Karl August von Salm-Grumbach, but they were at first driven out in bloody battles by Marshals Jean-Baptiste Jourdan and Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. In this time, the town suffered greatly under sackings and involuntary contributions. After the French withdrew on 12 December, it was occupied by an Austrian battalion under Captain Alois Graf Gavasini, which withdrew again on 30 May 1796. On 9 June 1796, Kreuznach was once again occupied by the French. In 1797, Kreuznach, along with all lands on the Rhine's left bank, was annexed by the French First Republic, a deed confirmed under international law by the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville. The parts of town that lay north of the Nahe were assigned to the Arrondissement of Simmern in the Department of Rhin-et-Moselle, whereas those that lay to the south were assigned to the Department of Mont-Tonnerre (or Donnersberg in German). The subprefect in Simmern in 1800 was Andreas van Recum and in 1806 it was Ludwig von Closen. The maire of Kreuznach as of 1800 was Franz Joseph Potthoff (b. 1756; d. after 1806) and beginning in 1806 it was Karl Joseph Burret. On 20 September and 5 October 1804, the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte visited Kreuznach. On the occasion of Napoleon's victory in the Battle of Austerlitz a celebratory Te Deum was held at the Catholic churches in January 1806 on Bishop of Aachen Marc-Antoine Berdolet's orders (Kreuznach was part of his diocese from 1801 to 1821). In 1808, Napoleon made a gift of Kreuznach's two saltworks to his favourite sister, Pauline. In 1809, the Kreuznach Masonic Lodge "Les amis réunis de la Nahe et du Rhin" was founded by van Reccum, which at first lasted only until 1814. It was, however, refounded in 1858. In Napoleon's honour, the timing of the Kreuznach yearly market was set by Mayor Burret on the Sunday after his birthday (15 August). Men from Kreuznach also took part in Napoleon's 1812 Russian Campaign on the French side, to whom a monument established at the Mannheimer Straße graveyard in 1842 still stands. The subsequent German campaign (called the Befreiungskriege, or Wars of Liberation, in Germany) put an end to French rule. Congress of Vienna to First World War Until a permanent new order could be imposed under the terms of the Congress of Vienna, the region lay under joint Bavarian-Austrian administration, whose seat was in Kreuznach. When these terms eventually came about,