I will only say that "wrong" or "ill-advised" policies are not necessarily reflective of venality or evil. A mercantalist, pro-agrarian concept might be wrong, but morally it would strike me as quite defensible.

Well, I've been trying to steer discussion away from morality and towards rational cost/benefit analysis. But wrt the pro-agrarian concept, is this really the goal of the economic policy? Or the result? The implementation of imperial economic policy seems to me to have at their basis a geopolitical goal of damaging Britain and not a carefully considered decision to support agrarian interests at the expense of trade, banking and other economic activities. Is the emphasis on agrarian economy and military production the goal, or is it all that's left after imposing the continental system and cutting off all external markets and broader international trade? I'm not convinced that what you are presenting as a goal is not simply doing what was possible within the confines allowed by the economic warfare tool that was chosen.

I will take issue under one heading : France as a quasi-imperial centre to to quasi-colonial Empire. I think we need to take care wiht who is "inside the tent" and who is outside. All annexed départements (including Holland and the Hanse cities), all of the Kingdom of Italy and all of the Kingdom of Naples was a common economic unit - same rules and policies applied to all and no barriers inside the "common market". I dont know about Westphalia (hence my question Digby when he brought of this country). Prussia was an occupied defeated enemy. Iberia was a war zone. I just saw that Berg was also "outside". So if we identify the French Empire as hegemonist, which might be a quite fair characterization, it shoud be seen as including far more than just "old" france of 1791.

I thought you kept re-focusing on pre-1810, in which case Holland and northern Germany are all on the outside. Or actually, not sure about Holland - outside prior to the imposition of King Louis (the product of that meritocracy, having skillfully gotten himself born to the mother of the future emperor), possibly inside from 1806-1810 and obviously part of France after that. But certainly northern Germany was outside 1806-1810. The concept of the satellite kingdoms and rhinebund as virtual colonies to the French state I think is mentioned in Lefebvre and I'm sure I've seen this elsewhere, but economic history tends to put me to sleep.

But overall, you will have a hard case to make that the Dutch or Germans benefitted much (if at all) from French hegemony and corresponding economic policy, or that there was widespread desire to become French citizens (to the degree this is measurable at all). On the other hand, the benefits of the empire seem to have been greater in Italy, with economic unification, better government and the introduction of those revolutionary ideals contributed tangible gains.

On the periphery, who knows. And what about Dalmatia? has anyone spotted Dalmatian memoirs?