Canton of Brühl

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The canton of Brühl was one of the ten administrative units in the Arrondissement de Cologne in the Département de la Roer (Rurdepartement). It was formed in 1798 by commissioner François Joseph Rudler , commissioned by the French Directory , to subdivide the territories on the left bank of the Rhine, which had been occupied since 1794, into departments and cantons and existed until 1814.

Augustusburg Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection
Chinese pavilion Augustusburg

history

The occupation of areas on the left bank of the Rhine by French revolutionary troops took place in the late autumn of 1794. With that, Brühl's glorious days as an electoral residence and office of the Electorate of Cologne also died out. The last elector of Cologne, Maximilian Franz , fled from the approaching troops. At the same time, the assignment of the remaining territories in the Cologne area to the Jülischen and Brabantischen (Hürth) areas ended. The former residence, Schloss Augustusburg , was designated by Napoléon as the seat of the 4th cohort of the Legion of Honor in 1803 . The French emperor visited these and his citizens of Brühl, who had meanwhile become French citizens, in 1804 on a trip through which he also visited Cologne.

Administrative units

Administrations in the period of occupation

After the French revolutionary troops marched in in October 1794, Brühl remained the deployment area of ​​the French army in the following years until 1797. In the winter of 1794/95 the French revolutionary troops used part of the Franciscan monastery as a military hospital. Almost uninterruptedly, the places of the municipality of Brühl were not only heavily burdened by billeting , but the French government also demanded manual and tensioning services from the inhabitants to repair the roads and to supply the marching troops with forage deliveries and contributions for their military transports . These could not possibly be raised by the inhabitants. The looting and extortion by French troops, which were already lamented during the invasion, and the subsequent arbitrary acts by the military, such as violent requisitions, were only stopped in 1796 by a ban on the board of directors.

After the occupation of the area on the left bank of the Rhine, a central administration based in Aachen was set up on October 15, 1794 , which removed old borders and territories with different traditions and legal provisions. The area was divided into seven arrondissements in November, these into cantons in December and the cantons in turn into municipalities. The largest part of the former Electoral Cologne Office of Brühl belonged as a municipality to the canton of Cologne in the arrondissement of Cologne with its administrative headquarters in Bonn until autumn 1797 .

In parallel with the administrative reform, a first judicial reform was carried out, in which the large number of courts that existed until the French army marched in was repealed. After the reform, which came into force in June 1795, Brühl was given a peace court for minor cases as the main town of the municipality . The main town of the canton received a court for civil matters and a court for criminal matters.

In the following years changes were made to the administration and the division of the administrative districts: in 1796 the division into six arrondissements took place. The following reform carried out by General Lazare Hoche , which invalidated all previous administrative orders and reinstated the governments that existed before the French troops marched in, was only of short duration; it was repealed after his death in September 1797. When the Bonn district was divided into eight major offices (Baillages) in October 1797, the municipality of Brühl became a Baillage.

The presidential administration

During the administrative reform carried out by the French government by Commissioner François Joseph Rudler in 1798, the old territories and dominions were abolished. The area on the left bank of the Rhine was divided into four departments, the administration of which consisted of a five-person board of directors headed by a president. The cantons and their municipalities formed the lower administrative level. Each municipality received a municipal agent and an adjoint representative. All agents in a canton formed the cantonal community, which elected a president from among its members. Brühl was the capital of the canton of the same name and seat of the cantonal community. The following communities belonged to the canton of Brühl:

A to Z Administrative headquarters Associated communities and their hamlets population
01 Bruehl Alsteden 234
02 Bruehl Badorf and Eckdorf 712
03 Bruehl Berrenrath and Knapsack 252
04th Bruehl Bornheim and Roisdorf 1552
05 Bruehl Bruehl 1932
06th Bruehl Fischenich 759
07th Bruehl Gleuel 605
08th Bruehl Godorf 171
09 Bruehl Hemmerich and Kardorf 818
10 Bruehl Hersel 279
11 Bruehl Hermulheim 356
12 Bruehl (Old) Huerth 466
13 Bruehl Immendorf 94
14th Bruehl Keldenich 238
15th Bruehl Kendenich 472
16 Bruehl Klettenberg and five courtyards ?
17th Bruehl Meschenich 223
18th Bruehl Merten and Trippelsdorf 701
19th Bruehl Rösberg 350
20th Bruehl Rondorf 215
21st Bruehl Schwadorf 272
22nd Bruehl Real 527
23 Bruehl Sürth and White 545
24 Bruehl Uedorf 52
25th Bruehl Urfeld 346
26th Bruehl Vochem 269
27 Bruehl Walberberg 571
28 Bruehl Waldorf 748
29 Bruehl Wesseling "big" and "small" 409
30th Bruehl Widdig 266
Total Canton of Brühl Population in 1798 14434

One innovation was the French tax system introduced in March 1798, which replaced the taxes from the electoral era. After all feudal rights were abolished in 1798, the old class structure no longer existed. For all citizens ( citizen ) the same laws were.

In order to emphasize the demand of the French government to incorporate the areas on the left bank of the Rhine into the French national territory, reunion circles were formed in 1798 at the instigation of the authorities in the cantons, which sought to officially join France as soon as possible. The reunion address of the canton of Brühl was sent with 284 signatures on April 29, 1798 to government commissioner Rudler. In 1898 the first freedom tree was planted in Brühl.

The French language was intended to encourage the population in the new departments to belong to the French state. To this end, Rudler issued an ordinance on March 30, 1798, in which he prescribed the French language as the sole official language. However, French was limited to the official documents.

Another innovation introduced by Rudler in 1798 was the French revolution calendar with a new calendar that began on September 22, 1792. It was an expression of the departure from the old religious order that had previously determined people's lives. The new calendar with the decade instead of a seven-day week was not accepted by the majority of the population. At the beginning of 1806 the Gregorian calendar was reintroduced.

With the introduction of the new calendar, the old church festivals were replaced by new holidays, of which only the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 remained as a national holiday in France. According to a report in the Kölnische Zeitung , the day of the execution of King Ludwig XVI was held in Brühl in 1799 in the summer residence of the former elector. celebrated. On that day, as is customary at these festivals, an oak tree was planted as a freedom tree. Government Commissioner Biergans gave a speech and the youth danced around the tree. After the Peace of Lunéville, a state-decreed peace festival was also celebrated in 1801, at which citizen Gareis (pastor and mayor at the same time) burned the electoral coat of arms in front of the castle.

prefecture

Part of the canton of Brühl to Tranchot

According to the law passed under Napoléon Bonaparte as the first consul of the French Republic on February 17, 1800, which came into force in the Rhenish departments in May 1800, the four departments on the left bank of the Rhine remained in place, but were divided into arrondissements. At the head of the department was now a prefect , the arrondissements were headed by sub-prefects subordinate to the prefect. Cologne was designated as the administrative seat of the Arrondissement of Cologne . The cantons of Cologne , Bergheim , Brühl , Dormagen , Elsen , Jülich , Kerpen , Lechenich , Weiden and Zülpich belonged to the Arrondissement de Cologne .

The cantons' municipalities were dissolved at the same time, the cantons, which coincided with the districts of the newly established peace courts, lost their importance as administrative districts. Instead of the cantons, Mairien , to which the large number of municipalities had been grouped, took on administrative tasks. The Mairien received a Maire who was subordinate to the sub-prefect and who was assigned an adjoint as a representative.

The Maire administered the Mairie according to the instructions given to him by the Cologne sub-prefect or the Aachen prefect. A Conseil municipal (municipal council), which met once a year, was attached to it for drawing up the budget and for auditing. The budgets had to be presented to and approved by the sub-prefect. The Maires' other official activities included keeping the civil status registers introduced in 1798 . The first civil wedding in Brühl took place on August 7, 1798.

The affiliation of the areas on the left bank of the Rhine to the French state became legally binding through the Peace of Lunéville in 1801. After a law of March 9, 1801 declared the areas to be integrated parts of the French state, the Rhenish departments were put on an equal footing with the old French departments on September 23, 1802 and thus fully integrated into the French state.

Mairien and their communities (1801)

  • Mairie Brühl (3100): Brühl with Berzdorf, Kierberg and Pingsdorf, Badorf with Eckdorf, Schwadorf, Vochem.
  • Mairie Hersel (2880): Hersel, Keldenich, Uedorf, Urfeld, Wesseling (small and large), Widdig.
  • Mairie Hürth (2900): Berrenrath, Fischenich with Kendenich, Gleuel, Hermülheim, (old) Hürth with Alstädten and Knapsack.
  • Mairie Rondorf (1930): Godorf, Immendorf, Rodenkirchen, Rondorf with Meschenich, Fünfhöfe ( Cinq fermes , Klettenberg, Weißhaus, Komarhof, Kalscheurer Hof, Konrader Hof?), Sürth, Weiß.
  • Mairie Sechtem (2550): Merten, Rösberg, Sechtem with Walberberg.
  • Mairie Waldorf (2550): Hemmerich and Kardorf, Waldorf with Bornheim.

Reorganization of the judiciary

In parallel with the reorganization of the administration, the court constitution was organized in 1798. The canton of Brühl also had a justice of the peace with its seat in Brühl for small civil and criminal cases, which were heard before a justice of the peace with two assessors and a clerk. A court messenger brought summons or decisions to the places belonging to the canton of Brühl.

According to the constitution introduced by Napoléon in 1800, the judicial districts of the lowest instance corresponded to the borders of the cantons. As the capital of the canton, Brühl remained the seat of a peace court. The judge was subordinate to the Tribunal of First Instance established in Cologne, which was responsible for major disputes and criminal matters as well as for appeals.

Through the newly created notary's office, public notaries were active in Brühl for notarizing legal transactions.

The Jews living in the canton of Brühl were put on an equal footing with other citizens under French law. However, since 1808, after a decree by Napoléon, they had to take on fixed first names and surnames (→ Jewish name ) in order to be able to be named in the notarization of births, marriages and deaths.

The new legal system was completed in the French Empire with the introduction of the "Cinq codes" between 1804 and 1811, of which the Code civil or Code Napoléon (civil law) became the best known. In the Rhineland, this right remained in force even after the French withdrew as "Rhenish law" until the introduction of the Civil Code on January 1, 1900, and the "Rhenish Notariat" is still in force today.

Reorganization of church conditions

After the Concordat concluded in 1801 between Napoléon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII , the French government was empowered to reorganize ecclesiastical relationships in France and to abolish the religious institutions and nationalize their property. In 1802 all ecclesiastical and monastic possessions were expropriated and some were auctioned off in favor of state coffers, the so-called secularization . This also meant that the material basis for the parishes was no longer available. These have now been significantly decimated. One church per canton was designated as the main parish and financed by the state. In the canton of Brühl this was St. Margareten. (Pastor Lehnen von St. Margareten held the title of senior pastor until his death in 2002) The auxiliary parishes in the parishes only received half of the salary from the state, the rest was supposed to be financed by the municipalities, which often did not work. From 1807 the state took over the salary.

Republican holidays were abolished in the Napoleonic Empire. Other festive commemorative days were introduced in 1806: August 15, Napoléon's birthday, and the first Sunday in December, the anniversary of his imperial coronation, which were to be celebrated with festive services, speeches and Te Deum , followed by a folk festival.

Public charity

After a decree of the French government, charity offices were set up in all cantons, which were to be looked after by five citizens, including a doctor. Since there was no doctor in Brühl, Pastor Gareis took over this position. The charity office was only able to carry out its duties to a very limited extent. Due to a lack of funds, the support of the 18 disabled and 18 needy persons recorded in 1803 was insufficient. The hospital from the electoral era, a small half-timbered house with three small rooms and a shared room with an oven, was not enough to accommodate 40 patients.

Education

After the dissolution of the Franciscan monastery in August 1802, the monastery buildings without the monastery church of St. Mary of the Angels were rented out by the established domain administration in 1803 . Since the tenant was only interested in the use of the garden, the main building remained unused and, with the exception of a few rooms occupied by three former priests, was almost empty. In an outbuilding of the monastery, the former school building, a private school had been opened by pastor Heinrich Gareis and two teachers . When the property failed to sell after the lease had expired , the domain administration leased the building to Mairie Brühl for use as a school building in 1807. The Maires' request to recognize the school as a secondary school and to have three scientifically trained teachers teach according to Napoleon's decree was granted on September 4, 1807. By another imperial decree, according to which all public buildings used for school purposes were donated to the communities, the monastery complex fell to the Mairie Brühl in 1811.

In a report from 1809 on the schools in the Arrondissement of Cologne, it was proposed to add a boarding school to the "Ecole secondaire de Bruhl", which only 34 students attended, to secure the livelihood . Johann Caspar Schug from Cologne, who had been running a private institute with boarding school in Cologne since 1803, was interested in taking over the school. His request to the rector of the Liège Academy to leave the Brühl school was granted. In 1812, sub-prefect Klespé informed the Brühler Maire that Schug had been appointed "Directeur du college de Bruhl". Schug moved to Brühl with his teachers and students after all buildings of the monastery had been contractually given to him. A board of directors was then formed in accordance with an imperial decree. At the "college", pastor Gareis and two teachers paid for by Schug taught alongside four salaried teachers. In 1812 the number of students was 62, including 36 internal "pensionnaires", in 1813 it fell to 48 students. When the French administration collapsed on January 14, 1814, the board of directors dissolved. Schug continued to run the school as a private school for some time.

As required by the authorities, the imperial cult was cultivated in the secondary school. The 15th August, Napoléon's birthday, was celebrated until 1813; the celebration on the 1st Sunday in December, the day of his coronation as the emperor, was canceled because the emperor's power was broken after the Battle of Leipzig.

In general, according to a law of January 1, 1809, all schools were combined to form the "Imperial University". The “university” was divided into academies (school districts), each of which comprised several departments. The Roerdepartement was under the Liège Academy.

The end of the canton of Brühl

After Napoléon's failed campaign against Russia in 1812 and his defeat in the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the remnants of the Grande Armée withdrew to the area on the left bank of the Rhine. After a Prussian and Russian army crossed the Rhine on New Year's Eve 1813/14, the French administration collapsed. On January 14, 1814, the military and civil servants (domain administrators, customs officers and gendarmes) left the canton of Brühl before the approaching allies. The conquered area was initially formed by the Allied powers as a central administration department under the leadership of Freiherr von Stein , which was divided into general governments. Johann August Sack was appointed head of the Lower Rhine General Government , to which the Roerdepartement belonged . On June 15, 1814, he took over the management of the Lower and Middle Rhine Generalgouvernement, which was newly formed from the Rhenish departments after the Peace of Paris and was under the administration of Prussia. After the Rhineland Prussia was awarded at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 , the area was redistributed in 1816 with the formation of the Province of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and the Province of the Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine , which were later (1822) combined to form the Rhine Province .

The canton Brühl was awarded the Canton pastures of 1816 formed part of the circle of Cologne in Cologne Region in the Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg , (since 1822 Prussian Rhine Province ) and later the district Cologne . In this respect, a large part of the organizations and associations established at the time continued to have an effect and are also the basis for today's communal structures.

literature

Web links

Commons : Arrondissement Cologne  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Heermann: "Brühl, the city guide", Rheinland-Verlag Köln GmbH 2001. Page 15
  2. ^ Fritz Wündisch: mosaic stones, page 282
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Fritz Wündisch: Brühl, mosaic stones on the history of an old city in Cologne, pages 190–255
  4. ^ Wilhelm Janssen: Small Rhenish History, page 262
  5. ^ Archives NRW, Roerdepartement, Prefecture (introduction to the finding aid) [1] (accessed August 2010)
  6. ↑ Population figures according to: Statistique du Departement de la Roer par Anton Joseph Dorsch , Cologne An XII (Cologne 1804), p. 23 Google Books online
  7. ↑ Personalities at Brühl-Info [2] (accessed August 2010)
  8. ^ Eduard Hegel: History of the Archdiocese of Cologne . IV. Volume. Cologne 1979. Pages 493-521