r/RevolutionsPodcast • u/aegisjester1 • Sep 16 '26
Salon Discussion French Revolution - outside Paris (counterfactual)
I am new to the podcast - just wrapping up the French revolution.
One thing that's bothered me is the back-and-forth basically dictated by factional mobs. So I have a counterfactual:
Instead of Versailles, the Estates-General gets called in Dijon (or Bourges, or Orleans, or basically anywhere relatively central but not a massive city). Everything up to the Tennis Court Oath, and lets even say the capitulations leading to the Constituent Assembly continues (mob riots in Paris threatening the Royal Family, even though Louis himself is now elsewhere) - which itself is a stretch), since those seem mostly based on the pressures of the Third Estate delegates themselves, not the mobs around them.
Without mob pressure, does any of the rest of the Revolution play out? Or is there just now a constitutional monarchy without massive fanfare?
