Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

The Reconstitution of Germany.

Far more important than the temporary Peace of Amiens was the reconstitution of Germany, which was finally accepted by the Diet at Ratisbon on the 25th of February 1803. The Holy Roman Empire which had lasted so many centuries ceased to exist. The ancient division of the Empire into circles was abolished, and the three colleges which formed the Diet were profoundly affected. Instead of the eight electors, three ecclesiastical and five lay, that formerly existed, ten electors, one ecclesiastical and nine lay, were created. The Archbishops of Cologne and Trèves, whose states being on the left bank of the Rhine were absorbed into France, lost their electoral dignity. The Archbishop-Elector of Mayence was retained as Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, and he received as his dominions the Bishopric of Ratisbon, the Principality of Aschaffenburg, and the County of Wetzlar. The nine lay electors were the five princes who had formerly enjoyed the dignity, namely, the Electors of Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and Hanover, and four new Electors, the Margrave of Baden, the Duke of Würtemburg, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and the Grand Duke Ferdinand, brother of the Emperor, and former Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was appointed Elector of Salzburg. By this new arrangement, and by the abolition of two-thirds of the ecclesiastical electorate, the majority in the College of Electors passed from the Catholics to the Protestants. In the College of Princes there was the same result, for by the secularisation of the Catholic bishoprics the majority passed to the Protestant rulers. More sweeping still was the alteration in the third College—that of the Free Cities. Instead of fifty-two constituent members of this College only six were retained, and their maintenance was due to the intervention of France. These six cities were Augsburg, Bremen, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Nuremberg. By these changes the constitution of the Empire was entirely altered; but still more notable was the change in the position of the various princes in Germany, for the tendency of the secularisation of the ecclesiastical states was to diminish the number of ruling princes and to increase the extent of their dominions.

The Secularisations in Germany.

The great war with France had shown the weakness of the Empire as an organisation, and had also proved the advantages to the inhabitants of the existence of large and powerful states. It was, therefore, the already existing kingdoms which received the greatest addition of territory under the new arrangements. Nominally, the secularised bishoprics were intended to compensate those German princes whose territories on the left bank of the Rhine had been ceded to France; practically, the powerful states only were increased. Austria, whose new possession of Venice in place of the Milanese had been reaffirmed by the Treaty of Lunéville, only acquired in Germany the Bishoprics of Brixen and Trent, but two Austrian princes received independent states, namely, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who, as has been said, was given the Archbishopric of Salzburg, with the title of Elector, and the Duke of Modena, who received the Breisgau. Nevertheless, the power of Austria was greatly weakened, for under the old arrangement the ecclesiastical electors and the Catholic bishops had always been partisans of Austria. Prussia was the country which profited the most, though she had suffered the least in the war against France. In exchange for part of the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Guelders, and the County of Moers, Prussia received the large and wealthy Bishoprics of Hildesheim, Paderborn, Erfurt, and part of Münster, together with a number of abbeys, of which the largest were Herford, Quedlinburg, Elten, Essen, and Werden, and several free cities. Hanover received the Bishopric of Osnabrück, to which the King of England, as Elector of Hanover, had previously possessed the alternate nomination. Bavaria was made into a powerful and concentrated state. In exchange for the Palatinate, the Duchy of Deux-Ponts (Zweibrücken), the Principalities of Juliers, Simmern and Lautern, she received the Bishoprics of Würtzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg, Freisingen, and part of Passau, together with a large number of abbeys and free cities. Baden received the portion of the Bishoprics of Spires, Strasbourg, and Basle, situated on the right bank of the Rhine, the Bishopric of Constance, the cities of Heidelberg and Mannheim, and many abbeys and free cities. Finally, the Duchy of Würtemburg, in exchange for the Principality of Montbéliard, received abbeys and free towns, which increased its population by a hundred thousand inhabitants. It is not necessary to describe the various accessions granted to the Princes of Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and the rest; but, it may be noted that the Prince of Orange, the former Stadtholder of Holland, received the Bishopric of Fulda. These changes remodelled Germany, and in the result were most prejudicial to France; for instead of there existing a series of buffers in the shape of small and weak states, France was brought almost directly into contact with Prussia and Austria.

The Reconstitution of Switzerland.

At the same time that the ancient federal Holy Roman Empire was reconstituted, the ancient federal Republic of Switzerland was likewise reorganised. The reasons which had induced the Directory to intervene in Swiss affairs still existed; the revolutionary party which opposed the federal idea, and desired to form a united Switzerland, remained in direct opposition to the supporters of the former government of the cantons. It was essentially the question of government which divided the two parties, and there was no suggestion of restoring the feudal system, or the privileges of certain towns and certain cantons over others. The breath of the French Revolution had swept away political inequalities as completely in Switzerland as in France. Soon after the Treaty of Amiens, Bonaparte withdrew the French troops from the new Helvetic Republic. Civil war, as he expected, recommenced, and the Helvetic Government was driven from Berne by the federalists. Bonaparte therefore despatched an army to restore order, and summoned the leading Swiss statesmen to Paris. To them he propounded a new scheme of federal government, which was accepted, and the Act of Mediation, which was promulgated on the 19th of February 1803, established the new Constitution, and recognised the First Consul as Mediator. By the Act of Mediation Switzerland was divided into nineteen cantons, each of which had its own local government and special laws and taxes. The thirteen old cantons were maintained; six of them were democratic—Appenzell, Glarus, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Uri, and Zug; seven were oligarchical—Basle, Berne, Friburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Soleure, and Zürich. The six new cantons added by Bonaparte comprised five territories which had formerly been subject; the Pays de Vaud and Aargau were made independent of Berne; Thurgau was separated from Schaffhausen, and Ticino from Uri and Unterwalden, and the canton of Saint-Gall was formed out of certain districts formerly belonging to Appenzell, Glarus, and Schwyz; finally, the Grisons, which had hitherto been an independent mountain republic, was declared a canton of Switzerland. Geneva had some years before been added to France as the Department of the Leman, and the Valais was now declared independent—a preliminary step to its ultimate annexation by France. The Federal Diet was to consist of twenty-five deputies, two from the six largest cantons, Aargau, Berne, the Grisons, Saint-Gall, the Pays de Vaud, and Zurich, and one from each of the others. The Diet was to meet every year in the capital of a different canton, and the Landamman of that canton was for that year the President of the Confederation. The Federal Act once more declared the entire abolition of feudalism, and of all privileges of birth, etc., and forbade for the future all internal customs duties. Bonaparte proclaimed that he would not allow the interference of any other power in Switzerland, and took the title of Mediator of the Confederation of Switzerland.

The Concordat. 1801–2.

It has already been stated that Bonaparte desired to stand well with the Catholic Church, and had recognised the advantages of a state religion. One of his most important measures during the Consulate was to put an end to the schism which had lasted since the promulgation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, with the assistance of the Pope, Pius VII. All the bishops elected under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and most of those who had emigrated, sooner than take the oath of allegiance to it, resigned, and the leaders of both sections were nominated and instituted to different dioceses. A new circumscription of sees was agreed to, and France was divided into fifty bishoprics and ten archbishoprics. It was agreed by the Concordat, which was signed between the Pope and the First Consul on the 15th of July 1801, and solemnly proclaimed on the 18th of April 1802, after being sanctioned by the Legislative Body, that the First Consul should nominate all bishops, and the Pope should institute. The government of the Consulate recognised the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion as that of the majority of the French people, and ordained that its public worship should be carried on freely so long as the police regulations were observed. All ecclesiastics were to swear fidelity to the government, which promised to pay a suitable salary to all bishops and curés. In return, the Pope promised that neither he nor his successors would lay any claim to the ecclesiastical estates which had been alienated, and that all such property should be held the indisputable possession of its purchaser.

Internal Organisation.

The Prefectures.