The Kingdom of Westphalia and its constitution were both Napoleonic creations in 1807. That constitution gave the state a national legislature, known by its German term, the Reichsstände. Its explicit function was to review budgetary matters, and—quite unlike its French antecedents—the Reichsstände had the power to vote “No,” thus nullifying legislation and stopping the government’s tax and spending plans in their tracks. When it met for the first time in 1808, the Reichsstände did exactly that, setting off a fascinating conflict between the new Napoleonic puppet regime of Jerome Bonaparte and its leading citizens. It was a test of modernizing impulses that the French Revolutionary supposedly brought to Old Regime Germany.