No French Revolution, the Duc de Bourgogne survives

So, lately I've been thinking about an interesting scenario:
Louis-Ferdinand, the dauphin of France and only surviving son of King Louis XV had a total of five sons: Louis-Joseph, duc de Bourgogne (1751-1761), Xavier, due d'Aquitaine (1753-1754), Louis-Auguste (the future Louis XVI), Louis-Stanislas (the future Louis XVIII), and Charles-Philippe (the future Charles X).
Now, the eldest of these, the duc de Bourgogne, was from all accounts a very bright and promising child, and known to have been well educated and the apple of his parents' eyes. Indeed, many of the younger sons would later suffer the emotional scars of the favoritism shown to Bourgogne. Sadly, the young duke died at the age of 10, after contracting tuberculosis.
So here it goes, using this as my POD, WI the duc de Bourgogne had not contracted consumption and instead survived. Assuming his father dies in 1765 as scheduled and the duke becomes the new dauphin, how would things play out?
I have read a very interesting work by one Colin Jones (The Great Nation) that theorizes that the revolution was far from inevitable, and indeed, could have been avoided easily (given a stronger and more able leadership, as well as fiscal reforms and avoidance of the American revolution). France had, after all, recovered from worse financial crisis than that of the 1780s (such as during the late reign of Louis XIV and the minority of Louis XV). Assuming that Bourgogne manages to become king as Louis XVI and appoints a very able financial minister (something akin to a eighteenth century Colbert), not to mention avoid the war of American independence and other mistakes, I wonder if he could very well have avoided the catastrophe of 1789 and the resulting years.
So, WI things did go this way, the revolution never takes place, and the world of the ancien regime (aside from some minor reforms) manages to continue onwards, perhaps to present day?

I have seen other TLs dealing with a no revolution scenario, but none close to the tune of what I've written above.
I'm interested in everyone else's input and opinions.
 
Endymion

Doubt if you could have had continued absolutism until the present day. Even with better government France would still have been losing out, outside Europe, to Britain because the later was more capable of adopting new ideas. Similarly with rival powers in the rest of the continent once reform, peaceful or revolutionary, occurs somewhere the other powers have to respond or lose out.

Well run autocratic states can complete as long as they meet that condition. However by definition that relies too much on the man in charge. Change him and have a weaker leader and the system starts to creak badly. Also if the good/powerful ruler has had a long reign then you have the extra problem of a vacuum with no one able to take on the role. [Think say Basil II in Byzantium and Fredrik the Great in Prussia].

You can have a continued monarchy, with considerable powers, for quite a while. However sooner or later things will change one way or another.

Steve
 
Endymion

Doubt if you could have had continued absolutism until the present day. Even with better government France would still have been losing out, outside Europe, to Britain because the later was more capable of adopting new ideas. Similarly with rival powers in the rest of the continent once reform, peaceful or revolutionary, occurs somewhere the other powers have to respond or lose out.

Well run autocratic states can complete as long as they meet that condition. However by definition that relies too much on the man in charge. Change him and have a weaker leader and the system starts to creak badly. Also if the good/powerful ruler has had a long reign then you have the extra problem of a vacuum with no one able to take on the role. [Think say Basil II in Byzantium and Fredrik the Great in Prussia].

You can have a continued monarchy, with considerable powers, for quite a while. However sooner or later things will change one way or another.

Steve

I understand your point. However, aren't you going off of the assumption then that an absolute monarchy is enivitably doomed to collapse and become a republic?
If you look at the impact of the French Revolution on European political history, it was essentially the birth of world republicanism. Every other "republic" until that time had essentially been an aristocratic oligarchy. If there is no precedent for revolution, how can it take place?
Yes, Great Britain was slowly adopting reforms, but I counter with this: how much of the reforms adopted by the UK in the 1830s were influenced by the growing tide of reforms against the so-called "ancien regimes" in Europe a few decades earlier (all of which came about as a result of the radical republics and satilite states implemented by French invasion). Generally, the trend on the continent is the rule.
Therefore, if no revolution manages to take place in Europe and no republic is formed in this way, what standard is there for governments to move towards liberal reforms? What's to stop the opposite from happening, and reactionary stances from occuring?
Perhaps we may all underestimate the immense impact that the French revolution has had on modern politics. While one could argue that a revolution could have taken place in another European nation, I would counter that this would not be possible for many decades, as no other national population in Europe would have been better suited than the French in the 1780s (and assuming that they manage to reform their finances, I can't see any political overthrow happening there or elsewhere for a while).
What if, instead, a move towards the enlightenment occurs more strongly, and France essentially becomes a perfect example of enlightened despotism? I could see that being a far more natural course for a people whose way of thinking is not at all influenced by republicanism (as this is a Europe sans revolution).
If you really think about it, without the Decleration for the Rights of Man and the abolishing of privilege, many of our concepts about human rights and political freedom today may not have existed, or at least developed in a completely different manner (and much, much more slowly at that).

Just my opinion.
 
I'm not sure you could have avoided a political upheaval that late in the game. France was undergoing a population boom that agricultural science was not keeping pace with, leading to greater grain prices as the 18th century wore on. By the time this kid would have hit his majority, the royal fiscal crisis was already dire. Not to mention the deep scars that the Jansenist controversy had left behind.
The Revolution had a lot of long-term factors going into its spark. Duc de Bourgogne would have to be on par or beyond Louis XIV's level of competence to prevent it.
That said, there were many turning points during the early Revolution (roughly 1789-1791) during which Louis XVI proved incredibly incompetent - if someone else had been on the throne the Revolution might well have been short, relatively un-bloody and ended up with a constitutional monarchy that everyone could stomach, not the hydra that it later became.
 
I wonder what will happen in Italy, Italian political intellectuals Where greatly influenced by the Revolution during the period 1795~1805.
 
I understand your point. However, aren't you going off of the assumption then that an absolute monarchy is enivitably doomed to collapse and become a republic?
If you look at the impact of the French Revolution on European political history, it was essentially the birth of world republicanism. Every other "republic" until that time had essentially been an aristocratic oligarchy. If there is no precedent for revolution, how can it take place?
Yes, Great Britain was slowly adopting reforms, but I counter with this: how much of the reforms adopted by the UK in the 1830s were influenced by the growing tide of reforms against the so-called "ancien regimes" in Europe a few decades earlier (all of which came about as a result of the radical republics and satilite states implemented by French invasion). Generally, the trend on the continent is the rule.
Therefore, if no revolution manages to take place in Europe and no republic is formed in this way, what standard is there for governments to move towards liberal reforms? What's to stop the opposite from happening, and reactionary stances from occuring?
Perhaps we may all underestimate the immense impact that the French revolution has had on modern politics. While one could argue that a revolution could have taken place in another European nation, I would counter that this would not be possible for many decades, as no other national population in Europe would have been better suited than the French in the 1780s (and assuming that they manage to reform their finances, I can't see any political overthrow happening there or elsewhere for a while).
What if, instead, a move towards the enlightenment occurs more strongly, and France essentially becomes a perfect example of enlightened despotism? I could see that being a far more natural course for a people whose way of thinking is not at all influenced by republicanism (as this is a Europe sans revolution).
If you really think about it, without the Decleration for the Rights of Man and the abolishing of privilege, many of our concepts about human rights and political freedom today may not have existed, or at least developed in a completely different manner (and much, much more slowly at that).

Just my opinion.

Endymion

Sorry to be late in replying but seemed to miss this thread until it came to the top again today.

You raise some good points but a lot of the thoughts and ideas you mention pre-date the revolution and were being discussed in Britain, France and what became the US along with probably other places. Also as the revolution showed, allowing popular participation can release such great resources that older regimes are at a serious disadvantage.

To some degree the unrest in Britain was a response to ideas on the continent resulting from the revolution. However they also existed before and without the reaction against the excesses of the same French Revolution might at least in part have been enacted before that period. The awkward bit might have been how Britain responds to a rebellion in the US without France aid to the rebels. That could in itself generate a conservative reaction or once the hard liners in the colonies are defeated it might spur development.

I agree that to a large degree the major continental powers and Britain, along with say the Dutch and possibly some of the Scandinavian states, had relatively little interaction socially. However there was already growing concern about the degree of British economic superiority and I don't think the Europeans could have afforded to let the gap grow too large. It was the great advantage of Europe during this period that its political diversity virtually enforced powers to follow the lead of any one that developed too much of an advantage. A centralised monarchy can have some advantages while the leadership is good but with the development of technology especially states need to rely on a broader base.

Not saying that social change wouldn't be delayed and monarchies maintain considerable prestige and even power. However I don't think it would be possible at that time to halt it completely. Again a matter of opinion and the far more limited republics of classical and medieval times failed to be replaced with autocratic states. However in modern times such states have had to at least play lip service to popular feeling.

Steve
 
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