Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/537

 Europe and Napoleon 499 The undersigned, charge d'affaires of his Majesty the emperor of the French and king of Italy, at the general diet of the German empire, has received orders from his Majesty to make the following declarations to the diet: Their Majesties the kings of Bavaria and of Wiirtem- berg, the sovereign princes of Ratisbon, Baden, Burg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau, as well as the other leading princes 1 of the south and west of Germany, have resolved to form a confederation between themselves which shall secure them against future contingencies, and have thus ceased to be states of the empire. The position in which the Treaty of Pressburg has ex- plicitly placed the courts allied to France, and indirectly those princes whose territory they border or surround, being incompatible with the existence of an empire, it becomes a necessity for those rulers to reorganize their relations upon a new system and to remove a contradic- tion which could not fail to be a permanent source of agi- tation, disquiet, and danger. France, on the other hand, is directly interested in the maintenance of peace in southern Germany and yet must apprehend that the moment she shall cause her troops to recross the Rhine discord, the inevitable consequence of contradictory, uncertain, and ill-defined conditions, will again disturb the peace of the people and reopen, possibly, the war on the continent. Feeling it incumbent upon her to advance the welfare of her allies and to assure them the enjoyment of all the advantages which the Treaty of Press- burg secures to them and to which she is pledged, France cannot but regard the confederation which they have formed as a natural result and a necessary sequel to that treaty. For a long period successive changes have, from century to century, reduced the German constitution to a shadow of its former self. Time has altered all the relations, in 434. Napo- leon informs the German diet of the formation of the Con- federation of the Rhine (August i, 1806). Sad decline of the Holy Roman Empire 1 The confederation was joined from time to time by many more German states.