The treaty of Luneville had made imperative some action on the part of
the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire in order to indemnify the rulers
whose lands on the left bank of the Rhine had been incorporated into
France, and to grant "compensations" to the south German states. After
laborious negotiations, lasting from 1801 to 1803, the Diet authorized
[Footnote: By a decree, called the
_Reichsdeputationshauptschluss_.] the wholesale confiscation
throughout southern Germany of ecclesiastical lands and of free cities,
with the result that 112 formerly independent states lying east of the
Rhine were wiped out of existence and nearly one hundred others on the
west bank were added to France. Thus the number of the Germanies was
suddenly reduced from more than three hundred to less than one hundred,
and the German states which mainly benefited, along with Prussia, were
the southern states of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, and Baden, which Napoleon
desired to use as an equipoise against both Austria and Prussia.
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