Luxembourg

LUXEMBOURG, an independent grand-duchy of Europe, which consists mainly of the upper basins of the Sauer and its feeder the Alzette, draining and dissecting the south-east flank of the Ardennes. A province of the same name forms the Ardennes highland in the kingdom of Belgium, and the two together, with certain other small areas, form the historic Luxembourg.

History.

Under the Romans the district was included in the province of Belgica prima, afterwards forming part of the Frank ish kingdom of Austrasia and of the empire of Charlemagne. About io6o it came under the rule of Conrad (d. 1o86), who took the title of count of Luxembourg. His descendants ruled the county, first in the male and then in the female line, until the death of Sigismund (1437), the fourth and last emperor of the house of Luxembourg. In 1354 Charles IV., the second emperor of this house, made the county into a duchy. Through the mar riage of Sigismund's daughter, Elizabeth, with the German king, Albert II., Luxembourg passed for the first time to the house of Habsburg, but was seized in 1443 by Philip III. the Good, duke of Burgundy, who based his claim upon a bargain concluded with Sigismund's niece Elizabeth (d. 1451). Regained by the Habs burgs in 1477 when Mary, daughter and heiress of duke Charles the Bold, married the German king Maximilian I., the duchy passed to Philip II. of Spain in 1555• At the peace of the Pyrenees (1659), a section on the south-western border, with the towns of Thionville and Montmedy, was ceded to France.

In 1684 the French conquered the fortress of Luxembourg, but 13 years later, by the peace of Ryswick, Louis XIV. was com pelled to return it with Belgium to Spain. By the treaty of Utrecht (1713) Luxembourg and Belgium passed from Spanish sovereignty to Austrian. In 1795 the troops of the French repub lic occupied Luxembourg, which was retained by France, as the Departement des Forets, until the end of the Napoleonic wars.

The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) erected it into a grand duchy, added part of the duchy of Bouillon to it, but on the other hand gave the Luxembourg territories situated east of the Moselle and the river Our to Prussia. This grand duchy was assigned to William I., king of the Netherlands, in return for the German territories of the house of Orange-Nassau, which Napoleon had confiscated in 1806 and which were given by the congress to the king of Prussia. Thus the Netherlands and Luxembourg were only

to be united by personal union. Furthermore the grand duchy was to belong to the Germanic Confederation, its capital was to be a federal fortress and by a special arrangement with king William I. the garrison was Prussian. Nevertheless William I. ruled the grand duchy as part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. So, when in 183o the Belgian provinces separated from Holland, the grand duchy revolted also and put itself under Belgian authority, with the exception of the town of Luxembourg, which, owing to the presence of the Prussian garrison, remained under the rule of William I. In Nov. 1831, the Powers divided the grand duchy in two parts, of which the larger western part, with a Walloon and French-speaking population, was to be included as a province in the new kingdom of Belgium, and the smaller eastern part, with a Germanic population, should be retained by William I. as grand duke of Luxembourg. The grand duchy, thus reduced to less than half of its former area, remained in the Germanic confederation with the Prussian garrison in her capital. But William I. refused to accept this arrangement. Consequently the whole of Luxem bourg remained in the possession of the Belgians until 1838, when the treaty of April 19, concluded at the conference of London, enforced the partition of 1831.

In 1842 the grand duchy, which had no common frontier with Holland and was therefore economically wholly isolated, entered the German Zollverein under the special control of Prussia. As the Germanic confederation had dissolved (1866), the town of Luxembourg had ceased to be a federal fortress, but Prussia main tained her garrison in spite of French protests. When King Wil liam III. of the Netherlands offered to sell his rights over the grand duchy to Napoleon III. war between France and Germany was in sight. The question was referred to a conference of the powers in London. The treaty of London (May II, 1867) decided that the Prussian garrison must be withdrawn and the fortress dis mantled, which was done in 1872. At the same time the great powers guarenteed collectively the neutrality of the grand duchy which, while remaining a member of the Zollverein, formed now an independent state.