Frederick IV, Prince of Salm-Kyrburg (Frederik Ernst Otto Philip Anton Furnibert;

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, 14 December 1789 –

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, 14 August 1859) was the

prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

Salm-Kyrburg Salm-Kyrburg was a state of the Holy Roman Empire located in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, one of the various partitions of Salm (state), Salm. It was twice created: the first time as a Wild- and Rhinegraviate (partitioned from Upper ...

Ahaus Ahaus (; Westphalian: ''Ausen'') is a town in the district of Borken in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the border with the Netherlands, lying some 20 km south-east of Enschede and 15 km south from Gr ...

and Bocholt from 1794 to 1813. He was the son and successor of Frederick III and his wife, Princess Johanna Franziska of

Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen () was a principality in southwestern Germany. Its rulers belonged to the junior House of Hohenzollern#Swabian branch, Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern. The Swabian Hohenzollerns were elevated to princes in 162 ...

. He initially had two elder brothers and one younger sister, but all three of these died young.

Life and reign

His mother died in 1790 at the Schloss Kirn, and his father was

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d in Paris on 25 July 1794. During his minority, his guardian was his aunt, Amalie Zephyrine. On 11 January 1815, he married Cécile Rosalie Prévôt, baroness of

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(1783–1866). Their only child was Frederick Ernst Joseph Augustus (1823–1887). In 1801, the principality was removed from the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

at the

peace of Lunéville Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such a ...

, and in 1806 (with Amalie signing as Frederick's guardian and regent), it became a founding member of the

Confederation of the Rhine The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine or Rhine Confederation, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austrian Empire, Austria ...

, gaining protection from Napoleon and effectively freedom of action for itself (albeit as a French satellite). In compensation for the loss of the Salm-Kyburg principality on the left bank of the Rhine, the 1803

German Mediatisation German mediatisation (; ) was the major redistribution and reshaping of territorial holdings that took place between 1802 and 1814 in Germany by means of the subsumption and Secularization (church property), secularisation of a large number of ...

granted Salm-Kyburg lordship over a third of a part of the secularised lands of the prince bishops of Munster that had previous belonged to the amts of Bocholt and

to compensate for his loss in 1801. The other two-thirds were granted to Konstantin Alexander Joseph zu Salm-Salm in compensation for his lost lands on the Rhine. The princes of

Salm-Salm The Principality of Salm-Salm (; ) was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. It was located in the present-day French departments of Bas-Rhin and Vosges (department), Vosges; it was one of a number of partitions of Salm (state), Salm. History Salm-Sa ...

and Salm-Kyrburg reigned over these aforementioned lands as a joint principality, the Principality of Salm. On 13 December 1811, Frederick IV and Konstantin Alexander lost Salm entirely to

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, which annexed it outright, and then two years later it was annexed to

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

by the

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, thus ending the principality of Salm-Kyburg. Frederick IV's descendants, however, retained their titles and the other family territories.

External links

* * https://web.archive.org/web/20070929222315/http://www.demello.de/genealogy3/family_group_sheet/d0027/F21273.html 1789 births 1859 deaths Nobility from Paris Princes of the Holy Roman Empire {{Germany-noble-stub