After the occupation of the lands on the Rhine’s left bank by French Revolutionary troops in 1794 and the French annexation of the Austrian Netherlands between 1795 and 1797, Steffeln became the seat of a mairie (“mayoralty”) in the Canton of Kronenburg, the Arrondissement of Malmedy and the Department of Ourthe, whose seat was in Liège.
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The castle, mentioned in 1282, on the tuff crags overlooking the village was converted in the 15th or 16th century into a compulsory-labour and toll estate for the Manderscheid toll station on the long-distance trade road running from Liège by way of Malmedy to Koblenz, and into a seat for the comital Schultheißen.