It is hard to rewrite history with «what ifs». On paper the french impérial army was not a pushover but the Prussian and German states still had a sizable advantage. At the frontier, after the war broke out, the French only had close to 300k soldiers on site while the Prussian's, without allies, had around 500k (this is why the French didn't attak). The French had some fighting experience in various colonial ventures, Crimea and the Italian unification campaign but nothing similar to the Prussians against Danemark and Austria in the years prior that did wonders to get the efficient officers in charge and clean up the mobilisation process, supply lines and doctrine.