Fundamental political change

The initial support on the part of the Bonn population was quickly lost by the new rulers due to the fact they ruthlessly requisitioned things and exchanged the assets of the Bonn city treasury into the new paper money, the assignat, at exchange rates stipulated by the authorities. The economy quickly came to a standstill due to these measures and a lot of residents now left the city of Bonn that had become impoverished, and which lost twenty per cent of its population in this period.

In the course of the new epoch Bonn was subjected to important transitions in the fields of politics and society during the seventeen year period of French rule. The area on the left hand side of the Rhine that had been split up in political terms until then was placed under the uniform administration of the Département Rhine-Mosel with Koblenz as its capital, and Bonn now belonged to as a canton due to the peace treaty of Campo Formino in 1797. The church lost its once comprehensive estates and its power due to the secularisation. Cloisters and foundations were disbanded, the priests' offices were reorganised. However the introduction of the "Code Napoléon" or “Code zivil” (Civil code) as it was also called was probably the most important single development. It secured the equality of the citizens and dispensed with their former legal insecurity in a lot of areas. In the economic field guild rights were abolished and freedom of trade was introduced.