The Genesis of the Toleration Reforms in Bavaria under Montgelas

HAROLD C. VEDELER F nROM the accession of Maximilian IV Joseph on February 16, 1799, until the dismissal of Montgelas eighteen years later, the government of the last elector and the first king enacted a series of reforms which made Bavaria a modern state. The minister who inspired the policies underlying these changes and guided the fortunes of the state through the stormy era of the Napoleonic wars was Count Montgelas. For this reason his name has come to designate an epoch in Bavarian history. The content of the Montgelas reforms has been analyzed in detail; the motives and circumstances impelling the Bavarian government to this revolution from above have attracted far less attention.2 Since there are but few studies dealing with this latter subiect in its own rilht,3 it is impossible at the present