CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE. A league of German princes formed in 1806 under the protection of Napoleon. The first to seek the French alliance were the Electors of Bavaria and Wfirttemberg, who, in recompense for their ser vices, were elevated to the dignity of kings by the Peace of Presburg, December 26, 1805. At Paris on July 12. 1800, sixteen German princes formally signed an act of confederation, dissolving their connection with the German Empire, and ally ing themselves with France. These princes were the kings of Bavaria and Wurttemberg. the Areb-Chancellor Dalberg. the Elector of Baden, the Duke of Cleves and Berg (Joachim Murat), the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, the princes of Nassau•Usingen, Nassau-W'eilburg. Hohenzol lern-llechingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Salm and Salm-Kyrburg. the Duke of Arenberg, the princes of Isenburg-Birstein and Liechten stein. and the Count of Leyen. The princes justi fied their conduct by enumerating the vices of the constitution of the German Empire. promised
to aid Napoleon in his wars with an army of 63,000 men, and called upon the other princes of Germany to imitate their example. The Arch Chancellor Dalberg was made Prince Primate of the Confederation, with his seat at Frankfort. During the years 1806-08 other German so•er eigns enrolled themselves as members of the Con federation. and at the close of 1805 it embraced a territory of 122,236 square miles, contained a population of 14.608,877 souls, and kept up an army of 119,180 men. The disasters winch over took the French army in the Russian campaign acted like a solvent on the Confederation, and it vanished in 1813 in the sudden outburst of Ger man patriotism. Consult: Rambaud, La domi luttion francaise en Alle»zagne, 1SO4-11 (Paris, 1876) ; Seeley, Life of Stein (3 vols., Cambridge, 1878) ; and the general histories of Ranke, Pertz, Oneken, and Treitschke. See GERMANY.