organization. For �berlingen, this meant the restructuring of the entire apparatus of administration and governance. Organization edicts deconstructed �berlingen's consular system of mayors, in which two men were elected to the office for one year, the first serving until immediately after Christmas, and the second from then until the new election in the spring. The once free imperial city became the administrative seat for the district (Bezirksamt).
Despite the relative importance of its position of administrative authority, the city entered a nearly century-long economic decline, exacerbated in the first decade of ducal authority by the Year without Summer, a consequence of the Tambora volcanic eruption in 1815, which had a VEI�7 index.
In the revolutionary period, 1848�1849, �berlingen experienced its share of turmoil. �berlingen's own militia apparently enjoyed an early occupation of the wine cellars at the former Salem Abbey which, after 1803 became a ducal palace and winery; but revolutionary activity extended more deeply into the social fabric. In early July 1848, Prussian and Bavarian troops invaded the Bodensee region, and imposed a form of military rule; several important personages, including the �berlingen's physician and one of its schoolteachers drew lengthy prison sentences for their revolutionary activity, nine months and a year, respectively. One of the former abbeys served as a prison for revolutionary convicts. Two companies of Prussian troops, approximately 400 men plus their officers, occupied the city until late 1850, when they were replaced by ducal troops. Although no sons of �berlingen fought in the Civil War with Austria (Austro-Prussian War), Baden preferring to remain outside the conflict, 72 of �berlingen's young men were called to fight the war with France in 1870; three of them fell in action and are commemorated in the parish church, St. Nikolaus.
The healing properties of the city's mineral waters, which sprang
