
Map of the former département du Mont-Tonerre
'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).