the power of the local St. Gall authorities against both the political community and the Austrian suzerain. In 1710 the Schoenberghof was sold for 1,500 guilders and an annual interest payment to Matthias Zimmermann from Horben as hereditary fief. Since Ebringen was often sacked since its return to St Gall, it was obviously a loss-making business for the abbey. So the Abbot and former Ebringen Governor Leodegar Buergisser, who reigned over the abbey 1696 - 1717, considered selling it. But due to the political isolation of the abbey in Switzerland after its alliance with Austria, Governor Grass convinced Buergsisser instead to strengthen St Gall's presence in the Breisgau. So in spite of the war going on, between 1711 and 1713 a new manor house - the Schloss, today's Town Hall - was built as a representative office of the St Gall governor, which replaced the old one. The area of the manor house was relatively safe from being plundered by a salva guardia, and because of the war, labour was cheap. In the words of annalist Ildefons von Arx the project is described like a modern economic recovery programme, while the people of Ebringen and Norsingen saw it more like an exploitation of distress and poverty. In September 1713 French troops besieged Freiburg again and plundered the surrounding area, including Ebringen. Many valuables had been brought into the Ebringer Hof, the St Gall office in Freiburg, for presumed safety. Fortified by Vauban, Freiburg was thought to be safe from being occupied. But after a siege of three weeks Freiburg surrendered and was sacked, also the Ebringer Hof. In Ebringen houses - inter alia the Schoenberghof - were burnt down. Almost all metal was looted by the French mercenaries. So in the autumn of 1713 many people left the village and fled to the French Sundgau. Most of them returned in 1714 after the Treaty of Rastatt. There was not only war. Confrontation also arose in Ebringen between the St Gall administration and the citizens. The construction of the manor house in a time of war upset many people. Worse still, Governor Lukas Grass ruled in many respects in an absolutist manner. But meanwhile, in 1712 the Abbey had lost all of its Swiss territory in the Toggenburg War. In May 1712 Abbot Buergisser was exiled to Neuravensburg, the abbey's territory north of Lake Constance in the Holy Roman Empire, where