Please excuse me if I rather to use (ever ever ever) "Aurvandilian" in this forum. I think you don't, but I like to write as a player rather than a character. I think you have used some much more disrespectful words to talk about the realm my character is from. Moreover, some other of your realm-mates compared Aurvandil with Rome, and Dwilight as its Carthague; I think you don't need another player to compare you with nothing less than the mighty army of Napoleon. You can do it yourself if you like. And as far as I know, "grandiose" is a correctly written French word. 
Oh don't worry about it, I was just saying it for future reference, we take exception to Aurvandilian and believe it to be a hideous denonym worthy of revilement.
And I don't think I have used disrespectful words to talk about Barca, per se, but I have said disrespectful things, mostly to an extent to be facetious or light heartedly antagonistic, but I don't know if that comes across as much as I think it does.
What does "Royaliste Campagne de l'Armée" mean? Royal Campaign of the Army? Maybe I'm wrong, but "Armée Royaliste de Campagne" maybe fits better if you call that the army, rather than a certain campaign in a war.
I forget, French isn't high up on my list of foreign languages I've made an attempt to learn. Which I should probably correct if I am imitating it in BM, though the use of French in Aurvandil is mostly to give a ... feel of Frenchiness rather than to be specifically accurate.
Regarding the devolution of the regions, I think Aurvandilians found a candy that just came free. I find a little bit inconsistent the IC argument you used however. If you like to play Mendicant arrogant and disdainful towards anything out of the Mendicontinent, I'd expect him to just don't care about what a neighbour realm does with its government. You have called Barcans "the most servile people", "poor third world realm"... but some of them deserve your mercy if you can impose the changes you want in their politics.
Mendicant is disdainful of everything, in the Mendicontinent and otherwise, he's the Highest of Sovereign's, very little in this world is worthy of him and he likes to make that clear. However, he also deigns to partake in chivalry and and pursuit of war and honour thereof, which means he must look to his borders as a Monarch can hardly take part in "private wars" as were popular in France during the age, not that the game mechanics would support such a thing sadly. As a note, Barca and Aurvandil almost held a special relationship, they both grew up alongside each other in hardship with mutual support, and Barca were considered the friends of Aurvandil, though they refused an alliance. In short, Mendicant doesn't care on a personal level, but every now and then he sort of has to pretend to care on a professional level and do his duties as a ruler which includes ensuring the borders of the Commonwealth don't have a dangerous and corrupt Republic on its borders.
But it wasn't until Mendicant was personally insulted on multiple occasions that he actually began to care on a personal level, thus the war was started. He had to march to defend his name and honour and seek redress from those who would sully it so unjustly, and to his face.
Just to clarify to you, Mendicant has referred to Barca as a "most servile people" whilst I the player have called them a third world country (As you said I never really make myself clear on the distinction sometimes) but to answer your point, there was a time when Aurvandil believed Barca was worth saving and defending, and that was before they drew on the benevolence and protection of Haktoo, and it is then that Mendicant declared them a rogue non-state and a most servile people undeserving of the treatment of a genuine, legitimate realm.
About the bounty on Mendicant's head, I'm not sure but I think last time I saw it, there were about 900 gold coins on it. I'm sure it was a good amount, so I guess not just Barcans (if the first bounty was put by some of them) would like to see Mendicant's head on a silver bowl. It's not so bad, just another kind of notoriety that you like to feed as it seems.
The Barcan's started the bounty, though now it is at a good 1800, Mendicant has surpassed even senior controversial figures such as Allison, clearly he must be doing something right.
In conclusion, I guess you could keep by force those regions, so you kept them. You did well, they resulted to be indispensable as your regions were "god awful producers of barely anything". Anyway a very important part in this game is about intrigue, propaganda, etc. so you invented an IC argument that could show Aurvandilians' power over another realm apart from military issues. That match with your taste for humiliation. Perfectly acceptable, but in my opinion even a little bit rude.
On an OOC level, we wanted the regions, on an IC level we were happy to give them back, that is where the inconsistencies come from.
And Aurvandil despises humiliation, Mendicant has made it clear our "path of conquest" is where we defeat our foes, but not humiliate them, where we best them but not conquer them.
