Well .....
The simple answer is "sure, no problem .... but who is giving me the Ph.D. for having done all that research ?" Indeed, it is really ALOT that you are asking. Not least of which because you are asking about the macro-economics of nations in an era before the invention of macro-economics. Much of the data that you would want to have, such as GDP, does not exist simply becasue the idea of "GDP" had not really been invented yet.

In the various posts I have, however, attempted to put some numerical data into the discussion, to give scale and as much accuracy to our ideas as possible.

The question first arose in the context of Westphalia. Our colleague Digby made the assertion that Westphalia was somehow expolited or stripped of economic values under the French imperial régime. I asked how was this done. The response was that there were dotations, payments to imperial officials drawn upon Westphalian resources.

Now, the dotations were in fact given from a particular source. This source was the imperial domain extraordinaire, the personal holdings of the Bonaparte imperial house. Indeed, the domaine extraordiniare had its foundation in the assumption of prior regnal houses' holdings after conquest.

How big was the domain extraordinaire ? It was around 500 million francs, inlcuding all holdings all over the French empire.

How did this amount compare to other sovereign houses' personal holdings ? I provided sourced iinformation to indicate that this was about the same level as Denmark or Prussia, well smaller than in Britain and larger than in Spain (but noted that the Spanish crown had additionally a share of the Indies trade). Russia was the special case : under a still feudal system, the whole coutnry was essentially a Romanov crown holding !

Who received dotations ? Functionaries of the Bonapartiste régime, both civil and military. The civil functionaries in Westphalia, for example, would live in Westphaila. The military ones might be anywhere.

How many dotations were granted in, for example, Westphalia ? I dont know. The grants were typically quite small : 2000-5000 francs per year. The overall domain extraordinaire was by no means measurably diminished by the practise of giving such grants, so one might estimate that their amount was within the likely annual revenues of the domain extraordinaire, and thus less than 25 million francs per year. At this rate we might conceive of a maximum upper bound of perhaps 5,000 dotations, across the whole empire. The number could be quite smaller.

So we see quite clearly, even given the most meagre numerical data, that the system of the domain extraordinaire and dotations could not have been a mechanism for any great exploitation, any "milking dry", of a part of the Empire. Indeed, by its size and operation, it is really quite the same as the pre- and post-Bonapartiste method of rewarding functionaries in these territories.

Bruno then asked about majorats. Majorats were the collected estates necessary to convert an Imperial life title to an heriditary one. In most cases majorats were formed by the purchases of the recipients of the title. In some cases there was a dotation given by the imperial government. However, the number of majorats was extremely small. I provided the breakdown, and the total was only about 330 across the whole Empire. Of these, the largest part were for simple chevaliers, and only 3000 francs each. The majority of majorats were formed from French government bond, the rentes. Shares in the Banque de France could also be used. Only a handful were formed based on non-French holdings. In the instant case, I found exactly one that was erected in Westphalia, and even that one appears to have been exchanged for French holdings.

So again, upon a very brief review of the mechanism and operation of the majorats, we see that these too were in no way a mechanism for doing any "milking dry".

It is facile, and on this forum apparently quite common, to make general accusations against the morality or probity of, for example, the finances of the French imperial government. There are many who have done this before, leaving us many opportunities to quote past "experts".

The problem is that these accusations never seem to have any backing in numerical analysis, and indeed rather reek of malice and propaganda. While that might have been fine in the past, I think today's standards for scholarship should be and indeed are higher. And while the kind of detailed numerical analysis that you have requested may be either impossible or at least impractical to provide in a forum setting, that does not mean that a little basic fact-checking, just to see if the accusations are even possibly correct, cannot be performed - as I have done in the instant case of Westphalia.

I am not pro-Napoléon. Not at all. But I do not think that a reasonably scholarly and impartial approach to the study of history is too much to ask of all our colleagues here. Condemnations and praises without research and analysis leave us with only childish and even foolish rants and raves : "N is bad." "French are the best" and so on. I find this tendency to rant and rave deplorable, a disgusting affront to each of us as individuals and a gross insult to 3000 years of western intellectual development.

As a wise man once wrote :
Yours in firm research,
- Evan

PS - The discussion of "miling dry" in the context of Holland followed an identical trajectory. Literally 5 minutes reading would have sufficed to give a reasonable first approximation of the financial transactions between the Dutch and Imperial governments. The result of these 5 minutes of actual research makes the point quite clear : the actual cash flows were on balance from the Empire to Holland. not the other way around. One would think that this might stymie accusations to the contrary, but I rather doubt it.