of England at Leuze on September 18, 1691. Again in the next campaign he covered the king’s siege of Namur, and defeated William at Steenkirk (q.v.) on June 5, 1692; and on July 29, 1693, he won his greatest victory over his old adversary at Neerwinden, after which he was called le tapissier de Nôtre Dame from the number of captured colours that he sent to the cathedral. He was received with enthusiasm at Paris by all but the king, who looked coldly on a relative and adherent of the Condés. St Simon describes in the first volume of his Memoirs how, instead of ranking as eighteenth peer of France according to his patent of 1661, he claimed through his wife to be duc de Piney of an old creation of 1571, which would place him second on the roll. The affair is described with St Simon’s usual interest in the peerage, and was chiefly checked through his assiduity. In the campaign of 1694, Luxemburg did little in Flanders, except that he conducted a famous march from Vignamont to Tournay in face of the enemy. On his return to Versailles for the winter he fell ill, and died on January 4, 1695. In his last moments he was attended by the famous Jesuit priest Bourdaloue, who said on his death, “I have not lived his life, but I would wish to die his death.” Luxemburg’s morals were bad even in those times, and he had shown little sign of religious conviction. But as a general he was Condé’s grandest pupil. Though slothful like Condé in the management of a campaign, at the moment of battle he seemed seized with happy inspirations, against which no ardour of William’s and no steadiness of Dutch or English soldiers could stand. His death and Catinat’s disgrace close the second period of the military history of the reign of Louis XIV., and Catinat and Luxemburg, though inferior to Condé and Turenne, were far superior to Tallard and Villeroi. He was distinguished for a pungent wit. One of his retorts referred to his deformity. “I never can beat that cursed humpback,” William was reputed to have said of him. “How does he know I have a hump?” retorted Luxemburg, “he has never seen my back.” He left four sons, the youngest of whom was a marshal of France as Maréchal de Montmorency.
See, besides the various memoirs and histories of the time, Beaurain’s Histoire militaire du duc de Luxembourg (Hague and Paris, 1756); Mémoires pour servir a l’histoire du maréchal duc de Luxembourg (Hague and Paris, 1758); Courcelles, Dictionnaire des généraux français (Paris, 1823), vol. viii. There are some interesting facts in Desormeaux’s Histoire de la maison de Montmorency (1764), vols. iv. and v. Camille Rousset’s Louvois and the recent biography of Luxemburg by Count de Ségur (1907) should also be studied.
LUXEMBURG, a district in the European low countries, of which the eastern part forms the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, and the western is the Belgian province of that name (for map, see Belgium). The name is derived from the chief town.
Under the Romans the district was included in the province of Belgica prima, afterwards forming part of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia and of the empire of Charlemagne. About 1060 it came under the rule of Conrad (d. 1086), who took the title of count of Luxemburg. His descendants ruled the county, first in the male and then in the female line, until the death of the emperor Sigismund in 1437. Through the marriage of Sigismund’s daughter, Elizabeth, with the German king, Albert II., Luxemburg, which had been made a duchy in 1354, passed 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 Habsburgs 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, though subject to the laws of the empire, of which it still formed part. After a section had been ceded to France in 1659, the remainder was given to the emperor Charles VI. by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was conquered by France in 1795, and retained by that power until the end of the Napoleonic wars. The congress of Vienna (1814–1815) erected Luxemburg into a grand-duchy, added part of the duchy of Bouillon to it, and assigned it 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. In 1830 when the Belgian provinces separated from Holland, an effort was made to include Luxemburg in the new kingdom of the Belgians; but in November 1831 the powers decided that part of the grand-duchy should be retained by the king of Holland, who refused to accept this arrangement. Consequently the whole of Luxemburg remained in the possession of the Belgians until 1838, when the treaty of the 19th of April, concluded at the conference of London, enforced the partition of 1831.
The grand-duchy of Luxemburg, the portion under the rule of William I. retaining the name, was ruled by the kings of Holland until the death of William III. in 1890. William’s daughter, Wilhelmina, succeeded to the throne of Holland, but under the Salic law[1] the grand-duchy passed to his kinsman, Adolphus, duke of Nassau, who died in 1905, and was succeeded by his son William (b. 1852).
By modifications of the treaty of Vienna the garrisoning of the fortress of Luxemburg had passed into Prussian hands, an arrangement which lasted until 1867. In the previous year the German Confederation, to which the grand-duchy of Luxemburg had belonged since 1815, had been dissolved; but the Prussians maintained their garrison in Luxemburg, which was not included in the new North German Confederation, while King William III. proposed to sell his rights over the grand-duchy to France. The Prussians were irritated by this proposal, but war was averted, and the question was referred to a conference of the powers in London. The treaty of London, signed on the 11th of May 1867, decided that the Prussian garrison must be withdrawn and the fortress dismantled, which was done in 1872. At the same time the great powers guaranteed the neutrality of the grand-duchy, and although a member of the German Zollverein, Luxemburg now forms a sovereign and independent state.
The Grand-Duchy lies S.E. of Belgium. Its area is 999 sq. m., with a population (1905) of 246,455. The people are nearly all Catholics. The country is rich in iron ore. The hills in the south of the duchy are a continuation of the Lorraine plateau, and the northern districts are crossed in all directions by outrunners from the Ardennes. The streams mostly join the Moselle, which forms the boundary between Luxemburg and the Rhine province for about 20 m. The Sure or Sauer, the most important stream in the duchy, rises at Vaux-les-Rosières in Belgian Luxemburg, crosses the duchy, and forms the eastern boundary from the confluence of the Our till it joins the Moselle after a course of 50 m., during which it receives the Wiltz, Attert, Alzette, White and Black Ernz, &c. The soil of Luxemburg is generally good; the southern districts are on the whole the most fertile as well as the most populous. Building materials of all sorts are obtained throughout the duchy. Besides the iron furnaces, situated in the south near the Lorraine plateau, there are tanneries, weaving and glove-making factories, paper-mills for all sorts of paper, breweries and distilleries, and sugar refineries. A German patois mixed with French words is spoken throughout the country; but French, which is employed by the commercial community, is also the common speech on the French and Belgian frontiers. Though liberty of worship prevails, Roman Catholicism is almost the sole form. The government is in the hands of the grand-duke, who sanctions and promulgates the laws. There is a council (staatsrat) of 15 members. There is a chamber of deputies with 48 members elected by the cantons (12 in number) for six years, half the body being elected every three years. No law can be passed without the consent of the chamber. Bills are introduced by the grand-duke, but the house has also the right of initiative. A single battalion (150) of volunteers composes the grand-ducal army. The gendarmerie consists of about 150 men. There are cantonal courts and two
- ↑ It should be noticed, however, that the Salic law is subordinate to the Nassau family law, which provides for the succession in the case of the complete extinction of males. Thus Article xlii. of the Nassau Pact of the 30th of June 1783 provides “that in the event of the extinction of males, the rights of succession pass to the daughter or nearest heiress of the last male.”
