On February 25 the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire passed the Final Declaration of the Imperial Deputation (Reichsdeputationshauptschluss), which put the Lunéville peace terms into effect in Germany. To compensate German states and princes for France’s gain of the west bank of the Rhine, it was necessary for Austria and the other large German states to ‘mediatize’, or rationalize, the over two hundred states of Germany into forty, largely by secularizing ecclesiastical territories and connecting the ‘free’ and ‘imperial’ cities to their more substantial neighbours.
