The sympathy with France and with French ideas of enlightenment which
characterized his reign was at once manifested. In the newly organized
ministry Count Max Josef von Montgelas (q.v.), who, after falling into
disfavour with Charles Theodore, had acted for a time as Maximilian
Joseph's private secretary, was the most potent influence, an influence
wholly "enlightened" and French. Agriculture and commerce were fostered,
the laws were ameliorated, a new criminal code drawn up, taxes and
imposts equalized without regard to traditional privileges, while a
number of religious houses were suppressed and their revenues used for
educational and other useful purposes. In foreign politics Maximilian
Joseph's attitude was from the German point of view less commendable.
With the growing sentiment of German nationality he had from first to
last no sympathy, and his attitude throughout was dictated by wholly
dynastic, or at least Bavarian, considerations. Until 1813 he was the
most faithful of Napoleon's German allies, the relation being cemented
by the marriage of his daughter to Eugène Beauharnais. His reward came
with the treaty of Pressburg (Dec. 26, 1805), by the terms of which he
was to receive the royal title and important territorial acquisitions in
Swabia and Franconia to round off his kingdom. The style of king he
actually assumed on the 1st of January 1806.
The new king of Bavaria was the most important of the princes belonging
to the Confederation of the Rhine, and remained Napoleon's ally until
the eve of the battle of Leipzig, when by the convention of Ried (Oct.
8, 1813) he made the guarantee of the integrity of his kingdom the price
of his joining the Allies. By the first treaty of Paris (June 3, 1814),
however, he ceded Tirol to Austria in exchange for the former duchy of
Würzburg. At the congress of Vienna, too, which he attended in person,
Maximilian had to make further concessions to Austria, ceding the
quarters of the Inn and Hausruck in return for a part of the old
Palatinate. The king fought hard to maintain the contiguity of the
Bavarian territories as guaranteed at Ried; but the most he could obtain
was an assurance from Metternich in the matter of the Baden succession,
in which he was also doomed to be disappointed (see BADEN: _History_,
iii. 506).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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