RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 379 letter of abdication, by which the Germanic empire is annihilated, and Bonaparte is raised to be imperial chief of a mighty feudatory confederation, in the organization of which new sovereign, dignities have been conferred, and new dominions allotted, for securing his conquests in Germany. Ratisbon, August 2. WHEREAS, his Majesty the Emperor of the French, and their Majesties the Kings of Bavaria and Wirtemberg, their Electoral Highnesses the Arch-chancellor and the Elector of Baden, his Imperial Highness the Duke of Berg, and their Highnesses the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, the Princes of Nassau Weilbourg and Nassau Usingen, of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Siegmaringen, Salm-Salm, and Salm-Kyrburg, Isenburg, Birstein, and Lichtenstein; the Duke of Ahremberg, and the Count of Leyen; being desirous to secure, through proper stipulations, the internal and external peace of southern Germany, which, as experience for a long period and recently has shewn, can derive no kind of guarantee from the existing German constitution, have appointed to be their plenipotentiaries to this effect; namely, his Majesty the Emperor of the French, Charles Maurice Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, minister of his foreign affairs; his Majesty, the King of Bavaria, his minister plenipotentiary, A. Von Cetto; his Majesty, the King of Wirtemberg, his state-minister the Count of Wintzingerode; the Elector Arch-chancellor, his ambassador extraordinary the Count of Beust; the Elector of Baden, his cabinet minister the Baron of Reitzenstein; his Imperial Highness the Duke of Berg, Baron Von Schele; the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, his ambassador extraordinary Baron Von Pappenheim; the Princes of Nassau, Weilburg, and Usingen, Baron Von Gagern; the Princes of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Siegmaringen, Major 380 RHENISH CONFEDERATION. Von Fischer; the Prince of Isenburg-Birstein, his privy-counsellor M. Von Gretzen; the Duke of Ahremberg, and the Count of Leyen, Mr. Durand St. André, who have agreed upon the following articles: Art. 1. The states of the contracting princes (enumerated as in the preamble) shall be for ever separated from the Germanic body, and united by a particular confederation, under the designation of "The confederated States of the Empire." 2. All the laws of the empire, by which they have been hitherto bound, shall be in future null and without force, with the exception of the statutes relative to debts, determined in the recess of the deputation of 1803, and in the paragraph upon the navigation to be funded upon the shipping tolls, which statutes shall remain in full vigour and execution. 3. Each of the contracting princes renounces such of his titles as refer to his connection with the German empire; and they will, on the 1st of August, declare their entire separation from it. 4. The Elector Arch-chancellor shall take the title of Prince Primate and Most Eminent Highness, which title shall convey no prerogative derogatory to the entire sovereignty which every one of the contracting princes shall enjoy. 5. The Elector of Baden, the Duke of Berg, and the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, shall take the titles of Grand Dukes, and enjoy the rights, honours, and prerogatives belonging to the kingly dignity. Their rank and precedence shall be in the same order as mentioned in Article 1. The chief of the houses of Nassau shall take the title of Duke, and the Count of Leyen that of Prince. 6. The affairs of the confederation shall be discussed in a congress of the union (Diète), whose place of sitting shall be in Frankfort, and the congress shall be divided into two colleges, the kings and the princes. 7. The members of the league must be independent of every fo RHENISH CONFEDERATION. 381 reign power. They cannot, in any wise, enter into any other service, but that of the states of the confederation, and its allies. Those who have been hitherto in the service of a foreign power, and choose to adhere to it, shall abdicate their principality in favour of one of their children. 8. Should any of the said princes be disposed to alienate the whole or any part of his sovereignty, he can only do it in favour of the confederates. 9. All disputes, which may arise among the members of the league, shall be settled in the assembly at Frankfort. 10. In this the Prince Primate shall preside, and when it shall happen, that the two colleges have to deliberate upon any subject; he shall then preside in the college of Kings, and the Duke of Nassau in that of the Princes. 11. The time, when the congress of the league, or cither of the col leges, shall have particularly to assemble, the manner of the convocation, the subjects upon which they may have to deliberate, the manner of forming their conclusions, and putting them in execution, shall be determined in a fundamental statute, which the Prince Primate shall give in proposition, within a month after the notification presented at Ratisbon. This statute shall be approved of by the confederated states; this statute shall also regulate the respective rank of the members of the college of princes. 12. The Emperor shall be proclaimed protector of the confederation. On the demise of the Primate, he shall, in such quality, as often name the successor. 13. His Majesty the King of Bavaria cedes to the King of Wirtemberg, the Lordship of Wisensteig, and renounces the rights which he might have upon Weiblingen, on account of Burgan. 14. His Majesty the King of Wirtemberg makes over to the Grand Duke of Berg, the country of Bondorff, Brenlingen, and Villingen, the part of the territory of the latter city which lies on the right bank of the Brigoetz, and the city of Tuttlingen, with the 382 RHENISH COEFEDERATION. manor of the same name belonging to it, on the right bank of the Danube. 15. The Grand Duke of Baden cedes to the King of Wirtemberg, the city and territory of Biebrach, with their dependencies. 16. The Duke of Nassau cedes to the Grand Duke of Berg, the city of Deutz and its territory. 17. His Majesty the King of Bavaria shall unite to his states the city and territory of Nuremberg, and the Teutonic comitials of Rohr and Waldstetten. 18. His Majesty the King of Wirtemberg shall receive the Lordship of Wisensteig, the city and territory of Biebrach, with their dependencies, the cities of Waldsee and Schettingen, the comitial lands of Karpfenburg, Lancheim, and Alchausen, with the exceptions of the Lordship of Hohenfeld, and the abbey of Weiblingen. 19. The Grand Duke of Baden shall receive the Lordship of Bonndorff, the cities of Vrenlingen, Villingen, and Tuttlingen, the parts of their territories which are given to him in Article 14; and along with these the comitials of Bolken and Freyburg. 20. The Grand Duke of Berg shall receive the city and territory of Deutz, the city and manor of Koningswinter, and the manor of Wistich, as ceded by the Duke of Nassau. 21. The Grand Duke of Darmstadt shall unite to his states the burgraviat of Freidberg, taking to himself the sovereignty only during the lifetime of the present possessor, and the whole at his death. 22. The Prince Primate shall take possession of the city of Frankfort on the Maine, and its territory, as his sovereign property. 23. The Prince of Hohenzollern Seigmaringen shall receive as his sovereign property the lordships of Aschberg and Hohenfels, depending on the comitial of Alchausen, the convents of Klosterwald and Haltzthal, and the sovereignty over the imperial equestrian estates that lie in his dominions, and in the territory to the north of RHENISH CONFEDERATION, 383 the Danube, wherever his sovereignty extends; namely, the lordships of Gamerdingen and Hottingen. 24. The members of the confederation shall exercise all the rights of sovereignty henceforward as follow: His Majesty the King of Bavaria, over the principality of Schwartzenberg, the county of Castell, the lordships of Speinfeld and Wissenheid, the dependencies of the principality of Hohenlohe, which are included in the margraviate of Anspach, and the territory of Rothenburg, namely, the great manors of Schillingsfurst and Kirchberg the county of Sternstein, the principality of Oettingen, the possessions of the Prince of La Tour to the north of the principality of Neuberg, the county of Edelstetten, the possessions of the Prince and of the Count of Fugger, the burgraviat of Winteriedden; lastly, the lordships of Buxheim and Tannhansein, and over the entire of the highway from Memmingen to Lindau. His Majesty the King of Wirtemberg, over the possessions of the Prince and Count of Truchess Waldberg, the counties of Baindt: Egloff Guttenzell, Hechbach, Ysuy, Koenigsek Aullendorff, Ochenhausen, Roth, Schussenried, and Weissenau, the lordships of Mietingen and Sunningen, New Ravensburg, Thanheim, Warthausen, and Weingarten, with the exception of the lordship of Haguenau, the possessions of the Prince of Thurn, with the exception of those not mentioned above; the lordship of Strasburg, and the manor of Ostraiz, the lordships of Gundelfingen and Neussen, the parts of the country of Limburg Gaildorf, which his Majesty does not possess, all the unalienated possessions of the princes of Hohenlohe, and over a part of the manor formerly belonging to Mentz, Krautheim, on the left bank of the Jaxt. The Grand Duke of Baden over the principality of Furstenberg, with the exception of the lordships of Gundelfingen and Neussen; also over Trochtelfingen, Jungenau, and part of the manor of Moeskirch, which lies on the left bank of the Danube, over the lordship of Hagenau, county of Thuengen, landgraviate of Klettgau, manors Neidenau and Billigheim, principality of Leiningen, the possessions |