brutal and gruelling 500 day siege, which saw no more than 4 relief attempts by the English, Calais fell to Louis, who entered it in triumph. It was soon followed up by the French victory at the Naval Battle of Wight, which saw 34 English ships destroyed.

Meanwhile, things were going less well on the Spanish front. The new Duke of Berry was killed in battle by the Spanish, with his Dukedom being inherited by his brother. The city of Toulouse and Bordeaux were also being besieged, with English forces assisting the Spanish. Louis would march down south with his army to stop them, and would request Neapolitan assistance. Naples would accept and would donate 20 ships and 10,000 Gold coins to the French cause. From 1547 to 1550, Louis fought the English and French in several battles, winning some and losing others. By the time of his death, he managed to relieve Bordeaux and kick the English and Spanish out of Gascony but failed to relieve Toulouse, which fell to the Spanish in 1549.

In early 1550, Louis would contract smallpox and would die on March 29th. He would be succeeded by his senior son; Jean, Dauphin of France, otherwise known as Jean III.

[3] Jean was the eldest son of Louis and his wife, and named so for his father's ally, confidant, and friend; John Calvin. Raised in the freedoms of the Calvinist court of his father, the young Dauphin has been extremely pious and obedient even as a child, in one instance where his tutor lamented the death of the Pope, the young Dauphin ordered him whipped, and uttered the infamous statement; N’épargnez pas le papiste, car il n’abrite que la corruption. When his father died, the ten-year-old Jean inherited both a throne and a war with England and Spain. The war rapidly turned against France, with the Anglo-Spanish Alliance, headed by William III of England, son of Henry VIII Tudor, and Joanna of Castile and Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Jean III, his Regent, and his advisors were forced to rapidly seek a peace, and they found one in the form of the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554, losing Guyenne and Calais to the English, with Calais being directly ceded to England, and Guyenne split off a new crown in the quiver of William III and losing the majority of the Languedoc to Spain. After the Treaty of Toulouse, Jean III descends in religious extremism, finding Calvinism too lenient upon Popery, and he developed a merciless and extreme interpretation of the Doctrine, commonly called Jeanism (Puritanism), and in the year 1560, seventy-five churches in France were following the Jeanist doctrine. In 1557, Jean III had taken a wife; Christine of Hesse, but their marriage was pained, and a single daughter; Christine of France, was born to the pair in 1559. At the age of 21, in 1561, Jean III did suffer a deep melancholy and after much soul-searching and thought, the King did end his life. He was succeeded by his uncle; Charles of Orléans.

Duke Charles II of Orléans before his ascension
[4] Duke Charles of Orléans was born in 1514, to Charles IX "Orlando" of France and Princess Yolande Louise of Savoy. In 1527, he was made the Duke of Orléans, after the death of Louis, who was the Duke of Milan, but also the Duke of Orléans. Unlike his father, Charles aspired to be a warrior, like in the stories that were told to him by courtiers.

He opposed his brother’s conversion to Calvinism and was joined by several other nobles, thus kicking off the First War of French Religion. Charles distinguished himself in various battles. However, he always remained skeptical of his English and Spanish allies, fearing that they would take lands from France. His fears would finally be realized by the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554. After this, he pledged his services to his nephew, King Jean III. However, the French king continued to despise him and even imprisoned him once.

Upon the King’s suicide in 1561, Charles succeeded him as ruler of France. Immediately, after his ascension, he had to put down a revolt caused by revolting Calvinists and Puritans. Fearing swift reprisals, a plot was formed to install Jean III’s two-year-old daughter, Christine onto the throne, but this also failed.

After an exhausting four year reign, Charles X died in 1565, from a bad case of the fever, he was succeeded by his eldest son; Charles Amadée, Dauphin of France..

[5] Charles Amedée was born in 1533, before his Grandfather's death to Charles, Duke of Orleans and his Savoyard wife, aged nineteen and eighteen respectively and sadly his birth resulted in the death of his mother. For much of the early years of his life, the Prince lived a relatively austere and Spartan life, as his father took a new wife and had further issue, and the young Charles Amedée was left to himself. At the age of sixteen, he purchased the Lordship of Becelaere in Flanders from the de la Woestyne, and moved his small band of retainers and friends to his new property. In 1553, Charles Amedée married Manuela, Princess of Portugal (B.1534) as part of the negotiations of alliance conducted between Portugal and France, and was a gift his father abdicated Milan to his son, who was crowned as Amadeo I, Duke of Milan.

The Young prince, both a sovereign Lord in Milan and a vassal of his cousin; Jean III, had to sit upon a fine line, preserving the interests of Milan and Becelaere, as well as maintaining the confidence his cousin had in him. In 1559, Charles Amedée officially sanctioned the Jeanist doctrine be expanded into Milan, despite toeing the line of Catholicism himself, and it was in 1560, during the 7 months of his fathers fourth imprisonment under Jean III, Charles Amedée did travel to Rome and meet his Holiness himself, and reconciled with the church, immediately banning the Jeanist doctrine in Milan.

During the reign of his father, Charles Amadée became a respected diplomat and representative of his father, notably signing the Truce of Winchester between England and France. After his father's reign, the Dauphin returned to Paris and was crowned as Charles XI Amadée, but the event was struck by more tragedy as his wife; Manuela, did collapse and pass after the coronation, leaving Charles Do and their four children without a wife or mother. It was in 1568 that Charles discussed remarriage, and so by the end of the year had taken the young Immaculeta of Lorraine (B.1545) as his second wife, and she would give him a further four children. The reign of Charles XI Amadée was a golden age of peace and prosperity, with a sword never raised in anger during the twenty nine years of rule. In 1594, the King passed and was succeeded by his third child; Prince Étienne Charles.

[6] Prince Étienne Charles was the third of the Prince Charles Amadée and his Portuguese wife, born in 1557 after the birth of his elder siblings; Prince Louis Jean (B.1554) and Prince Charles Philibert (B.1555). Born on the Saints Day of Saint Stephen, his mother and father named him for both his paternal grandfather, father, and the saint of the day. being the third son, Étienne occupied a strange place, being raised in Flanders undergoing a tutorship by the Prince-Bishop of Liege himself, marking the young Étienne against his Milanese older siblings. A tumultuous time, the young Étienne flirted with faith his entire life,having been put forward for a Flemish bishopric at the age of eleven (1568), before converting to Lutheranism by the influence of his retainers and friends (1571) and in 1575, he converted to Calvinism, before returning to Catholicism at the age of twenty two.

It was in 1576 that Tragedy struck the House of Capet, as Louis Jean, the Dauphin of France was thrust from his horse travelling through Normandy, and but a year later where Charles Philibert, who had been made Governor of Milan in his father's stead, died of a venereal disease, thrusting Étienne into the picture as the Dauphin of France. The death of their full-sister in 1591; Maria of France (B.1558), who in 1580, briefly married Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria until his death in 1585, and afterwards took her vows and became a Nun, made Étienne the sole surviving child from his father's first marriage, and in the mind of strengthening the Franco-Portuguese alliance, Étienne took a Portuguese bride, the niece of his mother; Infante Teresa of Portugal.

The death of his father placed the thirty seven year old Dauphin upon the throne, who granted significant titles and lands upon his four half-siblings, the eldest being a full decade and a half younger than Étienne, or Charles XII as he was crowned. It was in 1601 that Henry IX Tudor, son of William III and King of England died, and the male line of the Tudors has died out, and by the Treaty of Toulouse the Kingdom of Guyenne had been tied to the survival of the Royal House, and so Charles XII approached the Papacy for arbitration, and it was in 1609, after an eight year Cardinal-Regency in Guyenne that His Holiness Julius V decided in favour of the French, and so Guyenne was once more United to France after fifty five years of Tudor rule. By the 1610s, Charles XII was old beyond his years, while only in his fifties, he was obese and bald, but jovial in his manners. In 1619, after a twenty five year reign, he passed, and the throne went to his son, François Joseph.


[7] Born in 1583, the young duc de Bourgogne François Joseph was the spare to the throne of Charles the XII, following his older brother Robert Xavier, dauphin of France. Brought up in the diverse environment of the court of Charles the XII, François would have an excellent education by the standards of the time - along with his many siblings, François was considered one of the greatest princes of the age, famous for his patronage of both military inovators and famously, sculpters.

François' coronation painting, circa 1620.
His status has a second son allowed François plenty of liberties (and money) to pursue his two passions - religion and the sea. Unlike his father and brother, who were moderate catholics, François was himself a moderate calvinist, who believed that the various christian theologies spread in France, both protestant and apostolic, should be consolidated into one, and it would be thus that François' court in Dijon would became a center of French theologians, and it would be during this time that the future Gallic Church would be born.

Another of François' aforementioned dreams was of gold in the Americas and the spices of India, and an Empire that stretched over all land touched by the sun. It was thus that François would earn his famous moniker "Le Prince Pirate", as he would become the famous and rather public patron of many French and foreign corsairs that would almost lead France and Spain to war many times. It would be these same corsairs that would be responsible for the setting up of France' first colonies - In Acadie, (OTL New England and OTL Acadie), the two towns of Port du Prince (OTL Halifax) and Montjoie (OTL Boston) would be founded, while the town of Port Royal (OTL Capetown) in the southern tip of Africa would be founded by the famous calvinist corsair, Louis Xavier d'Esprée.

The death of his brother short of the re-annexation of Guyenne would see the previously unmarried François forced to seal the peace with Spain by marrying the daughter of the Spanish King Ferdinand, Infanta Maria Catalina. Despite their difference in religion, the marriage would go rather well - while the couple were certainly not the image of the romantic couple, they complemented each other well and often more than not agreed - however, Maria Catalina would prove to be unable to bear healthy children, with all children not stillborn the couple had dying soon afther birth. For the most part, François and his wife would eventually agree to stop trying, as François would famous state that "God has given me a barren wife: But he has given me a fertile consort, who stands at my side and counsels me better than most men."

The death of François' father in 1619 would see the Dauphin arise to the throne, and it would be one of joy as François would succesfully negotiate with Spain for the return of Languedoc back to France, as Spain would enter a period of hostility with it's old allies in England and the Empire due to piracy, tarrifs and a lack of financial certainty. It would be thus that François would be able to use the division between the Austrian and Dutch houses of Habsburg to invade what remained of Imperial Burgundy, Luxemburg and Lille, conquering all three.

After these adquiring these things, François would finally move to establish the Gallican church, that would become the first state religion of the french. François would spend much of his later reign taking over monasteries and properties of disgruntled nobles.

François would eventually die from a chill he would catch while visiting the coast.

[8] Louis de Valois was born to Charles de Valois, first son of Charles XI Amédée and Immaculée of Lorraine, and Magdalena de Medici, sister of Pope Leo X, in 1625. The young baby was then far from being the French Dauphin. He was, however, his parents' treasure, and they made sure to give him the best education. The young Dauphin de Lorraine was raised in both Calvinism (from the Valois) and Catholicism (from the Lorraine and the Medici), and was taught from a young age what a ruler needed to do. However, when his father died in 1629, he became heir to a much bigger pressure, and his mother raised a true council of scholars and tutors to attempt to teach him everything a youn King needs to know. When François I died, the young King was hastily baptized in the proper Gallican rite and was then crowned Louis XIII, King of France.

From 1630 to 1640, the Regency was assured by a Council including his mother, the Duke of Bourbon, his uncle's advisors and the Archbishop of Reims. This council would mainly focus on overseeing the administration of the new Gallican Church and attempts to stich back the Gallican and Catholic Church in some capacity: Magdalena di Medici was, after all, the Pope's cousin, and wanted an arrangement that would allow the Gallican Church to exist within the Catholic Church, instead of creating a latent conflict. The Council of Besançon of 1637, led by the Archbishop of Reims himself and the Legate Giulio de Medici, was a very long and frustrating endeavour on both parts, only held together by the intransigeance of the two Medicis. The Edict of Besançon that came out of it was a weird attempt at compromise, that did however allow for peace in Louis XIII's time: the Gallican and Catholic priests would both be allowed to give sacraments, and sacraments from one clergy was valid in the other, and Gallican bishops could oversee Catholic priests and vice-versa on their respective dioceses. This joint religious administration actually presented a sort of boon: the religious administration was forced to recede in the back, while the secular administration was in full swing, finally unburduned from the religious administrations and the bogus accusations from both clergies to one another.

Now somewhat reconciled with the Catholic nations, and dynastically linked to the Iberians, the Valois' future seemed a bit more certain. The young king was betrothed to the Spanish Infante, Isabella Trasmastara, in order to mend the relationship between the two countries, although it was clearly stated that the second child, and not the first, would inherit the Spanish throne. His cousin, Anne de Bourbon, was betrothed to the cousin of the King of Portugal, in order to keep some blood relations between the two families. The King's main obsession was the same as his predecessor's : the expansion of France beyond the sea. Acadie expanded towards the Saint-Louis River (St-Laurent), connecting the Lakes to the Ocean, through the alliance with many Native tribes. When it became clear that the administration could not be left to the mayors of the two cities anymore, a viceroyalty was elected with a colonial assembly. In Africa, Port-Royal evolved into the Confédération du Bon-Espoir, French and Milanese colonists establishing many coastal cities in order to trade glass and manufactured objects for ivory and gold. The conversion of several Malagasy princes to Christianity was considered as a great victory by France and the Gallican clergy. But by far, the most influential decision taken by the king was the establishment of the villeneuves along several trails, creating trading and diplomatic outposts with the Natives, and easing colonization inland. The longest of those trails, the Great Southern Road, lead to Sainte-Geneviève (around OTL Memphis), a fort town in the Pays des Illinois, where one could take the Sissipiou River down to the Ocean.

This, however, sparked a controversy that France (and, once they were let in on the goal of the operation Portugal and Spain) would gladly instrumentalize: if you could convert Africans and Natives, it necessarily meant that they have a soul. And how can you own a soul? The Bordeaux Controversy surrounding the soul of non-Europeans and the ethics of enslaving potential converts was not, mind you, motivated by ethics, but by a calculation to undermine England, Norway and Denmark's colonial attempts. Indeed, whereas Spain and France had massive populations to draw from, and Portugal had become accustomed to coopting local monarchs, the Northern kingdoms were shorter on population. Thus, the final decision to forbid Christian kings and merchants from buying slaves was mostly an attempt to club the colonial ambitions of rival kingdoms down, using theology. While far from ending slavery in the colonies, this declaration of intent did slow down the development of the slave trade in America. The French expédition led by Capitaine Jules d'Aubigny towards India and Japan, leading a royally-sanctioned alliance of merchants and privateers named the "Flotte Royale de l'Orient", led to the purchase of several fishing ports as trading posts: Potupithyia on Taprobane (OTL Sri Lanka), the island of Lantau in South China and the southern quarter of the island of Udo (close to Jeju) in order to provide French ports in the Orient, facilitating trade with China, Japan, Korea, India and the Malay Archipelago.

Economically, the Kingdom was badly affected by the awful summer of 1654, a stromy summer that prevented any harvests from reaching its goal and forcing the Kingdom to import expensive Italian rice and wheat, causing a great debt that hampered Louis's dreams of great cities overseas whose magnificence could make Orléans or Bordeaux blush. However, this agricultural crisis led to intense work from France's growing population of scholars to improve France's agriculture, especially through the introduction of New World plants such as the Indian wheat they called "maiz", or the golden apple (potato) that could both withstand wet summers, greatly improving France's agricultural security. A certain lady scholar, named Marguerite de Florensac, who had participated to the study of butterflies and gained great renoun for proving they were actually caterpillars with wings, and not pebbles animated by Satan [yes, it was actually the theory on butterflies for the longest time in medieval and Renaissance Europe] also found ot the secret of the silkworms, importing them to France and presenting them to his majesty. This gave the French monarchy a quasi-monopoly on silk, keeping the secret of the silkworm a well guarded one for nearly four decades, until another similar exploration led by Portuguese captain Sebastian de Oliveira arrived to the same conclusion and introduced the silkworms to his birthplace: Alentejo.

In his old years, the King, proud of having repaid most of the Kingdom's debts, began the renovation of the Louvres into a comfortable castle, in order to reconnect with the center of power that is Paris, and with the small people that lived in the great city. The very old man died in his sleep at 75, after one of the longuest reigns in history, most likely from old age and from the sawdust of the renovations, he who had moved back to the Louvres before the rest of his family in order to oversee the works. His widow followed him in the grave seven months later, after the two had a very long life and six children together. After his reign came his Great-grandson; Charles-Alphonse, Comte de Vermandois.

[9] Charles-Alphonse de Valois was born in 1691 to Louis-Rodolphe de Valois (B.1671) and his Este wife; Beatrice of Modena (B.1672). Louis-Rodolphe was the son of Pierre -Charles de Valois, Comte de Vermandois (B.1649), the third child and second son of Louis XIII. Pierre-Charles has been granted the County of Vermandois upon his marriage to Princess Euphemia of Scotland (B.1650) in 1670, and the pair welcomed their first child in 1671; Pierre-Jacques de Valois, followed by Louis-Rodolphe de Valois the year after. Pierre-Jacques has been born stunted, both physically and mentally, so in 1690, his father disinherited his eldest son, placed him in a monastery and named his second son as his heir and orchestrated his sons marriage to Beatrice of Modena. Tragedy struck in 1692 as Louis, Dauphin of France (B.1647), the eldest son and heir of Louis XIII died childless, thrusting the Comte de Vermandois and his progeny into the limelight, and a year later, Louis-Rodolphe also passed, after a bout of the pox, pushing Charles-Alphonse further to the throne.

The Comte de Vermandois himself died in 1699, two years before his father, and so the young Charles-Alphonse became the second Comte de Vermamdois. From this point, Louis XIII took his descendent under his wing, but alas, perhaps he pushed too strongly. Rumours said Louis had his great-grandson sleep in his bed and tales of groping and "acts unbecoming of the Great King" taking place. It was said that in the Kong's funerary procession, that the young heir did not weep once. Upon his own coronation, Charles XIII Alphonse ordered the demolition of the Palais du Louvre, his predecessors personal project. Guided by his Catholic mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, the young king did personally conduct a pilgrimage to Rome, and received the Eucharist by the pope himself in 1710, in an effort to further distance himself from his Calvinist-inclined Great-Grandfather. His colonial policy was to favour expansion in the East Indies, and Africa, authorizing more french merchants to purchase trading posts and warehousing particularly in India. In 1714, the King would take a bride, a non too distant cousin; Isabeau of Berry, another great-Grandchild of Louis XIII. It was a happy marriage, with five children being born.

Perhaps to further divide himself from his forebear, Charles XIII did actively seek warfare, notably forming the Soldat à louer de Paris, a Corps recruited from the region surrounding Paris, whom the French state would hire out to kingdoms and nations who could pay the men, and the French crown for the pleasure. The Soldat à louer de Paris notably fought in the War of the Hessian Succession (1714-1719), the Salzburg War (1716), the War of the Portuguese Succession (1723-1726), the Cordoba War (1729-1736), the War of the Parmese Succession (1739-1742), and the Algiers Corsairs War (1727-1741). Charles XIII 's France herself was a peaceful kingdom, but religious discontent boiled under the surface; the Calvinists of the South and West, the Lutherans in the Rhenish lands, the Catholics in the East and North, and the Gallicanists in the centre all bore grudges against another. Thankfully perhaps, the King did see no religious strife, and passed in 1749.

[10] Prince Rodolphe was born in 1715 as the first child of Charles XIII Alphonse and Isabeau of Berry. He and his siblings were raised in both the Catholic faith as part of his father’s distancing from their forebear Louis XIII. Rodolphe married Princess Margaret of Scotland (b. 1712), daughter of David IV, in 1736. The marriage was an loving one and the pair had seven children together.

Rodolphe succeeded his father Charles XII Alphonse upon the latter's death in 1749, and converted to Gallican to promote religious tolerance arcoss France. This didn't work as in 1754 his Calvinist nephew François (b. 1718), son of his uncle Louis-Jean (b. 1692), proclaimed himself King of Occitanie, beginning the Second War of French Religion.

Burgundy would join Occitanie in their fight against France when they declared Ernest Louis, Elector of Hanover, their King. Thus the war became an one v. two between France and Occitanie and Burgundy, with the latter two not only supported by Denmark, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire, but also quite good in combat, defeating the French in battle after battle.

Rodolphe would not see the end of the Second War of French Religion, as he was assassinated in 1757 by an Calvinst stabbing him in the back. He was succeeded by his son, Robert Stanislas.

[11] The man who would grow to become the Sun King was born Louis Robert Stanislas Xavier, duc de Bourgogne, son of Rodolphe of France and Margaret of Scotland, born on a misty eve of 1742, third child and first son of the couple. His many tutors would remark highly upon the young Dauphin, as a bright boy heading for a bright future. Indeed, the injection of the rather diluted Stuart line (Scotish kings, in their pursuit of centralization, had married on and off their nobility and different royal families, being by far the "cleanest" royal house of the age.) served well for the French royal house, as Robert and his three brothers, the duke of Chartres Louis Phillipe, the Duke of Luxembourg Rodolphe Louis and the Duke of Provence, Gaston Louis, would all four go on to become three of the hall-marks of the French Revolution.

The King would have barely reached his majority when news of his father's death would reach him. Louis and his short regency led by his only remaining loyalist uncle left, Phillipe of Orleans, would lead a two year final confrontation that would see both Burgundy and Occitannie destroyed. Occitanie, riddled with civil conflict over the would be ambitions of Robert's cousin, would quickly be reconquered, while Burgundy, supported by many german states, would take longer, but would see the birth of a military renaissance in France that would see France reach a level of military technology well above their neighbours. France, divided at the start of Robert's reign, would reach the Rhine only three years after it.

Robert the Victorious, by Jacques Louis David.
The reconquest of Burgundy and Occitania, alongside the inclusion of new provinces on the Rhine, would see a level of deep reform that would take almost twenty years to complete, from tax to finances to administrative and the military. The end of the regional parliaments and the introduction of la Carte Royale of 1770, widely regarded as as the first modern constitution of the world. It clearly distributed the powers of the regenerated Senate of France, the tribunals and the French Monarchy proper. Robert's reign would see finnaly the end of France's religious turmoil, as the head of the Gallican Church was made Primate of Gaul, and the church became autonomous and properly established. Most of France would come to adopt Gallicanism in turn. Acadia, Canada and Artactique, (OTL South Africa) and Australie (Australia) adquired in the 1º War of the Coalition (1779-1783) would see all three of France's major settler colonies explode in population, resources and autonomy, with the first statute of "Les Provinces Ultramarines" being given to Acadia in 1786 as a reward for Acadian efforts in the coalition wars.

Robert's sternest legacy would be surely in the building of infrastructure. From the renovated Palais de Tuileries to the meagrest road in Aquitaine, Robert's caring hand would see all. France and it's colonies would see a renovation and building spree that would reach all, especially in education facilities as Robert would be the personal patron of at least 43 confirmed universities.

The high-mark of Robert's Kingship would be the three coalition wars. In the first, many of the German Princes defeated in the second French war of Religion and the Kingdom of the Netherlands would attempt to wrestle the conquered parts west of the Rhine from France, but they would be quickly defeated in a sucessive series of battles in Flanders and Westphalia by the Duke of Luxembourg and Duke of Chartres, would see all of Roman Gaul and all Dutch and German land west of the Rhine annexed into france. It was at this time that Robert would name himself "Robert, King of the French and master of Gaul". In reaction for this massive land-grab, England, Austria and Spain would all declare war on France. It would be a futile effort that would see these powers defeated not once, but twice.

Robert's would not take any territtory from any further power but England, which would see Catholic Ireland separated from it, with the last of the Dukes of Bourbon, Antoine of Bourbon made it's first king. Robert would furthermore see Poland, which had been diminished by France's ally Prussia, Austria and Russia to just it's central region (Congress Poland) back to having Galicia from Austria, and would support the candidature of his cousin, François of Orleans, to the Polish throne.

To cement his victory and assure peace, Robert would organize a warming of Polish-Russian relations by marrying himself to Anna Pavlona, princess of Russia, with whom he would have plenty of children.

Robert would live his last years in peace, growing fat in the Tuilleries. Remembered as one of France's most beloved monarchs, Robert would be the last of the infamous "Thunderbolt Quartet" to survive, dying after one of France's last victories during his reign - the invasion of the Ottoman Empire in cooperation with Austria-Hungary and Russia, which would see France annex Algeria and Egypt, and becoming a patron of the newly formed Kingdom of Greece from it's capital in Thessalonika, where Robert would place one of his nephews by his youngest brother, the Duke of Provence, on the throne.

By his death by cardiac arrest, France had an Empire upon which the sun never set, ranging from Canada, Acadia, Saint Domingue, Artartique, Algeria, Australie, and a hundred and more trading ports in both the East and West Indies, alongside plenty of land in India, Indochina and China proper. He would be succeded by his son Charles Paul.

Charles XIV Paul of Gaul, Primate of Gaul
[12] Born in 1785 as the first of three children of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, Charles Paul grew up to be an capable and ambitious man who upon succeeding his father in 1806 delcared France to become the Empire of Gaul. He worked on consolidating his vast empire and gave the title of Chief Minister more power in internal affiars, although the Emperor still had control over millitary and foreign policy.

In his personal life, Charles married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, whom he had four children with. He was assassinated in 1815 when an bomb that was placed in the carriage he was riding in exploded, killing the Emperor. He was succeeded by Crown Dauphin, Louis, his eldest son.

[13] Louis XIV was born in 1810, second child but eldest son of Charles XIV and Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria. From birth he was of fragile health.
Within the first five years of his life, Louis suffered from a multiple of illness, such as measles and smallpox; this made him a quiet talker and slow learner.
Upon the news of his fathers death, Louis was named the new Emperor and a regency council was set up, with members including but not limited to his mother, his uncles __{incase you wish him to be next emperor}____, Duke of Orléans, Cardinal Francis, Archbishop of Paris and a distant relative, Henri, Duke of Burgundy.
His death came four years later, when 9 year old Louis XIV, contracted tuberculosis, it was a shock to many who thought the young emperor was finally gaining strength. He was succeeded by his uncle, Rodolphe Duke of Orleans..

[14] Rodolphe was born in 1786 as the second child of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, and was made Duke of Orleans upon his birth. In 1805, his brother Charles Paul succeeded their father as the first Emperor of Gaul, and Rodolphe would serve as an advisor for him, until his untimely death in 1815. He had also married Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1808, and had five children with Her.

Rodolphe then became an member of the regency council (which his brother Robert was also part of) for his nephew Louis XIV until his death from tuberculosis in 1819, at which point he became Emperor of Gaul at the age of 33. He would not be Emperor for long however as he died of pneumonia in early February 1820 after taking an walk through Paris without wearing an overcoat. He would later be known as the Winter Emperor (as he reigned from November to February) and was succeeded by his son, Phillipe Orlando.

[15] The man who would categorize a century of mankind's history would be born in 1809 - first child of his parents, the then duke of Orleans Rodolphe and his wife, Elizabeth of Bavaria. Phillipe would be raised by his mother and an army of tutors in the Chateau Ducal in Orleans, at the insistence of his parents who disliked the stink and "perfidious" nature of the parisian scene. The ascention of his father to the Imperial throne, however, would see Phillipe move to the Palais des Tuilleries, the residence of the Imperial family. There, he would see his father fall to pneumonia and the young new Emperor himself would be placed under a curfew to make sure the same would not repeat with him.

Phillipe the VII, in his military attire during a visit to Antartica in South Africa.
​

Phillipe, being only 10 at the age of his ascencion to the Gallic throne, would be placed under a regency - The Primate of Gaul and Archbishop of Lyons, Henri, head of the Gallican Church, and the four remaining Princes of the Blood, Ferdinand of Chartres, François of Luxembourg, Henri of Bourbon and Charles of Conde. The "Regence du Sang", headed by the Ferdinand, the Duke of Chartres, as the eldest and highest ranking of the Princes of Blood, would be a thorough success, as the aged Duke managed led Gaul in it's ever faster industrialization.

It would be only in 1826 that Phillipe would be effectively crowned, bearing the title "Phillipe, par la graçe de Dieu, Empereur et Autocrate des Gaulois, Roi de France et Grand Duque du Rhin, Souverain du Canada, de l'Acadie, de l'Antartique, de l'Australie e de Numidie, Pharaoh de l'Egypte et Sultan de la Syrie, Seigneur du Deccan, Ceylon et de Carnat....". Phillipe, sixteen by then, was already the most powerful man in the world.

Phillipe's reign, long as it was, was marked by the appearance of France and it's colonies as the main superpower in the world. Metropolitan France, Acadia, Canada, Antartica and Australia would all become what the Emperor called his "Five fingers" as the Gallic Empire switched from a purely French Empire to a global Empire, in which France proper and all it's settler colonies played a part in expanding Gallic territorry and interests. At the start of his reign, Metropolitan Gaul held a population shy of 45 million while Canada held two million, Acadia had a million and a half, Antartica had 2 million (Antartica is, unlike our world's version of South Africa, majority white and mixed) while Australia held just a few hundred thousand. At the end of his reign, Metropolitan Gaul held over 86 million people, while Canada and Acadia held 38 million and 27 million respectivelly, with Antartica having 35 million and Australie 15 million. Other French colonies would become important as well - Numidia, previously known as Algeria in North Africa, would suffer enormous Gallic immigration into it, being Romanized and Gallicized very quickly. It would become important as an extension of metropolitan France, and it's native muslim population would suffer tremendous social pressure due to a lack of access to politics and increased pressure from both native and Gallic christians. Saint-Domingue, the Antilles and Guyana in Central and South America, despite not being majority white, would become heavily Gallicized as well, becoming mostly mixed as time went by. All three colonies would become autonomous provinces, having an elected local governor general. France would dominate many coastal areas of Africa, as France and other European powers, despite growing support for Imperialism in Europe, would prefer to support local African governments and in more primite areas choose selective tribes they would support over local arrivals. Gaul proper would try to avoid Africa as much as possible due to Phillipe's belief that peace with Europe was to be mantained, and he saw Africa as simply a new battleground. In Asia, France owned Ceylon and Southern India, the isle of Hainan in China alongside the island of Taiwan, the whole Island of Borneo and Indochina.

Phillipe would be a staunch industrialist and eco-nationalist, being one of the first rulers to speak of the importance of the effects of industry on the "Natural land of the Gallic people" which would have a permanent effect on industrialism worldwide, with the world becoming more careful about the effects of Industry. All the while, as education and buying power increased, Gallic industry increased everywhere, both in the Dominions and Gaul proper, and Gaul would become by far the most dominant industrial power of the age.

Gaul would suffer a constitutional crisis and would hand more powers from the monarchy to the "Premier Consul de l'Empire", more or less the French prime minister. Nonetheless, Phillipe remained a highly respected and beloved figure of Gallic politics, with his influence everywhere in the government. Education in "Gallic French", a mixture of many French dialects made official by the government, was spread to all regions of the Empire, and soon even the Rhenish and Flemish provinces of the Empire become either bilingual or majority French speaking by the end of Phillipe's reign.

Gaul would face few wars during his reign, only a few colonial wars and skirmishes, if one ignores the Ottoman wars. This was due to Phillipe's policy of marriages - the Emperor would marry the Prussian Princess Victoria von Hohenzollern, and the very much in couple would prove extremely fertile, having over thirteen daughters and four sons during their long marriage. Empress Christina, despite her many pregnancies, would always keep her famous "figure", and would become a symbol of women's self-care and health in Gaul and Europe. By the end of his reign, Phillipe of Gaul was called the "Grandfather of Europe" due to the fact that he had married his daughters and sons to almost every single European nation, and that many of his son-in-laws belonging to non-royal families would achieve titles due to him. This would be the case in Hohenzollern Romania, Leuchtenberg Hungary, von Urach Armenia ,Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Bulgaria and Battenberg Finland, all of which would take nobles related to Phillipe as their monarchs.

During his life Phillipe would see the formation of the German Empire under Austria as it separated from Hungary and unified the German states under a Federated Empire led from Vienna, and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which would see the Kingdom of Greece, under the leadership of Konstantinos Massilikos, the Greek King (Originally from the House of Provence, the Greek royals took the hellenized version of their capital, Marseille, as the name of their house) expand to take over Constantinople and into Anatolia itself, while the reborn Armenia under the von Urachs took much of Eastern Anatolia. Gaul would tave over the levant and the Sudan from Turkey, adding it to their budding oriental Empire in Egypt.

Phillipe would die in 1893, an extremely old man depressed by the death of his wife and their eldest daughter, Amalie, Queen of Great Britain. He would be succeded by _______. Almost a century after his death, a controversy about Phillipe would appear as after the death of his wife and already in his old age, during a visit to Saint Domingue, Phillipe would end up falling in love with a black maid, and the two would have a few children. The children would be hid from history but one of the descendants would come out to public after being coaxed by journalists.

 

[Jonathan]

Just a quick recon

duke of Orleans Rodolphe and his wife, Anna Pavlona of Russia.

Anna is his mother.

Rodolphe was born in 1786 as the second child of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia,
He had also married Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1808, and had five children with Her.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

Claim Iberia-Scotland.

 

[Victoria]

Claim Gaul.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

King of Portugal and Algarves
1495-1523 Afonso VI “o Aventurado” (House of Aviz)[1]

King of All Spain
1523-1528: Juan I “Rey de toda España” (House of Aviz) [2]
1528-1542: Ferdinand V (House of Aviz) [3]

Emperor of the Holy Iberian Empire
1542-1579: Ferdinand V (House of Aviz) [3]
1579-1601: Afonso VII, Emperor of the Holy Iberian Empire and King of Scotland (House of Aviz) [4]
1601-1605: Juan II, Emperor of the Holy Iberian Empire and King of Scotland (House of Aviz) [5]

Spoiler

Afonso, prince of Portugal, was born in 1475, son of King John II "The Perfect Prince" and his wife, Leonor of Viseu. Very much well loved by his father, upon his birth, the smaller island of the archipelago of Sao Tomé e "Princípe" would be named after him. Promised to the daughter of the catholic monachs, the eldest Isabella of Aragon, marrying her upon reaching majority. The couple would quickly fall in love, being almost a perfect fit for each other. The reign of the younrg monarch would almost not happen, as while riding on the banks of the Tagus river, he would fall from his horse, but would, thankfully, recover. In 1495, John the II of Portugal would pass away, seeing Afonso and his wife, Isabella, rise to the throne.

His reign would famously start with a good omen - Queen Isabella bearing the couple's first of 5 children barely a few months into the new King's reign. It would be in these first few months that the emergence of his Kingly character would appear - an expansionist, a christian, an autocrat with the well-being and growth of his people and Empire, a stubborn man of many failures but even greater achievements. In the words of his wife, Afonso would be the only man "more Man than his own father", in reference to Isabella the Catholic's pet name for Afonso's father - "El Hombre".

Afonso's reign would start with a turn towards internal stability - the conflict of his father with the Aviz-Beja's, a branch of the royal house that also held the dukedoms of Viseu and the ambitions of his bastard brother, Jorge of Lencastre, Duke of Coimbra, would see a run ahead rather quickly - The Duchy of Beja would be bought from Duke Manuel, who would only keep the Duchy of Viseu in his hands, while Coimbra, a city dear to Afonso, who was a patron of education, was returned to the crown, with Afonso giving his half-brother John the Duchy of Aveiro as compensation.

With royal power assured and expanded, the second of Afonso’s great dealings came from his wife and his castilian and Aragonese in-laws - the expulsion of the jews from Spain. The history of the Jewish community in Iberia had always been tenuous and shifty, and the top cadres of the Jewish community were plenty influential in the biggest cities and were close to the Iberian monarchies. But nowhere was this true that in Portugal - Portuguese jews were famous financiers of the maritime expeditions undertaken by Portugal and would during Afonso’s VI reign become a cornerstone of such - with a sephardic jew, Carlos Camargo, becoming Viceroy of India (And an extremely successful one, at that) after the famous Afonso de Albuquerque.

But the Alhambra decree, which expelled the jews of Castille and Aragon from the respective Kingdoms, saw a huge amount of jews immigrate into Portugal, which created problems with the local jewish community and the monarchy itself. It was indeed thought by many that King Alfonso would send many of these jews to Portugal’s colonies over the ocean - Cape Verde and the fortresses in the Gold Coast, but Portugal would end up proving their new home when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Afonso’s in-laws, would, through their daughter, Afonso’s beloved wife and Queen, try to have Alfonso enforce his own expulsion of the jews. It would be a through mistake, one that would see the relations between the two Kingdoms and Portugal sour - the Afonsine Aviz’s, who had often quarreled with the Trastamaras, and especially Afonso, who’s coming to the throne had hardened him to the intrigues of Queen Isabella, saw this as an offence, believing that the request was an attempt by the Catholic monarchs to enforce their authority upon him. The request was denied, and diplomatic ties between Spain and Portugal broken (For a short time).

It was in this that Afonso and Isabella’s marriage came to it’s first rift - Isabella of Aragon was as fanatic as her mother, Isabella of Castille, and the couple would publicly quarrel in Portugal’s new royal palace - the palace of Ribeira, Afonso’s pet project. Isabella would publicly call Afonso a sinner but a messenger would come from Castille bearing news - John, Prince of Asturias and Girona, had died. Angered at his wife’s public defiance, Afonso would famously reply “And oh look, oh my most pious wife, who it is that sins.”

The death of John of Castille and Aragon would completely bury the hatchet of the jewish matter, as another matter took further importance in Afonso’s mind - the inheritance of the spanish Kingdoms. Isabella was now heiress of Castille and Aragon, and one of their five living children would be heir after her. Afonso and his wife would reconcile before embarking on a trip to Castille and Aragon with their children, where Afonso and Isabella would be made Princes of Asturias and Girona, but in their return home Isabella and Ferdinand would demand that Afonso’s heir - and the heir to all of Iberia, remain in Castille to be cared by his lonely grandmother. It was, essentially, forced upon Afonso, and in his return to Portugal a few months later it would only be the intervention of the pope which would see no war between Portugal and the rest of Iberia.

It would be the final hatchet in the ties between the Aviz and the Trastamaras. While Afonso would be allowed to keep tabs on his heir, and could steer his education, he would be under the care of Isabella of Castille, who, despite her very bad relations with her oldest child, Isabella, and her son-in-law, would be very doting upon the child. Afonso and his wife, however, would wear black for the rest of their lives, even after they would eventually get back their heir after the death of Queen Isabella in 1509.

Afonso and his wife, Isabella, reconciled, would turn their backs on Castille and Aragon, while her parents would never intrude in Portugal’s matters again. Afonso would throw himself into the maritime expeditions of his ancestors, and so would in his reign be discovered the maritime path to India (1498) and Brazil (1499) and Santa Cruz de Botuque (OTL Newfoundland). His reign would see Portugal become the center of a huge world Empire which would straddle the Gold Coast, Mozambique, much of East Africa’s coast all the way up to Mogadishu, many cities in India topped by the jewel and capital of the Indian Viceroyalty in Goa, Hormuz, Ceylon, Malacca and the isle of Timor - Afonso would become the suzerain of the Kongolese Kings, of many East African sultanates, he would also become Sovereign of Arabia, or more precisely, Southern Arabia, as he would become the suzerain over the Shia Sultanate of Yemen, of the Sunni Sultanate of Hadramut and Mahra, and of the Ibadi Sultanate of Oman, which would expand into north under Portuguese protection. Hormuz would be directly annexed by Portugal and would be ruled from Goa.

As a Christian King, despite his famous refusal to host the inquisition due to the pope’s support for the Catholic monarchs, he would perhaps be responsible for the spreading of Christianity to many Kingdoms in India, to most of Ceylon and to many Kingdoms of Indonesia. His close alliance with Ethiopia would see Ethiopia modernize a bit and would, with Portuguese assistance, beat the Ottoman’s local allies and expand to the sea.

Afonso would die of lung cancer in 1523, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. He would be succeeded by his eldest son Juan.

[2] Juan Avis was the eldest child of Alfonso VI and Isabella of Aragon. At age 2, his raising would be taken over by his grandmother, Isabella of Castile. While she was a doting grandmother, she was also controlling and fanatically religious. Though, Alfonso would bond with his grandfather, Ferdinand.

In response Juan developed an idealized impression of his parents and siblings, sure that as soon as he was allowed to return to them, he would be free from these restrictions. The idea was dashed, when he Isabella of Castile died. He would reunite with his parents at his mother’s coronation, they had meant to be earlier but the ship had been delayed, and it didn’t go well. The broken relationship would cause Alfonso and Isabella to wear black for the rest of their lives.

Juan would eventually build relationships with two of his brothers, though he had no time for his sisters.

Juan would be betrothed to a Avis cousin, continuing the family tradition of inbreading. But his bride-to-be would die in 1511. And a new betrothal would be arranged to his cousin on the other side, Eleanor of Austria. They would suffer from fertility issues and only one child would survive to adulthood. (This does leave from for a child king if anyone wants)

Isabella of Aragon would pass away in 1520, and Juan would swiftly travel, first to Aragon and then Castile, where he was crowned King. Three years later Alfonso would die and Juan would be crowned king of Portugal.

He would spend the rest of his reign working to combine his various realms into one. He mostly succeeded with the Iberian lands, but saw much less success in Italy.

He would die after being thrown from a horse and would be succeeded by his only living child and son, Ferdinand.

[3] Ferdinand was born in 1518, Juan, Prince of of Asturias and his wife, Eleanor of Austria, named after Juan’s maternal grandfather, Ferdinand II of Aragon.
His birth came following two miscarriages and would be followed by miscarriage, stillborns and short lived sisters, which would cause Ferdinand to have a fear of dying and not setting a legacy.
At the age of two, he became heir to the thrones of Spain (Castile and Aragon), following his father succeeding his grandmother and then at age five, heir to the throne of all Spain, when his Portuguese grandfather died, through all this his education was conducted by cardinals and archbishops of church from each individual kingdom, learning of their history.

His father’s death in 1528, caused 10 year old, Ferdinand to become the new king of all Spain, he chose to adopted his numeral after Ferdinand IV of Castile.
For the first six years of his reign, he had a regency under his mother and uncle Prince Edward, while his other uncle, Prince Alfonso, who married a distant cousin, Isabella d'Aragona of Naples, served as viceroy in the Italian region.
An interesting debate during the regency, was his potential bride; Eleanor tried to push the marriage of her brother, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s daughter only child and daughter with her sister-in-law, Princess Joanna of Portugal, however with Eleanors birthing issues and Joanna, dying in childbirth, it was seen as a bad omen. Instead, Edward suggested that, another niece would better, Princess Elizabeth, was the second daughter of his other sister, Princess Isabella, who had married Henry VIII of England, who became heir to Henry VII after the death of his older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales and his wife, Catherine of Aragon, both from sweating sickness.

In 1534, on his sixteenth birthday, Ferdinand was declared to have his majority, and so began plans began for the coronation and wedding.

The marriage to Elizabeth was a happy one, with the pair sharing common interest and resulted in a large number of children.

In 1542, a Papal Decree, by Pope John XXIII (formerly Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera) proclaimed that Ferdinand was Emperor of a new Holy Empire, and the pope would crown personally.
Under Ferdinand, the next 36 years saw the empire span across the globe, becoming the largest empire in history, to date, the whole of Iberian Peninsula, large parts of the Italian Peninsula, with large colonies in both the two new continents of North and South America, colonial settlements doted along all coasts of Africa as well as new holds in India and Indian Isles.
The empire’s economy benefited greatly from the trade of spices as well as brought gold into the treasury.
When it came to natives of these nations, Ferdinand pushed for missionaries to convert along side the Iberian Inquisition (II) who were given strong powers to investigate, torture and execute anyone declared an enemy of the Catholic Church.

In 1574, Ferdinand lost his wife Elizabeth, whom he had stayed faithful to and never remarried, praising her soul, Ferdinand’s own death came at the age of sixty-one in 1579 and he was succeeded by his son Afonso.

[4] Born in 1543, the year after his father was crowned the Holy Iberian Emperor, Afonso was the second and youngest surviving son of his parents, and grew up in the idyllic surroundings of the Alhambra in Granada, surrounded by a bevy of doting sisters (Maria, b.1537, Leonor, b.1538, Catarina b.1541, Isabella, b.1544 and Beatriz, b.1546) As the younger son, his parents were keen to find a way to provide for him without breaking apart his brother Joao’s inheritance.

Their original plan had been to make him Viceroy of the Portuguese East Indies, based in the Moluccas, but a second, better, opportunity arose upon the death of Francis II of France in 1560. Francis left behind a young, beautiful widow, Mary, Queen of Scotland, who was barely six months Afonso’s senior.

Had Mary’s Council been consulted, there might have been quite a bit more haggling involved, given Scotland was largely Protestant by this point and more than a bit leery of being hitched to the most powerful Catholic nation in the world, but, luckily for Afonso, Mary had always been ruled by her heart rather than her head.

When the Portuguese envoy, Ruy Gomez de La Silva, brought her a portrait of Afonso, it was love at first sight.

Besotted with the young Portuguese Prince, Mary sailed for Lisbon immediately and she and Afonso were married not four months later, in June 1561. Indeed, it was a double wedding, for Afonso’s sister Isabella married their distant cousin, Phillip V of Burgundy, at the same time.

Despite the speed of their marriage, Afonso and Mary were not destined to repent at leisure. Both energetic and more than a bit excitable, they got on famously, often disappearing together on horseback for hours at a time. By the mid-1570s, they had five children and Mary was pregnant for the sixth time.

Scotland, however, was a powder keg waiting to explode. The Protestant Lords had always resented Mary’s Catholic match, all the more so because they hadn’t been consulted on it, and when she created her eldest son Duke of Rothesay in 1567, without even bringing him to Scotland to present him to his future people, the spark of rebellion was lit. They took the second Earl of Arran to Scone and thence declared him James VI of Scotland. [1]

Afonso and Mary refused to let this stand. They mounted an army of 20,000 Iberian soldiers and sailed for Scotland, landing at Ayr in July 1568.

It was while they were busy ‘putting out the flames of heresy in Scotland’, as Afonso described it in a letter to his godfather, King Edward VI of England, that the news came that Afonso’s brother Joao had died in a riding accident.

Leaving the Duke of Alba in charge of military matters in Scotland, Afonso and Mary sailed for Portugal, landing in Aveiro in August 1571. Afonso was created Prince of Portugal, Asturias and Girona by his father in recognition of his new rank as heir to the Iberian Empire two months later.

The young couple based themselves at Belver Castle, where they were brought the news of Emperor Ferdinand’s death in May 1579.

Compared to their years in Scotland, Afonso’s reign over the Holy Iberian Empire was peaceful. Iberia was the richest country in the world and allied with all the other Catholic powers – France, Burgundy and England chief among them. Afonso was created ‘Defender of the Faith’ by the Pope for his efforts to restore Catholicism to Scotland, as well as for his promulgation of Christianity in the East Indies, which, thanks to his erstwhile upbringing as their future governor, he always took a keen interest in.

As Afonso grew older, he found it harder and harder to ride and dance as he had once done, and, following the death of his beloved eldest daughter, Juana, in childbirth in 1595, he turned to food for solace.

By 1601, he had ballooned to a girth of 51 inches, and was struggling to walk unaided.

He died in April 1601, after choking on a piece of lobster. He was survived by his wife, Empress Mary, and their seven surviving children.

His heir was his son Juan.

[1] Just to clear things up, the 2nd Earl of Arran never wavers from the Protestant faith TTL.

[5] Born in 1562, Juan was born as the first child of Afonso VII and Mary of Scotland. He was made Prince of Portugal, Asturias and Girona in 1579 following the death of his grandfather Ferdinand V and the ascension of his father as Emperor of the HIE. Juan married Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in 1585, and they would have four children together.

Juan became Holy Iberian Emperor and King of Scotland in 1601, with many hoping him to have an long and prosperous reign. However, this was not meant to be as four years into his reign, Juan was stabbed by an man while taking an walk through Edinburgh. He was succeeded by _________.

 

[Victoria]

Claim Gaul.

I rescind my claim.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

Claim Gaul.

 

[TheBeanieBaron]

What if ... Charles VIII and Anne of Britanny's first son lived?

King of France
1507-1534: Charles IX "Orlando" of France (House of Valois) [1]
1534-1550: Louis XII of France (House of Valois) [2]
1550-1561: Jean III of France (House of Valois) [3]
1561-1565: Charles X (House of Valois) [4]
1565-1594: Charles XI Amadée (House of Valois) [5]
1594-1619: Charles XII Étienne (House of Valois) [6]
1619-1630: François I Joseph (House of Valois)[7]
1630-1701: Louis XIII (House of Valois)[8]
1701-1749: Charles XIII Alphonse (House of Valois) [9]
1749-1757: Rodolphe II (House of Valois) [10]
1757-1806: Robert III Stanislas "Le Roi Soleil" (House of Valois) [11]

Emperors of Gaul
1806-1815: Charles XIV Paul (House of Valois) [12]
1815-1819: Regency Council of Louis XIV [13]
1819-1820: Rodolphe III "Le Empereur Hiver" (House of Valois)[14]
1820-1893: Phillipe VII Orlando (House of Valois)[15]
1893-1908: François II (House of Valois) [16]

Spoiler: Previous King and Emperors

[1] Charles Orland was the first and only son of Charles VIII of France and Anne of Britanny, and one of their two children to live to adulthood with his sister Anne. He was born in 1492 and became the Dauphin to the French throne. Because of his father's absence and his mother's waning health after the late birth of Anne, he was mostly raised between Amboise with his godmother Jeanne de Laval and Moulins with his aunt Anne de Beaujeu and her husband. His father was often at war, mostly in Italy, where his three expeditions earned the French control over Milan through the Louis D'Orléans and some influence over Savoy, but at the cost of many lives. Charles Orland was really marked by the death of one of his older friends at court, Charles de Bourbon, who died in the Battle of Florence in 1506, imprinting on him a very negative idea of war. His godmother taught him all about French and Italian literature, influencing him in his future patronage.

He rose to the throne in June 1507, after his father died from horrible convulsions. His mother died in the same year, and his sister inherited the throne of Britanny, conforming to the clauses of the marriage between their parents. She got engaged to Ferdinand II of Naples, in order to appease the situation in Italy, and ensuring a match that benefited her brother without creating a potentially dangerous alliance like the Austrian match that had thrown the diplomacy of her mother into disarray: Anne II was firmly on her brother's side, and did everything in her power to tie every loose Briton end with a French string.

The young King's ordre du jour in 1507 was simple: clean up his father's mess. His father had a political vision: he wanted to shoot an arrow through the Mediterranean that did have to transperce Naples in order to lodge itself deeply in the Ottomans' heart, before landing in Jerusalem. This vision, however, was essentially built on a muddy foundation of wishful thinking, and his son, already disgusted from war by the death of his confident Charles de Bourbon only one year prior. He got engaged to Yolande, sister of the heirless Duke of Savoie, five years older than he was. The King's vision was not directed towards the East like his father's, but towards a consolidation of the French territory: he wanted to ensure peace and exchanges between France and the rest of Europe, and especially with Italy. To this end, he wanted to create a solid, cohesive estate in Italy (for which he married the unofficial heir apparent to the throne of Savoy and waited for his heirless and married to an infertile wife uncle to die, ensuring a rich, cohesive and connected estate from Lyon to Milan and Arles to Crémone. With this powerful and legitimate collection of territories, the quarel with Naples squashed and burried through his sister's alliance (especially as the King of Aragon was starting to show displeasure at the idea of Naples belonging to this bastard line instead of them), he hoped to make France too big of a piece to chew, while being resolute to keep polite relations with everyone.

Being quite a seductive diplomat, he managed to sweet-talk the Queen of Castille into an arbitration with her husband and her sisters: there, he let the conflicting interests of Juana, Philipp von Hapsburg, the Queen of Portugal and the still unmarried Princess of Aragon collide, while attempting to reconcile them to France if not to each others. It was thought for a very long time that he had masterfully played his hand to lead to an uneasy Regency by the for now unmarried Catherine of Aragon, designated to last until a potential marriage, making her, for now, a mostly neutral actor, effectively depriving the Hapsburgs of a major asset while making himself look like the neutral, benevolent, smiling arbiter of peace for his time. In fact, from a diary of his favourite, Lucien d'Albignac, retrieved in archives in Amboise in 1967, show that even to his most intimate partners, he declared to be very disappointed for the poor Queen who did seem quite lucid to him, especially taking into account her difficult situation, and that he wished he could have done more to satisfy everyone with a fair distribution.

It was also this sort of earnest enthusiasm and benevolence that led him to be the patron of many prominent thinkers, poets and writers at first, and then inventors, sculptors, painters, ... among them Leonardo da Vinci, the painter Raphaelle, botanist Giovanni Manardo, ... he saw the early beginning of his reign as an invitation to a long-term and ambitious vision for his Kingdom. He wanted to create a strong base, and has the charisma to invite to reflexion, but sadly little of the actual administrative competence to make it happen.

When Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and Milan, died in 1527, he inherited the possessions of his uncle, and toured his newly acquired estates in Italy to meet his new subjects, promising to protect their way of life, and even inhabited Milan for a few months. He integrated much of his uncle's administration and personel to his own Court, hoping to acquire new talents, and recruited a bilingual secretary from Milan, André d'Alciat, for his correspondence with Italy. When in 1537 Charles II of Savoy died without issue from his legitimate wife Jeanne of Naples, Yolande, a very ambitious woman, claimed the Duchy for herself, against her brothers who were all excommunicated, ordinated to some ecclesiastical positions, or born illegitimate, and gained approval from the Pope and her illegitimate-born brother René. Happy to have time away from his wife, and her to finally own this Duchy she had seen falling from hands to hands for years without ever arriving in hers until now, the King and Queen were both very personally satisfied of this development.

The royal couple, despite the both's much more pronounced interest in older men than each other, was quite a harmonious household, and they managed to sire four children: Louis (B. 1510), Anne (B. 1512), Charles, Duke of Orleans (B. 1514), and Henri, Duke of Berry (B. 1517). The King died at the age of 42, being remembered in his Court for his charming personality and Italian mannerisms, and was even more fondly remembered by his subjects who were glad to finally be awarded a generation without wars, without conscription and with lower taxes. After his death, he throne of France went to Louis XII.

[2] Louis XII ascended the throne in 1534 at the age of 24. At the time of his ascension, Louis was a widower, with his wife, Princess Margaret (B. 1508), having died the previous year while giving birth to their third child, who died not long after their Mother. With no sons, Louis was eager to remarry and would do so the next year when he married the Neapolitian Princess (and his cousin) Giovanna (B. 1517), which renewed the French alliance with Naples. The two would get along well throughout the ups and downs of Louis's reign and would share 5 children.

Louis continued his Father's cultural policies, hiring and sponsoring many artists, poets, playwrights, and writers. This would inevitably lead to him coming into contact with renowned reformer, John Calvin. John like Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon believed that the time of the Catholic Church had come to an end, and began preaching a new Christian sect known as Calvinism. Louis took an interest in this new sect and would meet with John in 1538, to discuss theology with him. After several debates between the two, Louis, and his family converted to Calvinism and were baptised in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, by John Calvin himself.

Some French Nobles, such as the Duke of Bourbon, Alencon, and Berry and the Count of Auveregne, Boulogne, Angouleme and St Pol, agreed with Calvin and the King and converted as well. Others such as the Count of Foix, Montpensier, and Duke of Nemours and Orleans, opposed the King and would raise against him in 1540, in what would become known as the First War of French Religion. The rebellious nobles wanted the King to revert to Catholicism and were supported by England and Spain, who sought to antagonise the French.

Louis would prove himself quite the general however and would lead an army against the nobles, defeating them battle after battle. Many took this as a sign of Divine Backing and abandoned the Catholic Cause, while others fought on. Their efforts would prove futile however and in 1542, the Duke of Berry would be killed in the Battle of Albi. With that the first War of French Religion came to an end.

Louis would soon begin instigating Calvin's reforms, weakening the power of the Church, reforming their practices, and introducing new ones, most notably the concepts of Predestination, a Vernacular Bible, and allowing the Clergy to marry. John Calvin was also appointed to the role of Archbishop of Reims, and would later crown Louis's successor, His eldest son.

In 1545, France would be invaded by England and Spain, who claimed they were invading in the name of the Pope. Louis would raise his armies to fight the invaders, and would personally lead a force to attack Calais, the last English possession on the continent. After a brutal and gruelling 500 day siege, which saw no more than 4 relief attempts by the English, Calais fell to Louis, who entered it in triumph. It was soon followed up by the French victory at the Naval Battle of Wight, which saw 34 English ships destroyed.

Meanwhile, things were going less well on the Spanish front. The new Duke of Berry was killed in battle by the Spanish, with his Dukedom being inherited by his brother. The city of Toulouse and Bordeaux were also being besieged, with English forces assisting the Spanish. Louis would march down south with his army to stop them, and would request Neapolitan assistance. Naples would accept and would donate 20 ships and 10,000 Gold coins to the French cause. From 1547 to 1550, Louis fought the English and French in several battles, winning some and losing others. By the time of his death, he managed to relieve Bordeaux and kick the English and Spanish out of Gascony but failed to relieve Toulouse, which fell to the Spanish in 1549.

In early 1550, Louis would contract smallpox and would die on March 29th. He would be succeeded by his senior son; Jean, Dauphin of France, otherwise known as Jean III.

[3] Jean was the eldest son of Louis and his wife, and named so for his father's ally, confidant, and friend; John Calvin. Raised in the freedoms of the Calvinist court of his father, the young Dauphin has been extremely pious and obedient even as a child, in one instance where his tutor lamented the death of the Pope, the young Dauphin ordered him whipped, and uttered the infamous statement; N’épargnez pas le papiste, car il n’abrite que la corruption. When his father died, the ten-year-old Jean inherited both a throne and a war with England and Spain. The war rapidly turned against France, with the Anglo-Spanish Alliance, headed by William III of England, son of Henry VIII Tudor, and Joanna of Castile and Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

Jean III, his Regent, and his advisors were forced to rapidly seek a peace, and they found one in the form of the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554, losing Guyenne and Calais to the English, with Calais being directly ceded to England, and Guyenne split off a new crown in the quiver of William III and losing the majority of the Languedoc to Spain. After the Treaty of Toulouse, Jean III descends in religious extremism, finding Calvinism too lenient upon Popery, and he developed a merciless and extreme interpretation of the Doctrine, commonly called Jeanism (Puritanism), and in the year 1560, seventy-five churches in France were following the Jeanist doctrine. In 1557, Jean III had taken a wife; Christine of Hesse, but their marriage was pained, and a single daughter; Christine of France, was born to the pair in 1559. At the age of 21, in 1561, Jean III did suffer a deep melancholy and after much soul-searching and thought, the King did end his life. He was succeeded by his uncle; Charles of Orléans.

Duke Charles II of Orléans before his ascension
[4] Duke Charles of Orléans was born in 1514, to Charles IX "Orlando" of France and Princess Yolande Louise of Savoy. In 1527, he was made the Duke of Orléans, after the death of Louis, who was the Duke of Milan, but also the Duke of Orléans. Unlike his father, Charles aspired to be a warrior, like in the stories that were told to him by courtiers.

He opposed his brother’s conversion to Calvinism and was joined by several other nobles, thus kicking off the First War of French Religion. Charles distinguished himself in various battles. However, he always remained skeptical of his English and Spanish allies, fearing that they would take lands from France. His fears would finally be realized by the Treaty of Toulouse in 1554. After this, he pledged his services to his nephew, King Jean III. However, the French king continued to despise him and even imprisoned him once.

Upon the King’s suicide in 1561, Charles succeeded him as ruler of France. Immediately, after his ascension, he had to put down a revolt caused by revolting Calvinists and Puritans. Fearing swift reprisals, a plot was formed to install Jean III’s two-year-old daughter, Christine onto the throne, but this also failed.

After an exhausting four year reign, Charles X died in 1565, from a bad case of the fever, he was succeeded by his eldest son; Charles Amadée, Dauphin of France..

[5] Charles Amedée was born in 1533, before his Grandfather's death to Charles, Duke of Orleans and his Savoyard wife, aged nineteen and eighteen respectively and sadly his birth resulted in the death of his mother. For much of the early years of his life, the Prince lived a relatively austere and Spartan life, as his father took a new wife and had further issue, and the young Charles Amedée was left to himself. At the age of sixteen, he purchased the Lordship of Becelaere in Flanders from the de la Woestyne, and moved his small band of retainers and friends to his new property. In 1553, Charles Amedée married Manuela, Princess of Portugal (B.1534) as part of the negotiations of alliance conducted between Portugal and France, and was a gift his father abdicated Milan to his son, who was crowned as Amadeo I, Duke of Milan.

The Young prince, both a sovereign Lord in Milan and a vassal of his cousin; Jean III, had to sit upon a fine line, preserving the interests of Milan and Becelaere, as well as maintaining the confidence his cousin had in him. In 1559, Charles Amedée officially sanctioned the Jeanist doctrine be expanded into Milan, despite toeing the line of Catholicism himself, and it was in 1560, during the 7 months of his fathers fourth imprisonment under Jean III, Charles Amedée did travel to Rome and meet his Holiness himself, and reconciled with the church, immediately banning the Jeanist doctrine in Milan.

During the reign of his father, Charles Amadée became a respected diplomat and representative of his father, notably signing the Truce of Winchester between England and France. After his father's reign, the Dauphin returned to Paris and was crowned as Charles XI Amadée, but the event was struck by more tragedy as his wife; Manuela, did collapse and pass after the coronation, leaving Charles Do and their four children without a wife or mother. It was in 1568 that Charles discussed remarriage, and so by the end of the year had taken the young Immaculeta of Lorraine (B.1545) as his second wife, and she would give him a further four children. The reign of Charles XI Amadée was a golden age of peace and prosperity, with a sword never raised in anger during the twenty nine years of rule. In 1594, the King passed and was succeeded by his third child; Prince Étienne Charles.

[6] Prince Étienne Charles was the third of the Prince Charles Amadée and his Portuguese wife, born in 1557 after the birth of his elder siblings; Prince Louis Jean (B.1554) and Prince Charles Philibert (B.1555). Born on the Saints Day of Saint Stephen, his mother and father named him for both his paternal grandfather, father, and the saint of the day. being the third son, Étienne occupied a strange place, being raised in Flanders undergoing a tutorship by the Prince-Bishop of Liege himself, marking the young Étienne against his Milanese older siblings. A tumultuous time, the young Étienne flirted with faith his entire life,having been put forward for a Flemish bishopric at the age of eleven (1568), before converting to Lutheranism by the influence of his retainers and friends (1571) and in 1575, he converted to Calvinism, before returning to Catholicism at the age of twenty two.

It was in 1576 that Tragedy struck the House of Capet, as Louis Jean, the Dauphin of France was thrust from his horse travelling through Normandy, and but a year later where Charles Philibert, who had been made Governor of Milan in his father's stead, died of a venereal disease, thrusting Étienne into the picture as the Dauphin of France. The death of their full-sister in 1591; Maria of France (B.1558), who in 1580, briefly married Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria until his death in 1585, and afterwards took her vows and became a Nun, made Étienne the sole surviving child from his father's first marriage, and in the mind of strengthening the Franco-Portuguese alliance, Étienne took a Portuguese bride, the niece of his mother; Infante Teresa of Portugal.

The death of his father placed the thirty seven year old Dauphin upon the throne, who granted significant titles and lands upon his four half-siblings, the eldest being a full decade and a half younger than Étienne, or Charles XII as he was crowned. It was in 1601 that Henry IX Tudor, son of William III and King of England died, and the male line of the Tudors has died out, and by the Treaty of Toulouse the Kingdom of Guyenne had been tied to the survival of the Royal House, and so Charles XII approached the Papacy for arbitration, and it was in 1609, after an eight year Cardinal-Regency in Guyenne that His Holiness Julius V decided in favour of the French, and so Guyenne was once more United to France after fifty five years of Tudor rule. By the 1610s, Charles XII was old beyond his years, while only in his fifties, he was obese and bald, but jovial in his manners. In 1619, after a twenty five year reign, he passed, and the throne went to his son, François Joseph.


[7] Born in 1583, the young duc de Bourgogne François Joseph was the spare to the throne of Charles the XII, following his older brother Robert Xavier, dauphin of France. Brought up in the diverse environment of the court of Charles the XII, François would have an excellent education by the standards of the time - along with his many siblings, François was considered one of the greatest princes of the age, famous for his patronage of both military inovators and famously, sculpters.

François' coronation painting, circa 1620.
His status has a second son allowed François plenty of liberties (and money) to pursue his two passions - religion and the sea. Unlike his father and brother, who were moderate catholics, François was himself a moderate calvinist, who believed that the various christian theologies spread in France, both protestant and apostolic, should be consolidated into one, and it would be thus that François' court in Dijon would became a center of French theologians, and it would be during this time that the future Gallic Church would be born.

Another of François' aforementioned dreams was of gold in the Americas and the spices of India, and an Empire that stretched over all land touched by the sun. It was thus that François would earn his famous moniker "Le Prince Pirate", as he would become the famous and rather public patron of many French and foreign corsairs that would almost lead France and Spain to war many times. It would be these same corsairs that would be responsible for the setting up of France' first colonies - In Acadie, (OTL New England and OTL Acadie), the two towns of Port du Prince (OTL Halifax) and Montjoie (OTL Boston) would be founded, while the town of Port Royal (OTL Capetown) in the southern tip of Africa would be founded by the famous calvinist corsair, Louis Xavier d'Esprée.

The death of his brother short of the re-annexation of Guyenne would see the previously unmarried François forced to seal the peace with Spain by marrying the daughter of the Spanish King Ferdinand, Infanta Maria Catalina. Despite their difference in religion, the marriage would go rather well - while the couple were certainly not the image of the romantic couple, they complemented each other well and often more than not agreed - however, Maria Catalina would prove to be unable to bear healthy children, with all children not stillborn the couple had dying soon afther birth. For the most part, François and his wife would eventually agree to stop trying, as François would famous state that "God has given me a barren wife: But he has given me a fertile consort, who stands at my side and counsels me better than most men."

The death of François' father in 1619 would see the Dauphin arise to the throne, and it would be one of joy as François would succesfully negotiate with Spain for the return of Languedoc back to France, as Spain would enter a period of hostility with it's old allies in England and the Empire due to piracy, tarrifs and a lack of financial certainty. It would be thus that François would be able to use the division between the Austrian and Dutch houses of Habsburg to invade what remained of Imperial Burgundy, Luxemburg and Lille, conquering all three.

After these adquiring these things, François would finally move to establish the Gallican church, that would become the first state religion of the french. François would spend much of his later reign taking over monasteries and properties of disgruntled nobles.

François would eventually die from a chill he would catch while visiting the coast.

[8] Louis de Valois was born to Charles de Valois, first son of Charles XI Amédée and Immaculée of Lorraine, and Magdalena de Medici, sister of Pope Leo X, in 1625. The young baby was then far from being the French Dauphin. He was, however, his parents' treasure, and they made sure to give him the best education. The young Dauphin de Lorraine was raised in both Calvinism (from the Valois) and Catholicism (from the Lorraine and the Medici), and was taught from a young age what a ruler needed to do. However, when his father died in 1629, he became heir to a much bigger pressure, and his mother raised a true council of scholars and tutors to attempt to teach him everything a youn King needs to know. When François I died, the young King was hastily baptized in the proper Gallican rite and was then crowned Louis XIII, King of France.

From 1630 to 1640, the Regency was assured by a Council including his mother, the Duke of Bourbon, his uncle's advisors and the Archbishop of Reims. This council would mainly focus on overseeing the administration of the new Gallican Church and attempts to stich back the Gallican and Catholic Church in some capacity: Magdalena di Medici was, after all, the Pope's cousin, and wanted an arrangement that would allow the Gallican Church to exist within the Catholic Church, instead of creating a latent conflict. The Council of Besançon of 1637, led by the Archbishop of Reims himself and the Legate Giulio de Medici, was a very long and frustrating endeavour on both parts, only held together by the intransigeance of the two Medicis. The Edict of Besançon that came out of it was a weird attempt at compromise, that did however allow for peace in Louis XIII's time: the Gallican and Catholic priests would both be allowed to give sacraments, and sacraments from one clergy was valid in the other, and Gallican bishops could oversee Catholic priests and vice-versa on their respective dioceses. This joint religious administration actually presented a sort of boon: the religious administration was forced to recede in the back, while the secular administration was in full swing, finally unburduned from the religious administrations and the bogus accusations from both clergies to one another.

Now somewhat reconciled with the Catholic nations, and dynastically linked to the Iberians, the Valois' future seemed a bit more certain. The young king was betrothed to the Spanish Infante, Isabella Trasmastara, in order to mend the relationship between the two countries, although it was clearly stated that the second child, and not the first, would inherit the Spanish throne. His cousin, Anne de Bourbon, was betrothed to the cousin of the King of Portugal, in order to keep some blood relations between the two families. The King's main obsession was the same as his predecessor's : the expansion of France beyond the sea. Acadie expanded towards the Saint-Louis River (St-Laurent), connecting the Lakes to the Ocean, through the alliance with many Native tribes. When it became clear that the administration could not be left to the mayors of the two cities anymore, a viceroyalty was elected with a colonial assembly. In Africa, Port-Royal evolved into the Confédération du Bon-Espoir, French and Milanese colonists establishing many coastal cities in order to trade glass and manufactured objects for ivory and gold. The conversion of several Malagasy princes to Christianity was considered as a great victory by France and the Gallican clergy. But by far, the most influential decision taken by the king was the establishment of the villeneuves along several trails, creating trading and diplomatic outposts with the Natives, and easing colonization inland. The longest of those trails, the Great Southern Road, lead to Sainte-Geneviève (around OTL Memphis), a fort town in the Pays des Illinois, where one could take the Sissipiou River down to the Ocean.

This, however, sparked a controversy that France (and, once they were let in on the goal of the operation Portugal and Spain) would gladly instrumentalize: if you could convert Africans and Natives, it necessarily meant that they have a soul. And how can you own a soul? The Bordeaux Controversy surrounding the soul of non-Europeans and the ethics of enslaving potential converts was not, mind you, motivated by ethics, but by a calculation to undermine England, Norway and Denmark's colonial attempts. Indeed, whereas Spain and France had massive populations to draw from, and Portugal had become accustomed to coopting local monarchs, the Northern kingdoms were shorter on population. Thus, the final decision to forbid Christian kings and merchants from buying slaves was mostly an attempt to club the colonial ambitions of rival kingdoms down, using theology. While far from ending slavery in the colonies, this declaration of intent did slow down the development of the slave trade in America. The French expédition led by Capitaine Jules d'Aubigny towards India and Japan, leading a royally-sanctioned alliance of merchants and privateers named the "Flotte Royale de l'Orient", led to the purchase of several fishing ports as trading posts: Potupithyia on Taprobane (OTL Sri Lanka), the island of Lantau in South China and the southern quarter of the island of Udo (close to Jeju) in order to provide French ports in the Orient, facilitating trade with China, Japan, Korea, India and the Malay Archipelago.

Economically, the Kingdom was badly affected by the awful summer of 1654, a stromy summer that prevented any harvests from reaching its goal and forcing the Kingdom to import expensive Italian rice and wheat, causing a great debt that hampered Louis's dreams of great cities overseas whose magnificence could make Orléans or Bordeaux blush. However, this agricultural crisis led to intense work from France's growing population of scholars to improve France's agriculture, especially through the introduction of New World plants such as the Indian wheat they called "maiz", or the golden apple (potato) that could both withstand wet summers, greatly improving France's agricultural security. A certain lady scholar, named Marguerite de Florensac, who had participated to the study of butterflies and gained great renoun for proving they were actually caterpillars with wings, and not pebbles animated by Satan [yes, it was actually the theory on butterflies for the longest time in medieval and Renaissance Europe] also found ot the secret of the silkworms, importing them to France and presenting them to his majesty. This gave the French monarchy a quasi-monopoly on silk, keeping the secret of the silkworm a well guarded one for nearly four decades, until another similar exploration led by Portuguese captain Sebastian de Oliveira arrived to the same conclusion and introduced the silkworms to his birthplace: Alentejo.

In his old years, the King, proud of having repaid most of the Kingdom's debts, began the renovation of the Louvres into a comfortable castle, in order to reconnect with the center of power that is Paris, and with the small people that lived in the great city. The very old man died in his sleep at 75, after one of the longuest reigns in history, most likely from old age and from the sawdust of the renovations, he who had moved back to the Louvres before the rest of his family in order to oversee the works. His widow followed him in the grave seven months later, after the two had a very long life and six children together. After his reign came his Great-grandson; Charles-Alphonse, Comte de Vermandois.

[9] Charles-Alphonse de Valois was born in 1691 to Louis-Rodolphe de Valois (B.1671) and his Este wife; Beatrice of Modena (B.1672). Louis-Rodolphe was the son of Pierre -Charles de Valois, Comte de Vermandois (B.1649), the third child and second son of Louis XIII. Pierre-Charles has been granted the County of Vermandois upon his marriage to Princess Euphemia of Scotland (B.1650) in 1670, and the pair welcomed their first child in 1671; Pierre-Jacques de Valois, followed by Louis-Rodolphe de Valois the year after. Pierre-Jacques has been born stunted, both physically and mentally, so in 1690, his father disinherited his eldest son, placed him in a monastery and named his second son as his heir and orchestrated his sons marriage to Beatrice of Modena. Tragedy struck in 1692 as Louis, Dauphin of France (B.1647), the eldest son and heir of Louis XIII died childless, thrusting the Comte de Vermandois and his progeny into the limelight, and a year later, Louis-Rodolphe also passed, after a bout of the pox, pushing Charles-Alphonse further to the throne.

The Comte de Vermandois himself died in 1699, two years before his father, and so the young Charles-Alphonse became the second Comte de Vermamdois. From this point, Louis XIII took his descendent under his wing, but alas, perhaps he pushed too strongly. Rumours said Louis had his great-grandson sleep in his bed and tales of groping and "acts unbecoming of the Great King" taking place. It was said that in the Kong's funerary procession, that the young heir did not weep once. Upon his own coronation, Charles XIII Alphonse ordered the demolition of the Palais du Louvre, his predecessors personal project. Guided by his Catholic mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother, the young king did personally conduct a pilgrimage to Rome, and received the Eucharist by the pope himself in 1710, in an effort to further distance himself from his Calvinist-inclined Great-Grandfather. His colonial policy was to favour expansion in the East Indies, and Africa, authorizing more french merchants to purchase trading posts and warehousing particularly in India. In 1714, the King would take a bride, a non too distant cousin; Isabeau of Berry, another great-Grandchild of Louis XIII. It was a happy marriage, with five children being born.

Perhaps to further divide himself from his forebear, Charles XIII did actively seek warfare, notably forming the Soldat à louer de Paris, a Corps recruited from the region surrounding Paris, whom the French state would hire out to kingdoms and nations who could pay the men, and the French crown for the pleasure. The Soldat à louer de Paris notably fought in the War of the Hessian Succession (1714-1719), the Salzburg War (1716), the War of the Portuguese Succession (1723-1726), the Cordoba War (1729-1736), the War of the Parmese Succession (1739-1742), and the Algiers Corsairs War (1727-1741). Charles XIII 's France herself was a peaceful kingdom, but religious discontent boiled under the surface; the Calvinists of the South and West, the Lutherans in the Rhenish lands, the Catholics in the East and North, and the Gallicanists in the centre all bore grudges against another. Thankfully perhaps, the King did see no religious strife, and passed in 1749.

[10] Prince Rodolphe was born in 1715 as the first child of Charles XIII Alphonse and Isabeau of Berry. He and his siblings were raised in both the Catholic faith as part of his father’s distancing from their forebear Louis XIII. Rodolphe married Princess Margaret of Scotland (b. 1712), daughter of David IV, in 1736. The marriage was an loving one and the pair had seven children together.

Rodolphe succeeded his father Charles XII Alphonse upon the latter's death in 1749, and converted to Gallican to promote religious tolerance arcoss France. This didn't work as in 1754 his Calvinist nephew François (b. 1718), son of his uncle Louis-Jean (b. 1692), proclaimed himself King of Occitanie, beginning the Second War of French Religion.

Burgundy would join Occitanie in their fight against France when they declared Ernest Louis, Elector of Hanover, their King. Thus the war became an one v. two between France and Occitanie and Burgundy, with the latter two not only supported by Denmark, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire, but also quite good in combat, defeating the French in battle after battle.

Rodolphe would not see the end of the Second War of French Religion, as he was assassinated in 1757 by an Calvinst stabbing him in the back. He was succeeded by his son, Robert Stanislas.

[11] The man who would grow to become the Sun King was born Louis Robert Stanislas Xavier, duc de Bourgogne, son of Rodolphe of France and Margaret of Scotland, born on a misty eve of 1742, third child and first son of the couple. His many tutors would remark highly upon the young Dauphin, as a bright boy heading for a bright future. Indeed, the injection of the rather diluted Stuart line (Scotish kings, in their pursuit of centralization, had married on and off their nobility and different royal families, being by far the "cleanest" royal house of the age.) served well for the French royal house, as Robert and his three brothers, the duke of Chartres Louis Phillipe, the Duke of Luxembourg Rodolphe Louis and the Duke of Provence, Gaston Louis, would all four go on to become three of the hall-marks of the French Revolution.

The King would have barely reached his majority when news of his father's death would reach him. Louis and his short regency led by his only remaining loyalist uncle left, Phillipe of Orleans, would lead a two year final confrontation that would see both Burgundy and Occitannie destroyed. Occitanie, riddled with civil conflict over the would be ambitions of Robert's cousin, would quickly be reconquered, while Burgundy, supported by many german states, would take longer, but would see the birth of a military renaissance in France that would see France reach a level of military technology well above their neighbours. France, divided at the start of Robert's reign, would reach the Rhine only three years after it.

Robert the Victorious, by Jacques Louis David.
The reconquest of Burgundy and Occitania, alongside the inclusion of new provinces on the Rhine, would see a level of deep reform that would take almost twenty years to complete, from tax to finances to administrative and the military. The end of the regional parliaments and the introduction of la Carte Royale of 1770, widely regarded as as the first modern constitution of the world. It clearly distributed the powers of the regenerated Senate of France, the tribunals and the French Monarchy proper. Robert's reign would see finnaly the end of France's religious turmoil, as the head of the Gallican Church was made Primate of Gaul, and the church became autonomous and properly established. Most of France would come to adopt Gallicanism in turn. Acadia, Canada and Artactique, (OTL South Africa) and Australie (Australia) adquired in the 1º War of the Coalition (1779-1783) would see all three of France's major settler colonies explode in population, resources and autonomy, with the first statute of "Les Provinces Ultramarines" being given to Acadia in 1786 as a reward for Acadian efforts in the coalition wars.

Robert's sternest legacy would be surely in the building of infrastructure. From the renovated Palais de Tuileries to the meagrest road in Aquitaine, Robert's caring hand would see all. France and it's colonies would see a renovation and building spree that would reach all, especially in education facilities as Robert would be the personal patron of at least 43 confirmed universities.

The high-mark of Robert's Kingship would be the three coalition wars. In the first, many of the German Princes defeated in the second French war of Religion and the Kingdom of the Netherlands would attempt to wrestle the conquered parts west of the Rhine from France, but they would be quickly defeated in a sucessive series of battles in Flanders and Westphalia by the Duke of Luxembourg and Duke of Chartres, would see all of Roman Gaul and all Dutch and German land west of the Rhine annexed into france. It was at this time that Robert would name himself "Robert, King of the French and master of Gaul". In reaction for this massive land-grab, England, Austria and Spain would all declare war on France. It would be a futile effort that would see these powers defeated not once, but twice.

Robert's would not take any territtory from any further power but England, which would see Catholic Ireland separated from it, with the last of the Dukes of Bourbon, Antoine of Bourbon made it's first king. Robert would furthermore see Poland, which had been diminished by France's ally Prussia, Austria and Russia to just it's central region (Congress Poland) back to having Galicia from Austria, and would support the candidature of his cousin, François of Orleans, to the Polish throne.

To cement his victory and assure peace, Robert would organize a warming of Polish-Russian relations by marrying himself to Anna Pavlona, princess of Russia, with whom he would have plenty of children.

Robert would live his last years in peace, growing fat in the Tuilleries. Remembered as one of France's most beloved monarchs, Robert would be the last of the infamous "Thunderbolt Quartet" to survive, dying after one of France's last victories during his reign - the invasion of the Ottoman Empire in cooperation with Austria-Hungary and Russia, which would see France annex Algeria and Egypt, and becoming a patron of the newly formed Kingdom of Greece from it's capital in Thessalonika, where Robert would place one of his nephews by his youngest brother, the Duke of Provence, on the throne.

By his death by cardiac arrest, France had an Empire upon which the sun never set, ranging from Canada, Acadia, Saint Domingue, Artartique, Algeria, Australie, and a hundred and more trading ports in both the East and West Indies, alongside plenty of land in India, Indochina and China proper. He would be succeded by his son Charles Paul.

Charles XIV Paul of Gaul, Primate of Gaul
[12] Born in 1785 as the first of three children of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, Charles Paul grew up to be an capable and ambitious man who upon succeeding his father in 1806 delcared France to become the Empire of Gaul. He worked on consolidating his vast empire and gave the title of Chief Minister more power in internal affiars, although the Emperor still had control over millitary and foreign policy.

In his personal life, Charles married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, whom he had four children with. He was assassinated in 1815 when an bomb that was placed in the carriage he was riding in exploded, killing the Emperor. He was succeeded by Crown Dauphin, Louis, his eldest son.

[13] Louis XIV was born in 1810, second child but eldest son of Charles XIV and Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria. From birth he was of fragile health.
Within the first five years of his life, Louis suffered from a multiple of illness, such as measles and smallpox; this made him a quiet talker and slow learner.
Upon the news of his fathers death, Louis was named the new Emperor and a regency council was set up, with members including but not limited to his mother, his uncles Robert and Rodolphe, Duke of Orléans, Cardinal Francis, Archbishop of Paris and a distant relative, Henri, Duke of Burgundy.
His death came four years later, when 9 year old Louis XIV, contracted tuberculosis, it was a shock to many who thought the young emperor was finally gaining strength. He was succeeded by his uncle, Rodolphe Duke of Orleans..

[14] Rodolphe was born in 1786 as the second child of Robert III Stanislas and Anna Pavlona of Russia, and was made Duke of Orleans upon his birth. In 1805, his brother Charles Paul succeeded their father as the first Emperor of Gaul, and Rodolphe would serve as an advisor for him, until his untimely death in 1815. He had also married Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1808, and had five children with Her.

Rodolphe then became an member of the regency council (which his brother Robert was also part of) for his nephew Louis XIV until his death from tuberculosis in 1819, at which point he became Emperor of Gaul at the age of 33. He would not be Emperor for long however as he died of pneumonia in early February 1820 after taking an walk through Paris without wearing an overcoat. He would later be known as the Winter Emperor (as he reigned from November to February) and was succeeded by his son, Phillipe Orlando.

[15] The man who would categorize a century of mankind's history would be born in 1809 - first child of his parents, the then duke of Orleans Rodolphe and his wife, Elizabeth of Bavaria. Phillipe would be raised by his mother and an army of tutors in the Chateau Ducal in Orleans, at the insistence of his parents who disliked the stink and "perfidious" nature of the parisian scene. The ascention of his father to the Imperial throne, however, would see Phillipe move to the Palais des Tuilleries, the residence of the Imperial family. There, he would see his father fall to pneumonia and the young new Emperor himself would be placed under a curfew to make sure the same would not repeat with him.

Phillipe the VII, in his military attire during a visit to Antartica in South Africa.
​

Phillipe, being only 10 at the age of his ascencion to the Gallic throne, would be placed under a regency - The Primate of Gaul and Archbishop of Lyons, Henri, head of the Gallican Church, and the four remaining Princes of the Blood, Ferdinand of Chartres, François of Luxembourg, Henri of Bourbon and Charles of Conde. The "Regence du Sang", headed by the Ferdinand, the Duke of Chartres, as the eldest and highest ranking of the Princes of Blood, would be a thorough success, as the aged Duke managed led Gaul in it's ever faster industrialization.

It would be only in 1826 that Phillipe would be effectively crowned, bearing the title "Phillipe, par la graçe de Dieu, Empereur et Autocrate des Gaulois, Roi de France et Grand Duque du Rhin, Souverain du Canada, de l'Acadie, de l'Antartique, de l'Australie e de Numidie, Pharaoh de l'Egypte et Sultan de la Syrie, Seigneur du Deccan, Ceylon et de Carnat....". Phillipe, sixteen by then, was already the most powerful man in the world.

Phillipe's reign, long as it was, was marked by the appearance of France and it's colonies as the main superpower in the world. Metropolitan France, Acadia, Canada, Antartica and Australia would all become what the Emperor called his "Five fingers" as the Gallic Empire switched from a purely French Empire to a global Empire, in which France proper and all it's settler colonies played a part in expanding Gallic territorry and interests. At the start of his reign, Metropolitan Gaul held a population shy of 45 million while Canada held two million, Acadia had a million and a half, Antartica had 2 million (Antartica is, unlike our world's version of South Africa, majority white and mixed) while Australia held just a few hundred thousand. At the end of his reign, Metropolitan Gaul held over 86 million people, while Canada and Acadia held 38 million and 27 million respectivelly, with Antartica having 35 million and Australie 15 million. Other French colonies would become important as well - Numidia, previously known as Algeria in North Africa, would suffer enormous Gallic immigration into it, being Romanized and Gallicized very quickly. It would become important as an extension of metropolitan France, and it's native muslim population would suffer tremendous social pressure due to a lack of access to politics and increased pressure from both native and Gallic christians. Saint-Domingue, the Antilles and Guyana in Central and South America, despite not being majority white, would become heavily Gallicized as well, becoming mostly mixed as time went by. All three colonies would become autonomous provinces, having an elected local governor general. France would dominate many coastal areas of Africa, as France and other European powers, despite growing support for Imperialism in Europe, would prefer to support local African governments and in more primite areas choose selective tribes they would support over local arrivals. Gaul proper would try to avoid Africa as much as possible due to Phillipe's belief that peace with Europe was to be mantained, and he saw Africa as simply a new battleground. In Asia, France owned Ceylon and Southern India, the isle of Hainan in China alongside the island of Taiwan, the whole Island of Borneo and Indochina.

Phillipe would be a staunch industrialist and eco-nationalist, being one of the first rulers to speak of the importance of the effects of industry on the "Natural land of the Gallic people" which would have a permanent effect on industrialism worldwide, with the world becoming more careful about the effects of Industry. All the while, as education and buying power increased, Gallic industry increased everywhere, both in the Dominions and Gaul proper, and Gaul would become by far the most dominant industrial power of the age.

Gaul would suffer a constitutional crisis and would hand more powers from the monarchy to the "Premier Consul de l'Empire", more or less the French prime minister. Nonetheless, Phillipe remained a highly respected and beloved figure of Gallic politics, with his influence everywhere in the government. Education in "Gallic French", a mixture of many French dialects made official by the government, was spread to all regions of the Empire, and soon even the Rhenish and Flemish provinces of the Empire become either bilingual or majority French speaking by the end of Phillipe's reign.

Gaul would face few wars during his reign, only a few colonial wars and skirmishes, if one ignores the Ottoman wars. This was due to Phillipe's policy of marriages - the Emperor would marry the Prussian Princess Victoria von Hohenzollern, and the very much in couple would prove extremely fertile, having over thirteen daughters and four sons during their long marriage. Empress Christina, despite her many pregnancies, would always keep her famous "figure", and would become a symbol of women's self-care and health in Gaul and Europe. By the end of his reign, Phillipe of Gaul was called the "Grandfather of Europe" due to the fact that he had married his daughters and sons to almost every single European nation, and that many of his son-in-laws belonging to non-royal families would achieve titles due to him. This would be the case in Hohenzollern Romania, Leuchtenberg Hungary, von Urach Armenia ,Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Bulgaria and Battenberg Finland, all of which would take nobles related to Phillipe as their monarchs.

During his life Phillipe would see the formation of the German Empire under Austria as it separated from Hungary and unified the German states under a Federated Empire led from Vienna, and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire which would see the Kingdom of Greece, under the leadership of Konstantinos Massilikos, the Greek King (Originally from the House of Provence, the Greek royals took the hellenized version of their capital, Marseille, as the name of their house) expand to take over Constantinople and into Anatolia itself, while the reborn Armenia under the von Urachs took much of Eastern Anatolia. Gaul would tave over the levant and the Sudan from Turkey, adding it to their budding oriental Empire in Egypt.

Phillipe would die in 1893, an extremely old man depressed by the death of his wife and their eldest daughter, Amalie, Queen of Great Britain. He would be succeded by his son François. Almost a century after his death, a controversy about Phillipe would appear as after the death of his wife and already in his old age, during a visit to Saint Domingue, Phillipe would end up falling in love with a black maid, and the two would have a few children. The children would be hid from history but one of the descendants would come out to public after being coaxed by journalists.

[16] François was born in 1831 as the first child of Phillipe VII Orlando and Victoria vin Hohenzollern, and was known to be an very unremarkable person, both in his personal life and during his time as Emperor of Gaul. He married Princess Maria Pia of Naples in 1853 and had four children with her. Upon his death in 1908 at the age of 77, François was succeeded by _________.

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

Portugal has timed out, claim new thread rights

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

What If ... Matilda was victorious in The Anarchy

End Date of TL stipulated as 1667

Monarchs of England

1100 to 1135 : Henry (Normandy)
1135 to 1136 : Stephen (Blois)
1136 to 1167 : Maud and Geoffrey (Normandy) / (Anjou) (1)


(1) Maud/Matilda of England, only surviving legitimate child of King Henry, after the death of his son, William. Maud was also the Empress Consort of the Holy Roman Empire from 1114 to 1125 as wife of Emperor Henry V. They had no children, but when her father died, she had two sons, Henry and Geoffrey and was pregnant with a third by her second husband, the Count of Anjou. They would have two more after this third.

Her father recognised her as is heir and this was then supported by the barons, perhaps under pressure from Henry, but the church supported her cousin, Stephen of Blois, but this was largely dependant on support from his brother, the Bishop of Winchester. In turn, the Norman Court proposed installing Stephen's brother Theobald as King and Duke, but this failed when Stephen declared himself King. Maud managed to convince the Bishop of Angers to make her case with the pope and this won her papal support, which then superseded the support from the Bishop of Winchester and this, alongside Scottish support, contributed to Stephen being ousted from the throne after a handful of months and met his end whilst crossing the channel, ironically the same fate that Mauds brother had suffered.

Maud/Matilda and her husband were formally crowned in late 1136, as co-monarchs. Geoffrey predeceased his wife in 1151 and she continued to reign as sole monarch until her death.

The new monarchs saw rebellions from her half brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and Theobald of Blois, as well as others. But these were largely defeated with only minimal concessions required - a few castles in Normandy and Anjou were small change compared to the security that the Kingdom of England offered.

Maud was succeeded by .........

 

[Jonathan]

Claim England.

 

[Jonathan]

What If ... Matilda was victorious in The Anarchy (End Date of TL stipulated as 1667)

Monarchs of England
1100 to 1135 : Henry (Normandy)
1135 to 1136 : Stephen (Blois)
1136 to 1167 : Maud and Geoffrey (Normandy) / (Anjou) (1)
1167 to 1188: Geoffrey II (Normandy-Anjou) (2)

(1) Maud/Matilda of England, only surviving legitimate child of King Henry, after the death of his son, William. Maud was also the Empress Consort of the Holy Roman Empire from 1114 to 1125 as wife of Emperor Henry V. They had no children, but when her father died, she had two sons, Henry and Geoffrey and was pregnant with a third by her second husband, the Count of Anjou. They would have two more after this third.

Her father recognised her as is heir and this was then supported by the barons, perhaps under pressure from Henry, but the church supported her cousin, Stephen of Blois, but this was largely dependant on support from his brother, the Bishop of Winchester. In turn, the Norman Court proposed installing Stephen's brother Theobald as King and Duke, but this failed when Stephen declared himself King. Maud managed to convince the Bishop of Angers to make her case with the pope and this won her papal support, which then superseded the support from the Bishop of Winchester and this, alongside Scottish support, contributed to Stephen being ousted from the throne after a handful of months and met his end whilst crossing the channel, ironically the same fate that Mauds brother had suffered.

Maud/Matilda and her husband were formally crowned in late 1136, as co-monarchs. Geoffrey predeceased his wife in 1151 and she continued to reign as sole monarch until her death.

The new monarchs saw rebellions from her half brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and Theobald of Blois, as well as others. But these were largely defeated with only minimal concessions required - a few castles in Normandy and Anjou were small change compared to the security that the Kingdom of England offered.

Maud was succeeded by her second son, Geoffrey.

Brian Cox portaging King Geoffrey II in BBC series.​

[2] Geoffrey was the second son of Matilda and named after his father Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, born in 1134.
At the age of two his mother had taken back control of his grandfather’s throne.
His brother, Henry born in 1133, had died suddenly a few weeks after their father in 1151, leaving 17 year old Geoffrey, as heir to his mother’s throne, Matilda began planning a marriage.
In 1154, following putting down a rebellion in Southampton, Hampshire, Matilda would receive news of a daughter of Stephen’s, Mary Blois living as a nun in a near by Abbey of Romsey.
Matilda abducted Marie from the abbey and brought her back to London. Before the wedding could take place Matilda wrote to Pope Adrian IV discussing her reasoning behind Mary's abduction and requesting his holy blessing to marriage. As an Englishman, Adrian IV wrote back stating that Matilda would have to repent for her sin of abducting a member of the church (he couldn’t condone that action) but approved of the wedding stating that their marriage was destine to help the Christian kingdom of England, and what better mother for the future monarch, that a sister of Christ.
The marriage took place in 1155, upon which Geoffrey became jure uxoris Count of Boulogne and the couple had quite a happy marriage, blessed with four children, all being born before Matilda’s death in 1167.
King at 33, Geoffrey was able to succeed without any opposition, with peace in his kingdom.
With students still attending the University of Paris, the English court increases its French connection especially with safer sea ferry ships built between Dover and Boulogne.
With his wife’s religious background, the court of Geoffrey is a pious one, with leading members including Cardinal Thomas Beckett.
As the centre for trade between Ireland, Scotland and mainland Europe, the treasury of England grew.
After 21 years on the throne, Geoffrey died from a suspected heart attack aged 54, being succeeded by his ____________, ________________.

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

1) Adela of Normandy, b. 1067, d. 1137, m. Stephen II, Count of Blois (1045 to 1102)

a) William the Simple, Count of Sully, b. 1085, 1150​

b) Theobald II and IV, Count of Blois and Charters, of Champagne and of Brie, b. 1090, d. 1152, m. Matilda of Carinthia (d. 1160)​

x) has issue​

c) Stephen I of England suo jure Count of Bolougne jure uxoris, b. 1091, r. 1135 to 1136, m. Matilda I, Countess of Bolougne suo jure (1105 to 1136)​

1) Eustace IV, Count of Bolougne, b. 1131, d. 1136​

2) Marie I, Countess of Bolougne suo jure (1136 to 1182), m. Geoffey II and VI of England and Anjou suo jure, Count of Bolougne jure uxoris, (1134 to 1187)​

d) other children​

2) Henry I of England, b. 1068, r. 1100 to 1135, m1. Matilda of Scotland (1880 to 1818), m2. Adeliza of Louvon (1103 to 1151)

a1) Maud I of England, b. 1102, r. 1136 to 1167, m1. Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor (1081 to 1125), m2. Geoffrey I and V of England and Anjou (1113 to 1151)​

b1) Henry, b. 1133, d. 1151​

b2) Geoffey II and VI of England and Anjou suo jure, Count of Bolougne jure uxoris, b. 1134, r. 1167 to 1187, m. Marie I, Countess of Bolougne suo jure (1136 to 1182)​

x) four children, from 1155 to 1167​

b3) William, b. 1136​

b4) b. between 1137 and 1151​

b5) b. between 1137 and 1151​

a2) William Adelin, b. 1103, d. 1120, m. Matilda of Anjou (1106 to 1154)​

x1) Robert Rufus, Earl of Gloucester, b. 1090, d. 1147​

x) many other illegitimate children​

 

[Jonathan]

Marie I, Countess of Bolougne suo jure (11XX to 1167)

In otl she didn’t die until 1182.

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

In otl she didn’t die until 1182.

My apologies, I misread the "before Matilda death" as before Marie's

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

If someone can add this in for Maud, it's Alison Pill from Pillars of the Earth

 

[Jonathan]

My apologies, I misread the "before Matilda death" as before Marie's

No worries. Just wanted to make sure I hadn’t made an error or picked the wrong person

 

[Jonathan]

If someone can add this in for Maud, it's Alison Pill from Pillars of the Earth

Good cool.

Would Geoffrey be played by David Bark-Jones like above.