How does one exert political influence when one is not formally allowed to, or more precisely: How does political participation take place without institutionalized opportunities for participation? Can representatives of a reactionary state represent the population? How does a former French civil servant fulfill a new Prussian administrative office if there are no official instructions, and what action is in accordance with the law if there is no constitution? In the first half of the 19th century, the mayors and city councilors faced these seemingly unsolvable problems. Their ways and means of political participation in the large provincial cities of Aachen, Dsseldorf, Koblenz, Cologne and Trier influenced each other and formed an intertwining process that Katharina Thielen examines in this volume and that still has an impact on the identity concept "Rhineland".