The 1789 French Revolution marked the end of princely rule in the little Principality of Salm-Kyrburg, to which Sien belonged. The ideals of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" were brought into the territorially splintered land of Germany by French Revolutionary troops. Soon, "la République française" stretched all the way to the Rhine’s left bank. On 10 March 1798 the liberty pole was put up in Sien. Sieners were no longer serfs, but rather free French citizens. The properties formerly held by the last Salm-Kyrburg Prince, Friedrich III, Prince Dominik’s nephew, who had already been put to death by guillotine in Paris by 1794, were confiscated and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Even the Prince’s hunting lodge got a new, untitled owner. Sixteen years French times lasted (1798-1814), during which Sien was raised to a "mairie" (“mayoralty”) for the surrounding villages of Sienhachenbach, Oberreidenbach, Dickesbach, Kefersheim, Illgesheim, Hoppstädten, Oberjeckenbach and Unterjeckenbach.