Belgium as a French "Taiwan"

Is it possible for the descendants of Marie Antoinette and her husband to rule the Spanish Netherlands and call their realm officially as Kingdom of France but its unofficial name is Belgium and its territory is the territory of Belgium, I did it my TL in Silesia for Poland, is it possible for the Bourbons to do such a feat
 
Is it possible for the descendants of Marie Antoinette and her husband to rule the Spanish Netherlands and call their realm officially as Kingdom of France but its unofficial name is Belgium and its territory is the territory of Belgium, I did it my TL in Silesia for Poland, is it possible for the Bourbons to do such a feat

Wouldn't the actual French attempt and succeed in conquering the Belgian French? Belgium is right to the north of France, with no major geographical border separating them, unlike the sea dividing Taiwan from the PRC.

I personally think it isn't quite possible. Maybe have them relocate to a colony?
 
Is it possible for the descendants of Marie Antoinette and her husband to rule the Spanish Netherlands and call their realm officially as Kingdom of France but its unofficial name is Belgium and its territory is the territory of Belgium, I did it my TL in Silesia for Poland, is it possible for the Bourbons to do such a feat

A very long shot to have a descendant of M-A pull it off. You would have to have the Dauphin survive and like his sister be traded to Austria. Then when the Revolutionary/Naploleonic wars are over have France get to keep French-speaking Belgium (Flanders) that Napoleon had conquered and annexed to his Empire, the Dutch-speaking parts will be out.

Or if you really want to go much, much farther afield. Instead of having the Bourbons restored to France, when Napoleon abdicated the first time the Allies (particularly Austria) accept Napoleon II (with Marie Louise as Regent) as Emperor of a trunk France and the Bourbons get a deal that will give them sovereignty over Belgium as a buffer state instead (Louis XVIII did flee to Ghent during the Hundred Days) and with no Salic Law there as the Bourbons make reforms Madam Royale, Marie-Therese being the heir.
 
The Sixth Coalition tried to do this with Elba, and look how that turned out. :D

Yes, but not everyone has the ambition or hubris of Napoleon to make the attempt. Some people would be happy with Elba, or Corisca, or Belgium over nothing at all.
 
Yes, but not everyone has the ambition or hubris of Napoleon to make the attempt. Some people would be happy with Elba, or Corisca, or Belgium over nothing at all.
Or just not have Napoleon's ability to overthrow the new government just by showing up.
 
Is it possible for the descendants of Marie Antoinette and her husband to rule the Spanish Netherlands and call their realm officially as Kingdom of France but its unofficial name is Belgium and its territory is the territory of Belgium, I did it my TL in Silesia for Poland, is it possible for the Bourbons to do such a feat

Wouldn´t last long, as France would conquer it in the revolutionary wars, as they did in OTL.
 
A very long shot to have a descendant of M-A pull it off. You would have to have the Dauphin survive and like his sister be traded to Austria. Then when the Revolutionary/Naploleonic wars are over have France get to keep French-speaking Belgium (Flanders) that Napoleon had conquered and annexed to his Empire, the Dutch-speaking parts will be out.

Flanders is actually the Dutch-speaking part. The French-speaking part is Wallonia.
 
Flanders is actually the Dutch-speaking part. The French-speaking part is Wallonia.

Sorry. I'm always confusing present day Flanders with Burgundy-era Flanders when it was ruled by a French prince. But yeah...the only way I see this (a descendant of M-A and Louis XVI) happening is if the Allied Powers post-Napoleon don't put the Bourbons back on the French throne (for whatever reason) and create Belgium as a kingdom several decades earlier. Which is not unheard of - Austria/Russia/Prussia/Britain could easily not have given the newly made King of the Netherlands the former Austrian/Spanish Netherlands and given them to someone else.
 
I always thought Corsica would make a great "Taiwan France" in a potential timeline.

There's a Spanish TL I read a while back where this occurs following Napoleon's downfall in the Franco-Prussian/Spanish war. It even has the not quite officially a recognised nation status that Taiwan has.

I can't recall the title though.
 
Those days, monarchs generally didn't care a lot what language their subjects spoke. The reverse is also true: the general population usually hadn't a lot of problems with the language their rulers themselfs spoke and a lot of times accepted that central administration was deat with in another language (which was most notably the case in France).

France is a case in point: monarchism stood very strong in Brittanny, despite the great majority of its population at that time either speaking a Celtic language or a rather divergent langue d'oïl called Gallo. So whether or not the Corsican people at the time spoke Corsican (and whether or not that is to be seen as a form of Italian), French or another language isn't that important. However, would it really be feasible for Marie-Antoinette to rule an island, very close to France's mainland? I would assume that strong interrnational military support would be necessary, also considering the fact that the island had only 20 years before that become part of France (and very reluctantly, if one may say so) and was also the birthplace of Napoleon? One would guess that, without foreign military support, the Corsicans would at least as easily get rid of a weak Marie-Antoinette as they got rid of revolutionary France in OTL in 1794.

As regards the linguistic situation in Flanders during the Burgundian era: it's no doubt true that the majority of the people in the County of Flanders spoke Dutch, but it should not be forgotten that Flanders contained considerable area's where French (or at least a langue d'oïl) was spoken and that - no doubt helped by the fact that it was a French province - French was an important elite and administrative language. Between 30 and 60% of all pre 1500 documents that can be found in the city archives of important Flemish cities such as Ghent, Bruges and Ypres were in French.
The contrast with Brabant couldn't be greater. French documents are almost nonexistent even in the city archives of Brussels, right up until the end of the Ancien Régime, the exceptions being mainly correspondence with foreign dignitaries and with those limited parts of Brabant which were French-speaking as well as certain proclamations by the Habsburg governors on issues not solely related to the City of Brussels. Of the 3 039 ordonnances made by the Brussels city administration between 1635 and 1793 (as can be found in the city's "publicatieboecken") only 10 were in French. Not being a French province and with only small areas speaking French, the French language didn't play an equally important role in Brabant. Not that it didn't play a role (it certainly did at the Governor's court), but not to the same extent as it did in the County of Flanders.
 
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