MONT-TONNERRE

'Mont-Tonnerre' is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Germany. It is named after the highest point in the Rhenish Palatinate, the ''Donnersberg''. It was the southernmost of four départements formed in 1798, when the west bank of the Rhine was annexed by France. Prior to the French occupation, its territory was divided between the Archbishopric of Mainz,the Bishopric of Speyer and the Electoral Palatinate. Its territory is part of the present German lands Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland. Its capital was Mainz. The département was subdivided into the following arrondissements and cantons:

★ Mainz, cantons: Alzey, Bingen, Bechtheim, Ingelheim, Kirchheimbolanden, Mainz, Nieder-Olm, Oppenheim, Wöllstein and Wörrstadt.

★ Kaiserslautern, cantons: Göllheim, Kaiserslautern, Lauterecken, Obermoschel, Otterberg, Rockenhausen, Winnweiler and Wolfstein.

★ Speyer, cantons: Bad Dürkheim, Edenkoben, Frankenthal, Germersheim, Grünstadt, Mutterstadt, Neustadt (Weinstraße), Pfeddersheim, Speyer and Worms.

★ Zweibrücken, cantons: Annweiler, Homburg, Hornbach, Landstuhl, Medelsheim, Pirmasens, Waldfischbach and Zweibrücken.
After Napoleon was defeated in 1814, the département was divided between Bavaria (Palatinate) and Hesse (around Mainz).