The Principality of Neuchâtel (; known as the County of Neuchâtel () until the 17th century) was a state in present-day Switzerland that existed from the 11th century until 1848. It was the predecessor of the modern Republic and Canton of Neuchâtel. Its capital was the city of Neuchâtel.
An associate state of the Old Swiss Confederation, Neuchâtel was allied from the late 13th century to several Swiss cantons and cities, most notably Fribourg (1290), Bern (1308), Solothurn (1369) and Lucerne (1501). Following the extinction of the native House of Neuchâtel in 1395, the county passed into the hands of families from Southern Germany, then to the French House of Orléans-Longueville in the early 16th century. On the death of Marie de Nemours in 1707, the principality was awarded to the royal dynasty of Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern, entering into a personal union with the Kingdom of Prussia. After an interlude during the Napoleonic era (1806–1814), Neuchâtel was restored to the King of Prussia and admitted as a full member of the Swiss Confederation, a unique dual status confirmed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. It maintained its status as both a principality and a canton until the republican revolution of 1848, which led to the foundation of the present-day canton of Neuchâtel.
History Origins
The origins of the Principality date back to the time of King Rudolph III of Burgundy. The construction of a “new castle” (, from which the French name derives), situated on top of a hill overlooking the lake, is recorded in 1011. When Rudolph died without heirs in 1032, Neuchâtel was listed as one of his possessions, which Emperor Conrad II eventually incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire. In 1034, Conrad II entrusted the territory to Ulrich of Fenis from the House of Neuchâtel, a family of obscure origins, converting it into the County of Neuchâtel. His aim was to prevent the advance of Odo II, Count of Blois, an enemy of the emperor. The county's donation was confirmed in 1046 by Conrad II's successor, Emperor Henry III. The city of Neuchâtel, which had been destroyed during the fighting of 1033, was then rebuilt.
In 1395, the last sovereign from the House of Neuchâtel, Elisabeth, Countess of Neuchâtel, died without heirs, having in her will named Conrad IV of Freiburg as her successor. It was during this period that Neuchâtel established relations with neighboring states that were beginning to form the Old Swiss Confederation: the county first entered into a union with Fribourg then formed an alliance with Bern, one of the most powerful Swiss cantons, in 1406. Conrad IV's son and successor, John of Freiburg, died without heirs in 1457, leading to a succession crisis. A dispute ensued between Louis II of Chalon-Arlay (John's brother-in-law) and Rudolf IV of Hachberg-Sausenberg (John's relative), with the latter emerging as the new Count of Neuchâtel. Rudolf's son, Philip of Hachberg-Sausenberg, married Marie of Savoy, a maternal granddaughter of King Louis XI of France, beginning an alliance that allowed for a long period of stability.
Orléans-Longueville period (1504-1707)
Philip died in 1503 and was succeeded by his only daughter, Jeanne of Hachberg-Sausenberg, who married the following year Louis I d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville, a French and descendant of Jean de Dunois. The proximity of such an obvious French presence led the Swiss cantons to preemptively occupy the county during the Italian Wars and administer it as a common bailiwick from 1512 to 1529. Reinstated in her lands thanks in particular to King Francis I of France, Jeanne could not prevent her subjects from adopting the Protestant Reformation; her poor management of finances also forced her to lease to the bourgeois of Neuchâtel the greater part of the revenues of her county, which she even considered selling to the canton of Fribourg. It was only at the end of the 16th century, thanks to the successful regency of Marie de Bourbon, that the risk for the Orléans-Longueville of seeing Neuchâtel become a city-state disappeared.
Beginning in 1529, the House of Orléans-Longueville administered the county through a governor, who was generally selected from the patrician families of Fribourg or Solothurn, and was thus of Catholic faith. The sovereign formed around the governor a council which, in 1580, took the name of Council of State (), an advisory, administrative and judicial body, particularly active in the prevention of disputes and the arbitration of conflicts. The Council of State was made up of a variable (from 2 to 14) but limited number of magistrates, mostly consisting of judicial and financial officials, who were appointed for life and chosen from bourgeois families of Neuchâtel, or more rarely of Boudry or Le Landeron. This institution notably survived the 1848 revolution, when it took its current form as the Council of State of the Canton of Neuchâtel.
In 1571, the Count of Neuchâtel, Léonor d'Orléans, took the title of "Sovereign Count of Neuchâtel in Switzerland". Henry II took the title of "by the grace of God, Prince and Sovereign Lord of the Counties of Neufchastel and Vallangin" in 1618. The rule of the Orléans-Longueville dynasty, often overshadowed by the subsequent period of Prussian rule, is nonetheless a period of formation of territorial unity, establishment of a strong political authority, administrative reforms and the abolition of the obligation to pay the (1634), which remained in scattered locations. The period also saw the elevation of civil and military officers of bourgeois origin to the nobility, as well as the establishment of a clear distinction between civil and religious authorities, in accordance with the situation of a Protestant principality ruled by a Catholic prince, a rare exception in Europe to the principle of .
In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Neuchâtel was most often under the authority of women, notably Marie de Bourbon, who exercised the regency during the minority of her son Henry I. The most prominent prince from Orléans-Longueville dynasty, Henry II, left two male heirs on his death in 1663: the eldest abdicated in favor of the younger Charles Paris in 1668. Charles Paris died childless in 1672 and was succeeded as prince by Jean Louis Charles, beginning a troubled period between the claimants to the principality, first between Marie de Nemours, Henry II's daughter from his first marriage, and Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, mother and guardian of the mentally ill Jean Louis Charles, then, after the latter's death (1694), between Marie de Nemours and François Louis, Prince of Conti (cousin of Jean Louis Charles). The succession of Neuchâtel therefore became an issue long before the death, on 15 June 1707, of Marie de Nemours, the last member of the House of Orléans-Longueville at the head of the principality.
Succession crisis
The death of Marie de Nemours caused a profound upheaval in the principality, and her succession became a European affair. Neuchâtel's sovereign tribunal of the Three Estates, which had chosen Marie as sovereign in 1694, was tasked with the designation of her successor. During the summer of 1707, nineteen heirs presumptive defended their cases before the twelve judges constituting the tribunal. Nine claimants were ultimately admitted to the trial, all of whom had testamentary or hereditary rights to the succession of the Orléans-Longueville or to the inheritance of the House of Chalon.
Still affected by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Neuchâtel judges rejected all influence of Catholic France by designating King Frederick I of Prussia as Prince of Neuchâtel on 3 November 1707. This decision provoked strong reactions in France and, in early 1708, Louis XIV of France considered an invasion of the principality by his garrisons in Franche-Comté. Neuchâtel's Swiss allies mobilized, but the hazards of European politics led Louis to abandon this occupation project. In 1713, by the Treaty of Utrecht, the great powers sanctioned the passage of Neuchâtel into the possession of the House of Hohenzollern. Afterwards, of the three Catholic cantons allied with Neuchâtel, only Solothurn accepted a renewal of their alliance in 1756. No alliance between Neuchâtel and the Swiss cantons would be formed or renewed after this date.
First Prussian period (1707-1806)
As a Calvinist himself, the King of Prussia reassured the people of Neuchâtel about their religion and also granted them the right to be governed only by natives. Only the prince's representative, the governor, was a foreigner, but he was from then on of the Reformed faith. Thus began a long period of peace that favored the development of commerce and local industries in Neuchâtel. Apart from an interregnum during the Napoleonic Wars from 1806 to 1814, six kings of Prussia would reign as Prince of Neuchâtel until 1848, in a regime of personal union.
Overall, the Hohenzollerns, focusing on the consolidation of the Kingdom of Prussia (created in 1701), attached little political interest to their distant Principality of Neuchâtel, leaving the local aristocracy with the privilege of conducting affairs and thus offering them the opportunity to increase their influence over the territory and its people. This disinterest on the part of the princes, combined with the presence of foreign governors with little attachment to the land, notably stimulated the pro-Swiss attitude of certain Neuchâtel elites.
Even though he was only a transitional prince, Frederick I proved attentive to the well-being of his subjects, while his successor, Frederick William I, through a conciliatory policy, focused primarily on preventing internal issues of his principality from disrupting Prussia's rise. Frederick II, on the other hand, was petty, quarrelsome, and self-interested toward the principality; his enlightened despotism did not seem to extend to Neuchâtel. By seeking to increase his revenues by imposing a tax lease (a system in force since 1748), he provoked a popular uprising that culminated in the brutal assassination of Attorney General Claude Gaudot in 1768, in what became known as the Gaudot Affair. Nevertheless, Frederick II supported the efforts of Neuchâtel industrialists by guaranteeing them the privileges enshrined in the General Articles.
The reign of Frederick William II was marked by the wars against Revolutionary France, which had little effect on Neuchâtel. Unlike the neighboring Prince-Bishopric of Basel, Neuchâtel was not subject to French invasion, as the Revolutionary authorities, who sought to keep the 1795 Peace of Basel with Prussia, had no interest in the territory. The French Revolution found supporters in the principality, mainly in the mountainous areas. Sympathies were expressed as early as 1791, liberty trees were planted in 1792 and 1793, and unrest broke out. The government, which succeeded in dividing the movement, eventually restored order. This nonetheless constituted the first challenge to the foundations of the ancien régime in Neuchâtel. The year 1798, however, does not represent a turning point in the history of Neuchâtel, which was neither incorporated into the Helvetic Republic nor annexed by the First French Republic, unlike most of modern Switzerland.
Napoleonic period (1806-1814)
On 15 December 1805, following his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, French emperor Napoleon signed the Treaty of Schönbrunn with King Frederick William III of Prussia, by which he ceded Hanover (which he had conquered in 1803) to Prussia in exchange for scattered Hohenzollern possessions, including the Principality of Neuchâtel. He offered the territory to one of his most effective officers, Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, France's Minister of War and Napoleon's long-time chief of staff, on 28 February 1806. In March 1806, Marshal Nicolas Oudinot occupied the Principality and Berthier assumed the title of Prince of Neuchâtel and Duke of Valangin.