Elector Max IV Joseph

When Elector Max IV Joseph assumed the throne in 1799, his home in the Palatinate was already occupied by the French Revolutionary Army. His French upbringing, but also the efforts of the Habsburgs to annex Bavaria and the dominance of Napoleon's army, allowed him to lead his reign in Bavaria, however closely following the ideals of France. It lasted from 1805 to 1813. Emperor Napoleon thanked him for this in 1806 with a title of king. As the first Bavarian king, Max I Joseph, together with his minister Maximilian Graf von Montgelas, continued the reform policy in the spirit of the Enlightenment. In 1808 Bavaria received its first constitution, which in a revised version, remained instated until the end of the monarchy in 1918. As early as 1800, the beginning of his reign, he had the Frankenthal porcelain factory merged with Nymphenburg.