[p. 501]
|501| right that not only in matters of religion, and indeed also in those which wholly concern the external condition of religion, its purely worldly side, but also in other matters concerning the whole Empire, the majority of votes in the Imperial Diet should not be binding — that the German Empire may no longer redeem its rights of sovereignty pledged to imperial cities, and so on.
In the next peace settlement, namely that of Nijmegen, which came about without a deputation of the Empire but was ratified by the Empire — and with it also its clause that on the part of the Empire no objection to it should be admitted —, the sovereignty of the Empire over the County of Burgundy was given up, and some tracts of land in northern Germany changed their lords, and in the south [there changed] the rights of garrison of France in German fortresses.
The German Empire, however, presents, besides its loss in peace settlements, phenomena quite its own, which did not easily occur in other states: in the deepest peace, namely after the peace settlement of Nijmegen, ten imperial cities of Alsace and other territories were lost to France.
The Peace of Ryswick was concluded in the presence of an Imperial deputation in such a way that this [was] not admitted to the conferences with the foreign envoys, but received communications at the discretion of the imperial envoy and was asked for its assent. This peace confirmed the French occupation of those lands, but in return acquired for the Empire an imperial fortress, Kehl, and contained the famous clause concerning the state of religion in the conquered lands returned by France, which gave the Protestant estates so much to do and helped to bring so much misfortune upon the Palatinate.
No Imperial deputation took part in the peace negotiations at Baden, and the conclusion of peace itself
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