Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

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citizens, and given a consistory; the registration of births, marriages and

deaths was brought in, but the work was left to the clergy; and in 1810 the

greater part of Catholic Church property, that which belonged to the chap-

ters and the convents, was totally abolished, sequestrated and subsequently

sold. There only remained the reform of the land. The constitution had only

abolished serfdom and personal services; but even so, several laws were

required to deﬁ ne the latter. The redemption of property rights was regu-

lated by a tariff drawn up in 1809. In these regions, forced labour consti-

tuted the most oppressive part of these rights. These services were now

ﬁ xed, so that no new ones could be created, nor could they be altered or

sold. Nevertheless, the peasants often refused to fulﬁ l them, and hardly ever

consented to their redemption. The obligation to do so had to be repeatedly

conﬁ rmed; and while waiting for them to make up their minds, the courts

seem to have done their best to maintain the indivisibility of tenure, in spite

of the Civil Code, in order to guarantee the payment of the dues and compul-

sory services. On the other hand the préfets were encouraged to press on with

the partition of the common lands and the abolition of the rights of free

pasture, in order to hasten the disappearance of compulsory rotation of

crops, which had in theory been abolished.

The nobility suffered bitterly from the loss of their caste privileges; yet

they consoled themselves to a certain extent when they were offered

superior rank and employment, for not many Frenchmen came to this

country, and German was freely used in the government services. King

Jérôme employed former Prussian ofﬁ cials – Bülow, a cousin of Hardenberg,

Malchus, Schulenburg and Dohm; Baron Wollfradt of Brunswick became

minister of the interior; Strombeck was largely responsible for the introduc-

tion of the Civil Code; and the electoral colleges and the army were ﬁ lled

with nobles. As for the middle classes, it is at least clear that literature kept

its position or accepted new ofﬁ ce – men like Leist, Martens, Jacob Grimm

– not to mention Jean de Müller.

The annexations of December 1810 brought a third German territory

under Napoleon’s control, consisting of the northern part of Hanover, the

Hanseatic towns and a quarter of the duchy of Berg, plus a few princely

possessions which were enclosed within them; and Oldenburg was added

on 22 January 1811. The whole was divided into three départements under

one common commission. As he did at the same period in Illyria, Napoleon

set about a rapid introduction of the French regime and promulgated the

Civil Code on 9 December 1811. The ﬁ efs with their rights of succession,

serfdom, personal rights, the lords’ honoriﬁ c prerogatives, peonage, seigneu-

rial rights, ﬁ shing and hunting rights – all these were swept away in one fell

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swoop, and with no compensation, while in Westphalia and especially in the

duchy of Berg the process had been several times reversed. All the same,

annexation was too short-lived to have any deep effect on social relation-

ships; and the advantages seem to have been less appreciated here than else-

where, seeing that the strict application of the blockade involved a military

government that was extremely severe in the suppression of smuggling.

In the other states of the Rhine Federation, Napoleon was not in sover-

eign control. The princes were very jealous of their own newly acquired

sovereignty, and had only accepted a permanent alliance and protectorate

through fear that Napoleon would keep the lands ceded by Austria, and so

install a French préfecture in Southern Germany, as Montgelas remarked.

Napoleon, on his side, had written their sovereignty into the Act of

Confederation, and put off the convening of a Diet until a general peace

should be signed. ‘It is not yet time to set up institutions,’ he would say.

Meanwhile, he had recourse to persuasion. At Milan in 1807 and at Erfurt in

1808 he made more or less deﬁ nite overtures on the adoption of the Civil

Code, and told his diplomats to recommend this step. He would hardly have

been likely to obtain any concessions if the traditions of enlightened

despotism and circumstances had not continued to persuade the princes to

adopt at least a part of his system. His ideals were shared by Montgelas in

Bavaria and Reitzenstein in Baden. Besides, the largest of these states,

suddenly increased by additions of varying origin – Austrian territory,

Church possessions, mediatised lands, former free cities – were a chaos of

differing institutions, privileges and religious confessions that were as a rule

mutually exclusive. It was important to fuse them together, and nothing

seemed more suitable for this than the French methods. Finally, there was a

need for the men and money indispensable for the creation of a strong army.

This would satisfy Napoleon, serve to ﬁ ght against him if he were conquered,

and provide defence against the victors if they looked like withdrawing the

beneﬁ ts he had conferred. This is why the new states and those who had

acquired most were, as a general rule, the ones that carried through the

greatest changes; and this is also why constitutional government, which

remained largely theoretical in France, was hardly at all appreciated, since it

was repugnant to the sovereign rulers. Finally, the liberation of the peasants

was left in the background or completely ignored, for enlightened despotism

had never broken the past that linked the monarchy and the aristocracy, and

Joseph II had paid dearly for his attempts to infringe it. In this sense, the

states of Southern Germany, although they imitated France, continued to be

more like Prussia, where the reforms strengthened the state, but dealt lightly

with the aristocracy.

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One might at least have expected that in the two principalities created

from all the separate components on the Main – the grand duchies of

Frankfurt and Würzburg – Napoleon’s inﬂ uence would have been trium-

phant. In the former, it was indeed considerable, but amounted to nothing

in the latter, although the former duke of Tuscany, who had now become the

grand duke of Würzburg, was favourable to Napoleon and enjoyed his court.

There can be no clearer evidence of the carefulness with which he felt

bound to handle his German allies. Ferdinand, it is true, knew that he was

protected by the treaty with Austria in 1809, and that as a Habsburg he

enjoyed some additional inﬂ uence with the emperor after his second

marriage. Dalberg, on the other hand, owed everything to Napoleon. As

coadjutor of the archbishop of Mainz, he was the only one of the ecclesias-

tical electors to receive some compensation in 1803, in the shape of

Ratisbon, the principality of Aschaffenburg and the town of Wetzlar. In 1806

he became German primate and was presented with several mediatised

lands, Frankfurt being the most important. He did not abolish the autonomy

of these ancient free cities, but was content to appoint a commissary and

reserve for himself the right to choose their senates from among the lists of

candidates drawn up by the inhabitants. In 1810 he had to cede Ratisbon to

Bavaria and accept Fulda and Hanau by way of compensation. It was at this

point that he became grand duke, with Eugene as his prospective heir. His

lands contained three hundred thousand inhabitants and Letters Patent of

16 August 1810 gave them a uniﬁ ed administration and judiciary, and the

same system of weights and measures. It proclaimed religious freedom,

abolished privilege and serfdom, and established freedom of employment

by doing away with the corporations. Dalberg was a préfet of the eighteenth-

century type, a sincere believer in ‘enlightenment’ and a supporter of Joseph

II; and there is no doubt that these principles seemed to him in accordance

with reason. As a good Catholic and loyal German, he had witnessed with

some sorrow the secularisations, and ﬁ nally the end, of the Holy Roman

Empire; but this worldly and ingratiating person was not disposed to make

sacriﬁ ces; and both his tastes and his interests dictated a policy of making

himself agreeable to the emperor. He adopted the Civil Code in 1810, and

the Penal Code in 1812. Nevertheless, while appreciating the system, he was

not passionately attached to it, and took pains to rule his subjects with a

light hand, particularly those of his own class, the nobility.

And so in matters of detail the grand duchy of Frankfurt remained a good

deal behind the kingdom of Westphalia, though it is true that Dalberg’s

term of ofﬁ ce was still shorter than Jérôme’s. The central government

included a ministry occupied by Albini and Beust, a Conseil d’État, and

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Estates nominated by electors chosen for life by the grand duke, and grouped

into corporative colleges, as in Italy and Westphalia. The land was divided

into four départements and given the same institutions and names as in

France. The same was true of the communes, so that Frankfurt lost its senate

and the remnants of its independence. But between the département and the

commune the Amt or bailliage continued in existence, combining administra-

tive and judicial functions. Moreover, although new taxes borrowed from

France, registration, stamp duty, licences, indirect taxes and the abolition of

privileges, brought about a certain ﬁ scal unity, it was left to each of the

regions constituting the duchy to continue with its traditional taxes, its

budget, accounting system and treasury. The grand duke’s exchequer only

took over the surpluses.

In 1813 a reform of the judiciary was undertaken. A supreme court was

set up, with two courts of appeal and a civil court and a court of summary

jurisdiction for each département; but seigneurial justice still continued to

preside over courts of the ﬁ rst instance and ofﬁ cial positions still kept their

jurisdiction – a peculiar proviso that is probably to be explained by Dalberg’s

ecclesiastical status. In spite of the Civil Code, freedom of conscience was

not recognised, for marriage in church remained compulsory, and there was

no advance beyond a degree of toleration. In 1807 the Jews had been

allowed to become landowners and to carry on certain industries, though

they were still conﬁ ned to a special quarter, liable to a special tax and

deprived of any right of citizenship. At Frankfurt, where they were many

and wealthy, they managed in 1811 to obtain the right to redeem the tax,

and in 1812 to become citizens; and those living at Fulda and Aschaffenburg

also contrived to get rid of the tax in 1813. The ﬁ nancial services rendered

to the grand duke by the Jewish banks, particularly by the Rothschilds,

no doubt helped to hasten their liberation. Amschel Rothschild and

Oppenheimer were appointed members of the Electoral College at Frankfurt,

and Börne became secretary to the superintendent of police.

Social reform remained still more incomplete. In conformity with the Act

of Federation, those who had been mediatised kept their privileges, the

nobility retaining not only their judicial and honoriﬁ c rights, but also their

ﬁ efs and their private rights. In the principalities of Hanau and Fulda

serfdom had been abolished by the emperor without compensation in

1808. Everywhere else, its abolition, though decreed under the constitu-

tion, remained merely nominal, for the peasants were made to redeem all

the dues connected with serfdom, and only a few communities decided to

do so. As far as land taxes and tithes were concerned, redemption was

permitted on the ducal estates, and the sequestrated Church property, but no

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steps were taken for the manors. The Conseil d’État and the ofﬁ cials entered

a formal protest, as a result of which the Civil Code was given a new twist,

and peasant tenure was held to be indivisible as long as it remained liable to

feudal dues.

Passing from Frankfurt to Würzburg, we are met by an equally striking

contrast. From 1803 to 1805 the bishopric belonged to Bavaria, which

secularised the property of the clergy and introduced toleration, but

continued to use administrative methods that had as yet been very little

modernised. The grand duke set up a ministry and a Conseil d’État under the

leadership of Seufert. This was the only change he made in the Bavarian

system. Administration and justice both continued to be indiscriminately

managed by colleges; the old laws remained in force and the Civil Code was

not adopted. Yet Ferdinand was not hostile to enlightened despotism: his

lethargy is more probably to be explained by the wish to live at peace after

the shocks to which he had been exposed, and to deal gently with the court

of Vienna, whose outlook grew more and more unenlightened.

On the other hand the large states of Southern Germany were profoundly

changed by the inspiration of reforming spirits. In Bavaria, under the inﬂ u-

ence of Montgelas, reforms had begun before the electorate became a

kingdom, and even before the annexations of 1803. From 1799 onwards

the powers of the various ministries were rearranged so as to unify the serv-

ices, and a Conseil d’État was set up. In 1802 the judiciary and the adminis-

tration were separated; in 1805 the bureaucracy was reorganised, corruption,

reversions and bribery being abolished. Recruitment and promotion were

thrown open to competition, and discipline was regulated. The powers of

the state were on the increase. In 1800 it took on responsibility for ﬁ re

insurance, municipal courts were gradually reduced or abolished, and in

1804 conscription was introduced. In 1805 a Public Education Ofﬁ ce was

added to the Ministry of the Interior. In this stronghold of the Ultramontane

outlook, Montgelas’s Josephist policy was rigorously applied and caused a

considerable sensation. Protestants were allowed into the family circle in

1801, and Maximilian married as his second wife a Protestant princess from

Baden. In 1803 annexation brought freedom of conscience and worship to

Christians of all confessions, with admission to public employment and

permission to celebrate mixed marriages. In 1804 the schools became inter-

confessional in principle, and the Catholic Church more and more closely

subjected to the secular power. The mendicant Orders were suppressed in

1802, then all convents in 1803, the state taking over their property.

Montgelas showed interest in the spread of ‘enlightenment’, making educa-

tion compulsory in 1802, and the following year doing away with the

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censorship of books. If left to himself, he would also have abolished the

corporations; but he had to be content with reducing their monopoly and

abolishing the hereditary character of the master craftsmanship, except in

Munich.

There was then no need for Napoleon to win him over. But he conferred

on him the sovereignty of enormous territories, notably the Tyrol, which

was quite untouched by reform; and the very fact of Napoleon’s prestige

speeded the course of the new regime. Its principles were summed up in the

constitution of 1808, clearly inspired by the example of Westphalia. Bavaria,

up till now the patrimony of the prince, became judicially a state with a

public legal system. Its territory became indivisible, the royal succession

unalterable; the royal lands became distinct from the sovereign’s own

personal possessions, and were declared inalienable. Once the civil list had

been ﬁ xed, the court’s expenses became a private matter, and could not fall

to the charge of the public debt. Central power was deﬁ nitely concentrated

in the hands of ﬁ ve ministers, the collegiate system being discarded.

Montgelas did in fact manage everything, for he had three departments

under his personal control, and the projected ministerial conference never

came into action. Nevertheless, the Geheimrat was reorganised and commis-

sioned to prepare laws and be responsible for administrative justice. The

ancient provinces were replaced by Kreise administered by commissaries,

assisted by a chief chancellor and councillors. In each Kreis , ﬁ nance was sepa-

rated from administration and placed under a director. The large towns were

given a Polizeidirektor nominated by the king, and an elective council and the

other communes were allowed to put forward their candidates for the ofﬁ ce

of Bürgermeister [mayor]; but both groups found themselves kept in admin-

istrative leading-strings. The organisation of the judiciary was completed by

the creation of courts of appeal and a supreme court, and by making the

judges irremovable from ofﬁ ce.

The state also turned its attention to public assistance and public health.

Vaccination was made compulsory in 1807, thus setting an example for the

whole of Germany. The ﬁ rst teachers’ training colleges were opened, and in

1808 Niethammer organised a secondary education that included Gymnasien

and Realschulen . The Bavarian Academy was remodelled, and a Department of

Fine Arts was added; those universities that were retained were brought up

to date. The religious edict of 1809 made the churches even more dependent,

so much so that the pope refused to enter into a concordat. Bavaria also

made some progress towards economic unity. Internal customs disappeared,

the state took possession of the postal services and imposed a single system

of weights and measures. The great difﬁ culty was to ﬁ nd money, for the

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regime’s expenses were high. Direct taxation was extended throughout the

territory, along French lines; the land tax was reformed on the basis of a

new land survey. This was undertaken by a statistical board which took on

the mapping of the whole country; new indirect taxes were brought in, as

well as a strongly protectionist customs tariff. The army went on steadily

growing. In 1812 an end was put to the system of exemptions; meanwhile

in 1809 the National Guard had been introduced; and in 1812 the gendarmerie

was remodelled.

The constitution also strengthened the power of the state by proclaiming

civil equality and abolishing the Stände or orders, as well as privileges. As

early as 1807 ﬁ scal exemptions had been swept away; and with the Stände

went the assemblies representing them. They had already lost the power to

vote taxes in 1807. The constitution did in fact guarantee individual freedom,

freedom of conscience and freedom of the press; it also brought in consti-

tutional government and national representation; but in practice, the Corps

Législatif was not summoned, and the regime remained a police state with

absolute powers, such as arbitrary imprisonment, a secret cabinet, a rigorous

censorship of the papers and a complete veto upon all associations. At least

there was a strengthening of religious liberty. In 1808 the last restrictions

on the Protestants were removed. By the edict of 1809 they were granted an

ofﬁ cial organisation, the freedom to transfer from one religion to another,

and the abolition of the compulsory contribution they had so far been

obliged to make to the Catholic parish priest. In 1813 the Jews were granted

freedom of worship on a private basis, but did not become full citizens.

Transported to the Tyrol, this ready-made system, with its despotic and

centralising features, produced an insurrection. From the Napoleonic point

of view, however, it was far from perfect. In the lower stages, justice remained

linked to administration, the corporations were allowed to continue, and

although the French Penal Code was adopted in 1813, the full Civil Code

was not, and each of the regions that made up the kingdom kept its own

customary law. Montgelas, afraid that the emperor might interfere, seems to

have toned down his reforming zeal from 1806 onwards. Perhaps he also

gave up all hope of breaking the resistance of the aristocracy, for whom the

Code Napoléon would have been the last straw. According to the agreement,

those who had been mediatised retained their ﬁ scal, judicial and honorary

privileges, as well as their special courts. The nobles also succeeded in

preserving a part of their special status. As in France, entails were brought in

by royal favour to take the place of the trusts that had been suppressed.

Moreover, in 1809 women were once more debarred from succeeding to

property held by the nobility. A register of the nobles was compiled, and

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their prestige strengthened by imposing certain obligations on pain of

being struck off the register. Seigneurial courts were regulated, but not abol-

ished. But little was done for the peasants. In 1808 serfdom was abolished,

without compensation, and the personal obligations belonging to it. The

year before, it had been decreed on principle that compulsory labour could

not be altered, but could be redeemed, and likewise the feudal dues, subject

to the signing of a contract with the lord, which he could however refuse.

From the social point of view, then, Bavaria was behind the times compared

with the other Napoleonic states; for though the balance between the aris-

tocracy and the state had been upset to the advantage of the latter, they still

remained allies. Peasant property was only set free in the secularised lands,

and then only with the payment of compensation and subject to a redeem-

able tax. There had been more marked changes in the agrarian arrangements

of the ancien régime , for in 1803 the village community and the compulsory

rotation of crops had both been abolished, the common lands were to be

divided, and the Hof or family tenure was allowed to be split up; but these

measures were slow in bearing fruit.

Württemberg seems to have developed in a different and even more char-

acteristic manner. The duke – who had become elector in 1803 – continued

till 1805 to quarrel with his Landtag, and could not therefore undertake

any reforms. He had to be content with reorganising his ministers, and

appointing Wintzingerode as one of them, taking good care not to unite his

recent acquisitions to his older lands, and governing them despotically, but

introducing religious toleration. The Landtag demanded union, complained

to Paris and made common cause with the heir apparent. Frederick replied

with a coup d’état ; but the newly elected Landtag refused to vote the taxes and

appealed to Vienna, which gave a verdict in their favour. Passing through

Stuttgart on 2 October 1805, Napoleon advised making short work of this

opposition: ‘Get rid of these bounders,’ he said – for the Landtag had

incurred his displeasure by refusing the money and the men that France

required. On 30 December Frederick, who had now become fully sover-

eign, abolished the Landtag. From this time onwards, he was able to trans-

form his state. Between 1808 and 1814 he never relaxed his efforts: there

were in all 2,342 rescripts and ordinances. Bavaria, on the other hand,

which had carried out a good part of the work during the previous period,

now gradually slackened the pace.

The new king, like his neighbour, felt the need for strengthening his

power. But being of an autocratic character, and furious at having been so

long resisted, he was passionately intent on governing in a despotic manner.

His ministers were no more than clerks, and although he set up a Conseil

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d’État, he hardly ever consulted it. Unlike Montgelas, he had no love

for ‘enlightenment’, and so no respect for intellectual freedom or social

progress. He therefore retained still more exclusively those elements in the

Napoleonic system that were to his personal advantage.

Württemberg was divided into districts administered by Kreishauptleute ,

that is, préfets ; but the king took it upon himself to nominate and keep control

of the municipalities. The higher lawcourts followed the French pattern, and

were not responsible for any administration. A gendarmerie was set up, and the

police force was extended to a most unusual degree. The ﬁ nancial frame-

work was rebuilt, the state took on a monopoly in salt and tobacco, and the

land tax was considerably increased. The state took over the post and the

management of the schools, and brought the churches under its regulations.

Frederick was careful not to set up a constitution or give his subjects the

smallest rights. The criminal courts were not even empowered to pass

sentence: they simply gave their opinion, and the king made the decision.

Emigration was forbidden, travel needed a special permit and all meetings

were prohibited. A strict censorship prevailed; the University of Tübingen

lost its independence and was given a warden. Permission was needed to

apply for entry, and students were given no choice over the faculties to

which they were assigned. Espionage was shamelessly encouraged, and

the population were systematically disarmed. From this time onwards

Württemberg was more oppressively governed than the French Empire; it

was in fact a Metternich regime.

The only reform to ﬁ nd favour was a certain religious toleration. By the

edict of 15 October 1806, all Christians received some beneﬁ t. Jews were

now allowed to own land and carry on a trade. Where the organisation of

society was concerned, Frederick was also careful not to commit himself to

any principles, and though he uniﬁ ed the legal system, he did not adopt the

Civil Code. The nobles were kept under strict control and had to pay taxes.

They were partly deprived of their special courts, lost their trust rights and

saw their ranks invaded by a number of upstarts. Marriage was now author-

ised between themselves and the middle classes; and from now on, everyone

could own land. The property of the Catholic clergy was secularised. But the

feudal system did not disappear: no change was made in the tithes, the feudal

dues and forced labour, the king being content merely to abolish personal

serfdom. Nor was any hand laid upon the corporations. Thus uniﬁ cation,

centralisation and despotism advanced more notably in Württemberg than in

Bavaria, while the ancien régime continued to prevail in the social sphere.

In Baden, reform was still later in beginning. After the annexations of

1803, the property of the Catholic clergy was secularised and the convents

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closed (with a few exceptions). The old and the new territories were fused

into three provinces, though the local ministry and administration did not

lose their collegiate form. No resistance was met with: the government had

no difﬁ culty in depriving the mediatised towns of nearly all their powers,

and in 1806 the Estates of Breisgau were abolished. Charles Frederick

enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as an enlightened despot; but he was

growing old, and his advisers were deeply divided, for his second wife, the

countess of Hochberg, wanted to make certain that her children would

succeed to the throne in case those of the ﬁ rst marriage had no heirs. In the

end, Napoleon plainly showed his impatience, particularly as he was very

displeased with the grand duke’s grandson, who was getting on very badly

with Stéphanie de Beauharnais. In 1807 Dalberg’s nephew introduced a

number of new measures. He replaced the colleges by ﬁ ve ministers, set up

a Conseil d’État, and began to reform the ﬁ nances.

But the radical measures were the work of Reitzenstein, who was of

Bavarian origin, and – like Montgelas – a supporter of ‘enlightenment’ and

the entente with France. He divided the country into districts, which amal-

gamated the annexed principalities, and took the municipalities under the

government’s wing. All the same, he did not push reorganisation to extremes,

perhaps through lack of time, for he was dismissed in 1810. The districts

remained subdivided into bailliages , in which administration and justice were

linked together. Conscription was also adopted, and – most important of all

– the Civil Code, as from 1 January 1811, although certain modiﬁ cations

were introduced. Religious toleration had already come to Baden, and was

extended to the Jews in 1808. The country was less hardly treated than

Württemberg, but no constitution was introduced. Civil equality – a cardinal

point – existed only in theory. To begin with, those who had been media-

tised kept their privileges, as they did everywhere else, including the private

courts, honorary and feudal rights, armed guards and special family status;

then the ofﬁ cials remained personally subject only to the superior courts,

and the same advantage was accorded to the nobility, who were likewise

exempted from personal tax and from conscription. They managed to

preserve the right to form trusts and entails; and in addition they contrived

to have the land tax on their estates reduced by a third. In the end, moreover,

nothing was done to disturb the ﬁ ef and feudal rights, nor the tithe, the dues

or forced labour. As serfdom had disappeared at the end of the eighteenth

century, there was not much change in the position of the lower classes.

Among the other members of the Rhine Confederation there was

one who closely imitated France – the prince of Anhalt, who ruled over

twenty-nine thousand subjects. He gave these a préfet, a préfet ’s council and a