Done at Paris, July 12, 1806.
The resignation of the high office of Emperor of Germany, by Francis, Emperor of Austria.
Vienna, August 7.
We, Francis Second, &c.
Since the peace of Presburgh all our attention and all our care have been employed to fulfil with scrupulous fidelity all the engagements contracted by that treaty, to preserve to our subjects the happiness of peace, to consolidate every where the amicable relations happily re-established, waiting to discover whether the changes caused by the peace would permit us to perform our important duties, as chief of the Germanic empire, conformably to the capitulation of election.
The consequences, however, which ensued from some articles of the treaty of Presburgh, immediately after its publication, which still exist, and those events generally known, which have since taken place in the Germanic empire, have convinced us that it will be impossible, under these circumstances, to continue the obligations contracted by the capitulation of election; and even if in reflecting on these political relations it were possible to imagine a change of affairs, the convention of the twelfth of July, signed at Paris, and ratified by the contracting parties, relative to an entire separation of several considerable states of the empire, and their peculiar confederation, has entirely destroyed every such hope.
Being thus convinced of the impossibility of being any longer enabled to fulfil the duties of our imperial functions, we owe it to our principles and our duty, to renounce a crown which was only valuable in our eyes whilst we were able to enjoy the confidence of the electors, princes, and other states of our Germanic empire, and to perform the duties which were imposed upon us. We declare, therefore, by these presents, that we, considering as dissolved the ties which have hitherto attached us to the states of the Germanic empire; that we, considering as extinguished by the confederation of the states of the Rhine, the charge in chief of the empire; and that we, considering ourselves thus acquitted of all our duties towards the Germanic empire, do resign the imperial crown and the imperial government. We absolve, at the same time, the electors, princes, and states, and all that belong to the empire, particularly the members of the supreme tribunal, and other magistrates of the empire, from those duties by which they were united to us as the legal chief of the empire, according to the constitution.
We also absolve all our German provinces and states of the empire from their reciprocal duties toward the German empire; and we desire, in incorporating them with our Austrian states as Emperor of Austria, and in preserving them in those amicable relations subsisting with the neighbouring powers and states, that they should attain that height of prosperity and happiness which is the end of all our desires, and the object of our dearest wishes.
Done at our residence, under our imperial seal,
Vienna, the 6th of August, 1806. FRANCIS.