Successful feuds with the bishops of Strassburg and Basel further augmented his wealth and his reputation; rights over various tracts of land were purchased from abbots and others; and he was also the possessor of large estates in the regions now known as Switzerland and Alsace.
Although this war was terminated in 1678 by the treaty of Nijmwegen, the French monarch was desirous of incorporating a still larger amount of Rhine territory; and accordingly in 1680 he laid claim to a number of territories, belonging to princes of the Empire, which he alleged had been dismembered from Alsace.
When the preliminaries of peace came to be discussed at Versailles in February 1871, the cession of Alsace, together with what is called German Lorraine, was one of the earliest conditions laid down by Bismarck and accepted by Thiers.
This sacrifice of territory was afterwards ratified by the National Assembly at Bordeaux, though not without a protest from the representatives of the departments about to be given up; and thus Alsace once more became German.
By the bill for the incorporation of Alsace and German Lorraine, introduced into the German parliament in May 1871, it was provided that the sole and supreme control of the two provinces should be vested in the German emperor and the federal council until the 1st of January 1874, when the constitution of the German empire was established.
