No PHD from me, but you're half way to your thesis by now. Like you, I like to see evidence for opinions. It is easy to come to a conclusion, but much harder to come to a correct conclusion. I view any opinion I form as a hypothesis, then seek information to prove or disprove it. In this debate about the the putative milking of places like Westphalia, I see a lack of certain key information, such as isolating the actual burden of things like the dotations versus the economic product of the state. I recognize that developing and analysing the required data is a substantial task, and would be happy with some course measures of whether Westphalia, or any other place did or did not have an immense burden placed on it by the dotations.

I'm well aware that GDP as such did not exist then, so I have no idea how one might calculate a measure of national economic output, and even less how one might calibrate any such calculation for nations with very different underlying data.

As I understand the Westphalia question under discussion it goes along the lines of:
- Digby said the French milked Wesphalia.
- You asked how.
- Digby replied with dotations (though I not sure if he meant this to be the whole or an example)
- You presented the opinion that the sum total of the dotations was trivial in comparison with ... and here I get a bit hazy ... are we speaking about Westphalian state revenue or the income Napoleon received from his personal holdings in Westphalia? It is quite possible I have completely misunderstood this aspect of the thread.
- Bruno added in the establishment of majorats.
- You are still of the opinion that the aggregate of majorats and dotations is still minor.

What I am seeking is some kind of number to indicate the economic output of Westphalia. It should be possible (though perhaps not easy) to calculate a revenue figure for Westphalia showing income received by state authorities (and for all I know this may be the Kingdom itself, plus the Domaine, plus other parties). From this it should then be possible to provide ratios for payouts on things like dotations versus government income and total economic output. Then it would be interesting to see that in contrast to similar calculations for other satellite states like Italy to see if any one particular state was hard done by. Next it would be interesting to see the ratios against the income of France itself.

There is the perception that Napoleon siphoned value out of the rest of Europe and poured it into France. That may be so, and if so the vehicle(s) need to be identified. It seems that you are claiming that the dotations were a minor factor whereas Digby identified it as a major vehicle. What other vehicles can be identified as mechanisms to transfer wealth from other countries to France, and can we quantify the net effect?

I suppose I compare the issue to the Roman process of squeezing the provinces and wonder if there is any meaningful parallel. Certainly some French governors seemed to act as Roman governors had, viewing their assignment as an opportunity to personally profit. Massena and Bourienne comme to mind. But, I don't know if the proportion of funds extracted from Westphalia through systemic processes (as opposed to graft by the governor and staff) was even meaningful, never mind anything like the horrors of Roman tax farming.

For what it is worth, I do think that the period was ruinous for certain industries. But I see the benefit accruing more to Britain and the US than France, since those countries were better positioned to take advantage of opportunities in international trade.

So, a long answer to say that I figure this debate is akin to asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin unless one can come up with some concept of the sizes of the pinhead and the angels, never mind how much space they actually need for dancing.

Having made my request for quantifiable data, and been told (as I had expected) that it is exceedingly difficult to produce, I'll retire back to the sidelines to watch and learn. Regards,

David