BAVARIA. 



455 



the now German system of states), had given suffi- 

 cient opportunity to the Bavarian government for the 

 development of its system of diplomacy. Bavaria 

 lias jealously maintained its station as an independent 

 sovereign state. Since 1825, Bavaria has been mider 

 the government of Louis I., the most liberal of the 

 German princes. He has hitherto acted with much 

 energy. 



Bavaria was erected into a kingdom in 1805, and 

 is now one of the most considerable of the secondary 

 states of Europe. It is composed of the greater part 

 of the circles of Bavaria and Franconia, part of Sua- 

 bia, and, on the west side of the Rhine, embraces the 

 greater part of that portion of the circle of Upper 

 Rhine, included in the late French department of 

 Mont Tonnerre. Exclusive of the part west of the 

 Rhine, it is bounded N. by Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse- 

 Cassel, and the Snxon principalities of Meiningen, 

 Hildburghausen, Coburg, and Reuss, and the king- 

 dom of Saxony ; E. and S. by Austria, and W. by 

 Wnrtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt. 



Tile kingdom of Bavaria is divided into the eight 

 following circles : Iser, Upper Maine, Lower Maine, 

 Rezat, Regen, Upper Danube, Lower Danube, Rhine. 

 The last is on the west side of the river Rhine. 

 This kingdom contains 32,000 square miles and 

 3,800,000 inhabitants. Its army is 33,900 strong, of 

 whom 35,800 form the seventh corps d' arm.ee of the 

 German confederacy. Its public debt amounted, in 

 Sept., 1824, to 103,157,859 florins ; the income was, 

 at the same time, 29,132,260 florins. The present 

 king, Louis, endeavours, with much zeal, to intro- 

 duce economy into the expenses of the government : 

 he has diminished the standing army, and discharged 

 many officers from the civil government. 



The various inhabitants of this country differ very 

 much in their character, the Bavarian, from the 

 high lands near Tyrol, and the Franconian, in the 

 north part of the kingdom, being as unlike as any 

 two Germans probably can be ; and the different 

 parts of this young kingdom have been so recently 

 united, that it is not possible to speak of any charac- 

 ter as common to its inhabitants. The native of 

 Upper Bavaria is hardy, laborious, short in stature. 

 Many portions of the population are distinguished by 

 mechanical talent. The excellence of Frauenhofer's 

 tcli scopes and Bader's rail-road is generally known. 

 Munich and Nuremberg have, in recent times, pro- 

 duced more philosophical instruments than any other 

 two cities in Germany. (See Munich.) The manu- 

 factures of Bavaria include linen, woollen, and cotton 

 cloths, iron, fire-arms, and other articles, designed 

 chiefly for the supply of domestic wants. Glass, 

 paper, clocks, and hardware are also made in several 

 of the principal towns. The common language of 

 Bavaria, of course, is German ; but the dialects vary 

 much, from the strong Franconian spoken in Wurz- 

 burg to the broad Swiss dialect in Lindau. At the 

 he.'id of each of the circles, into which the kingdom 

 Is divided, stands a general commissioner ((General 

 Kreiscommissair) , with great power, chiefly of an 

 executive character. All the lower courts, municipal 

 magistrates, village officers, &c., are under his con- 

 trol. The judiciary consists of a high court of ap- 

 neal (Ober .Appellations Gericht) at Munich ; also a 

 court of appeal for each circle, and the inferior 

 courts. The Codex juris Bavarki lias been in force 

 since Jan. 1, 1811. The penal code is now under 

 revision. A complete code is also in preparation. 

 (See Feuerbach.) The executive consists of a privy 

 council, called Geheime Rath, composed of four 

 ministers of state, the four crown-officers, and from 

 twelve to sixteen other members, who deliberate in 

 three sections on the affairs of the kingdom. The 

 affairs of the Catholics in the kingdom are regulated 



by the concordat concluded with Pius VII., Jan. 5, 

 18 17, which, in 1821, was promulgated us the law of 

 the land. Those of the Protestants are under the 

 direction of a general consistory. The two sects live 

 without contention. The circumstance that the 

 queen of the late king was a Protestant (as is also 

 the present queen, if we are not greatly mistaken) 

 had a most beneficial influence. In the smaller 

 council of the German diet, Bavaria has the third 

 place, and in the plenum has four votes. (See Ger- 

 man Confederacy.) Education made much progress 

 under the government of the late Maximilian Joseph, 

 and it is to be expected that the present king, who 

 has manifested liberal views, on many occasions, 

 more openly than any prince of the continent now 

 living, will continue to give it the aid of the govern- 

 ment. Many seminaries for the training of instruc- 

 tors have been erected, and the. academy of sciences 

 at Munich, with the three universities at Munich, 

 Wurzburg, and Erlangen, produce the best results. 

 (See Munich, tfurzburg, and Erlangen) The first 

 of these universities contains nearly 2000 students, 

 whilst the medical department of \Vurzburg is con- 

 sidered one of the first in Europe. Agriculture and 

 industry in general have received, since the reign of 

 Maximilian, much attention. Several institutions for 

 promoting them have been established, including 

 agricultural seminaries, in which those young men 

 who prepare themselves for village schoolmasters 

 learn gardening, &c. A festival was instituted by 

 Maximilian, generally called the October festival, at 

 which prizes are assigned, by order of the king, for 

 the best specimens of agricultural produce, the best 

 cattle, &c. There are also races connected with this 

 celebration. The present king, when crown- prince, 

 was a liberal patron of the fine arts, and still affords 

 them much encouragement. As Bavaria is entirely 

 an inland country, and has no great river crossing it, 

 its commercial resources could be fully developed 

 only in case of a perfectly free intercourse between 

 all the German states ; to obtain which, efforts have 

 several times been made, but, unhappily, in vain. A 

 great canal, near Nuremberg, has been sometimes 

 spoken of, to unite, by means of small rivers, the 

 Rhine and Danube, a work begun by Charlemagne : 

 the traces of his work, still remaining, are called 

 fossa, Carolina : but the expense would be great for 

 so small a kingdom, and it is very doubtful whether 

 the commerce carried on in this way would be con - 

 siderable, depending, as it would, upon so many 

 governments, from the Turkish to that of Hol- 

 land. According to Rudhart, Bavaria contains 

 1384 noble families. Agriculture is the chief branch 

 of industry. Bavarian beer is excellent. 



Bavaria, constitution of. Like most of the states 

 of the middle ages, Bavaria had its constitution. No 

 other state of Germany lias so complete a collection 

 of works relating to its ancient form of government. 

 The estates consisted, as usual, of the three classes 

 the prelates, among whom the university had the first 

 rank ; the nobility, and the burgesses. Their privi- 

 leges were great, but were early lost by dissension 

 among themselves. The last diet was holden in 1 669. 

 A committee of the estates arrogated the privileges 

 belonging to the whole body; the secularization ot 

 the ecclesiastical establishments, in 1803, made the 

 old constitution still more inefficient, iind, in 1808, 

 the system of the estates was abolished ; but an 

 order was issued, May 1 of the same year, instituting 

 a new constitution. The king of Bavaria was the 

 first among the sovereigns of Germany to fulfill the 

 promise contained in the thirteenth article of the 

 ordinances of the German confederation, which as- 

 sures the people that they shall receive constitutional 

 forms of government. The king promulgated the 



