as was Saxony, and they defected anyways
Saxony being the last of Nappy's allies to defect. And they paid the price for it
some of whom were not (Jerome,
while I don't doubt that Jérôme was certainly no genius of statecraft, Napoléon didn't make life any easier.
A regency had been established at cassel at the beginning of September [1807] whose main duty was to collect the revenues and pay over the money which Napoleon demanded for the upkeep of the French troops quartered in Westphalia. Four Frenchmen, Beugnot, Siméon, Jolivet and General Lagrange, formerly head of Kléber's staff in Egypt, with a German secretary, Mossdorf - since none of the others could speak German - composed this provisional government, which remained in office until the king's arrival
The curious thing is that from this time forward, by his conduct towards Westphalia, he [Napoleon] made it almost certain that Jerome should never again be solvent, even had he been anything else than the spendthrift he was.
The first sounds of the storm were very speedily heard. Jerome, as has been said, ordered that the funds in the State Treasury from 1 December should be held at his disposal. As soon as news of this command reached Daru, the Intendant-General of the Grand Army at Berlin, he refused to recognize it. His duty being to look after Westphalia's contribution, among others, to the maintenance of that army, he had written to the provisional government in September, claiming payment of 35.6 million francs, which he said, we still owing out of the 49 million francs due from Westphalia to France. He had secured, on account of this enormous sum, possession of all the revenues of the country during the period preceding Jerome's arrival, and had a sharp quarrel with Morio, who, on his mission from the king, had attempted to prevent the conversion to military ends of some small funds. Jerome, therefore, in December [1807] found nothing but bills in the Treasury, and on asking Daru to refund the moneys which he had extracted from the regency during the two preceding months, met with a positive refusal. That he had a suspicion he would find little in the chest at Cassel appears likely from the letter which he wrote to the emperor the day after his arrival at Wilhelmshohe [1].
[1] He might have remembered that when Joachim Murat entered Dusseldorf as Grand Duke of Berg in March 1806, he similarly hastened to the treasury to find it empty!
Daru lost no time in appealing to Napoleon, who was away on a visit in Italy, and, pending the arrival of an answer, steadfastly declined to allow the king to touch the money which he demanded. In the second article of the Westphalian constitution, which Napoleon had delivered to Jerome but a month before, it had been provided that half the "allodial" domains of Westphalia should be reserved to the emperor, to be used in rewards to the Grand Army officers for their services in the past war.
Napoléon backed Daru against his own brother:
...We must still recognize that Napoleon displayed injustice, if not actual bad faith, in putting out of his brother's reach all the ready money in the kingdom. Leaving aside the question of his claim, on behalf of the Grand Army, to half of the entire dominions of Westphalia, we can but suppose that he intended Jerome to keep up some state in his capital. Yet, knowing that he left Paris without any balance to his credit after paying his debts, but, on the contrary with a loan to repay, and having evidently allowed Jerome to think that there would be some ready money at least in the Treasury when he reached Cassel, Napoleon unhesitatingly supported Daru's absurd claims to the only available cash in the kingdom...
...He [Napoleon] recommended to him the strictest economy- and this was the right policy to pursue. But even the narrowest parsimony would not provide the money required at the commencement of the new reign...
"It would be a bad beginning for your reign," Napoleon wrote "and would suit your credit ill if you started off by not paying your debts." Jerome could not extract any comfort from this letter. He wrote to explain that he could not impose any fresh taxes without rendering himself unpopular in Westphalia. Two days later on the 25th [December] he wrote again, saying that on his arrival, he had found all payments ten months in arrears, and all funds against him. He was obliged, nevertheless, to spend money. He had counted on the October and November revenues, and he once more asked the Emperor for these. "Your Majesty knows that on my departure I was without money, and that I left in the assurance of finding resources here to repay your Majesty the sum advanced, and to provided for my government here." Jerome supported his case by procuring a report on the financial state of Westphalia from Siméon, Beugnot and Jollivet- all three Napoleon's appointees, not Jeromes- where in the ministers declared that there was a defecit of six million francs. To be added was a further eight million for the excess of actual over-estimated expenditure on the upkeep of the troops of the Grand Army in Westphalia. They could only advise that a loan should be raised to pay off this debt of 9 million francs
A deal was hammered out in February 1808 that set the "repayments" of the outstanding 35 million at an annual sum of 7 million francs. Unfortunately, Napoléon would not be mollified and asserted that the finance ministers had
undervalued Westphalia's revenues by 4 million! In addition to demanding a repayment of the 1,8 million he had lent Jerome to go from Paris. When Jerome tried to raise a loan in Holland (some 20 million francs) to pay off his debts to his brother, Napoléon undercut him by requesting a loan from the same bankers of 30 million francs. When Jerome attempted to secure a second loan in Germany, his brother ordered him to "sell his furniture, his plate and his jewels" instead. Never mind the fact that Jerome's entire palace staff only numbered sixty (Murat's at Berg numbered five times that), that the upkeep of the wounded soldiers (and a further 3 million francs for the relief of the Westphalians) came out of Jerome's private purse.
It says something that, like Louis, Jerome went around the Continental System on behalf of his subjects. And in a manner similar to Louis, Jerome wrote in December 1809 requesting permission to abdicate, because he felt his whole position was a farce. His brother loved neither Germans nor Germany, he wrote, only the French. And he [Jerome] wrote: "I did desire, no doubt, to have a people to rule over. I should now prefer, I confess to your Majesty, to live as a private individual in your empire rather than be as I am: a sovereign with neither sovereignty nor nation". Napoleon responded in typical fashion, taking advantage of his brother's attendance at Compiègne around the festivities for his marriage to Maria Luise of Austria, he called him a "coward" to his face and ordering him to take off his military uniform "as a disgrace". Small wonder Louis just "silently quit" without informing Napoléon as to his intentions beforehand (AFAIK).
Things got worse when Westphalia was expanded by the addition of 300 000 thousand new oinhabitants and the strip of coastline between the Elbe and the Weser. Instead of getting a lighter load, Jerome found his kingdom simultaneously expanded and plunged another ten million francs into debt, with the money owed to Napoléon doubling to four million*.
*yup, Napoléon was that bastard. He didn't elevate his siblings or generals out of any love for them. He expected to be
paid for the promotion. Usually around the tune of a cool 2 million francs for the original promotion, and then added on for each subsequent promotion. He made five million out of Murat from Berg to Naples and nearly double that out of Joseph when transferring him from Naples to Spain. Eugene had to pay for the privilege of being named as heir to Karl Theodor von Dahlberg, Grand Duke of Frankfurt and Prasident of the Rheinbund. Pauline's payments on being elevated to a mere spot like Guastalla were so severe she sold the principality back to the emperor. Elisa had to improve the Tuscan economy- and deal with that she wasn't allowed to have the final say to her ministers (like her brothers were)- in order to keep up with the payments.
