[aristeides]

No group ever quite got around to pulling a coup and the Third Republic tottered on until Hitler put it to bed in 1940.

Isn't it strange that in 1940, nobody, as far as I know -- not Pétain, not Laval, not even the crazies on the fringes of Vichy -- thought of restoring the monarchy? For all Vichy's talk about a "National Revolution."

DeGaulle came from a Catholic monarchist family. I wonder why he didn't attempt something along those lines. (Well, in a sense he made himself king.)

[Paladin2b]

DeGaulle came from a Catholic monarchist family. I wonder why he didn't attempt something along those lines. (Well, in a sense he made himself king.)

Apparently he really was going to try at first. The plan was something along these lines: de Gaulle first rescues the Fourth Republic from its corruption and incompetence in the late 1950s, and the Constitution for the new Fifth Republic (1958, the one they still use today) created a very strong Executive (the French Presidency in the Third (1873-1940) and Fourth (1946-1958) Republics was a weak ceremonial office) with a seven year term that de Gaulle obviously intended to fill first (to save France as only he thought he could).

It seems the original plan was for de Gaulle to groom and put forth the Orleanist pretender, Henri, as his annointed candidate for the second presidential term beginning in 1965, and that once in office, Henri could gradually win hearts and minds leading up to an eventual national plebescite on restoring the monarchy.

But for one reason or another de Gaulle decided that he was still needed at the helm when the second election rolled around, and so whatever vision he had of restoring the King melted away. Even if he had stuck to the plan, I can't imagine that a plebescite held in the late 60s or early 70s wouldn't have been very good for the royalist cause. People in 1958 just had no idea what a tumultuous decade they were on the cusp of.