The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-26 00:00:00

THE LUXEMBURG QUESTION.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
LUXEMBURG, April 22.
if the humorous idea of a recent author were car-
ried out, and, by way of increasing the European
" chaos," the fate of nations were to be decided by
committees of political ethnologists, what work it
would give them to fix the destiny of Luxemburg !
The Walloon portion of the old Duchy is appro-
priately enough annexed to Belgium, but what

ought to be done with the so-called German portion
—the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg of the present
day? The local writers admit that the Luxem-
burgers are of Teutonic race; but so, they say, are
the Dutch. This, according to M. Groen, and. to
M. Yreede, the Professor of International Law at
the University of Utrecht, is no reason why Hol-
land should be absorbed in the Prussian monarchy ; '
and the Luxemburgers argue in the same manner
that the fact of their lingo (I cannot call it a lan-
guage) containing, besides Fiend-i and French, a
large number of German words, ought not, neces-
sarily, to condemn them to a similar end. What,
however, are you to do with a people one of whose
favourite exclamations is " Zaperlott !" who for
" half-and-half" say " halef an halef ;" for " Your
servant," " Vot zerviter ;" for " to pass the even-
ing," " soiree passiren ;" and who, wishing to con-
vey the idea that a man speaks " with a strong Eng-
lish accent," makes use of these words, "Mat engem
utreerten Englenneschen Akzent ?" These' Letze-
burgers, with their " unverstandlisches Kauder-
icalsch," teach us, at all events, that language is no
sure test of race. In the case of Luxemburg it is
at once a geographical sign and an historical monu-
ment. The chief town of the Duchy is about the
same distance, and that distance only a good walk,
from the frontier' of Germany on the one hand and
of France on the other. The country, as long as it
was under the dominion of the House of Austria,
was goierned as a province of the Netherlands ; but
almost every strong Continental Power has had
Luctriburg at some time or other, and the traces of
foreign rule are to he found in.it.l language, as well
as in its laws.

On the question of race the ethnologists would, no
doubt, sive judgment in favour of Germany. On the
language question they would fight; and when men
of science begin to fight, their combats, as we all
know, last some time. .If the question of manners
were to be considered, the Luxemburgers would cer-
tainly not be classed with the North Germans,whom
they in no way resemble ; but rather with the French
populations of Lorraine and Alsace, or, perhaps,with
the South Germans of some petty, and, until now,
paternally governed State, in which the inhabitants
love ease, and hate the high-pressure system of go-
vernment as practised by Prussia. As to religion,
the Luxemburgers are devout Catholics, and were
included for centuries in the diocese of Treves. At
present Luxemburg is under the spiritual govern-
ment of a Vicar Apostolic, who is Bishop somewhere
in.partibus infideliurn—at Halicarnassus, I think.
Duchinski, who carries his ethnological investiga-
tions into all the details of private life,would expect
me to state what the Luxemburgers eat, drink, and
avoid, whether they make their beds in the French
or German fashion, whether their wine comes from
the Rhine, the Marne, or the Moselle ; whether they
prefer wine to beer, or beer to wine, and in the latter
case whether their malt liquor is of the Belgian, the
Bavarian, or the Strasburg type ; whether their
clothes are made of French or of German materials
and pattern ; whether the courage of the men is of a
light and chivalrous or of a solid and bnsiness-like
description; finally, whether the beauty of the
women is oneof form and colour, or only of manner,
and whether they are principally remarkable for good
nature and sympathetic qualities generally, or for
vivacity, conversational powers, awl love of admira-
tion.

I art in a position to answer all these questions,
besides others which M. llachinski would never have
thought of putting. I accept only the one relating to
the courage of the men, who, though rather noisy in
their mirth, do not seem quarrel Some, and who have
had nothing to fight about since I have been here.

First of all, as a proof of the willingness of the

Luxemburgers to oblige every one and to accom-
modate themselves to every taste, let me mention
that they set their railway clocks by four different
Meridians, and that each clock has three hands. The
Prussian who has just arrived at:Luxemburg by the
train from Trevcs or from Cologne, and who is, of
course, in favotir of annexation to Prussia, is pleased
to see that the clock marks with one of its three
hands the hour according to Cologne. The French.:
man from Met; looking upon the Grand Duchy as
so much French territory in futuro: is charmed to
fihd that the Luxemburg clocks have already learnt
to keep French time. The Belgian, who, in nine
cases out of ten, .thinks that the proper.thing to du
with Luxemburg is to give it back to Belgium, dis-
covers a proof of Belgian tendencies in the existence,
on the face of the Station clock, of a Brussels minute-
hand. I came to Luxemburg by a train which was
due at one in the afternoon. It seemed to me, on
reaching the terminus, that we were ten minutes
late. I looked at the cloth, but at first I could make
nothing of it. One minute-hand pointed to XII,
the other to 11, while the hand for indicating the
hour rested impartially upon I. It was one o'clock
by Brussels, ten minutes past one by Luxemburg
time. A French writer who recently visited Luxem-
burg, and declares (very incorrectly) that the Luxem-

burgers praise the Prussians to those who speak to
them in German, and the French to those who
address them in French, might have regarded this
Janus-like clock as a symbol.
It is impossible, then, to decide the question of
the nationality or national tendeneit s of the Luxem-
burgers by means of their railway clocks. With
regard to some other points bearing upon this ques-
tion, on which I have not yet touched, I may state
that the coinage of the Grand Duchy (it has a sepa-
rate coinage of its own) consists of francs and cen-
times, and that the pieces are stamped with in-
scriptions in the French language. I have already
said in a previous letter that French is the official
language, and I ought to have added that it has been
so for centuries. Under the rule of the German

Emperors, before the invention of eentralitatioe,
when provincial distinctions were fully recognised,
and when religious persecution had not yet been re-
placed by the equally odious persecution of Govern-
ment functionaries, the Luxemburgers were allowed
to use the French language in all public affairs, and
the Governor of the Lower Countries corresponded
with the, local authorities in the tongue. When
Louis XIV. took Luxemburg he found a French
administration already established in the place.
When, by the Treaty of Utrecht, it passed back into
the hands of the German Emperors no change was
made in the local government, which was still car-
ried on in French until 1791. In that year the Aus-
trian military Governor of Luxemburg took leave
of the people in a very cordial letter written in the
French language ; and the government of the Grand
Duchy, transformed into the Departmentof Forests,
then became French in a full political sense. In
fact, it is only from 1815, when the Grand. Duchy
was-given to Holland, until 1830, the year
.of the
Belgian Revolution, that French ever ceased to be
the legal official language of Luxemburg. Even dur-
ing those 15 years French was practically the lan-
guage of public affairs, and in all official documents
sent to Luxemburg from the Hague French and
Dutch were used side by side.
I have said enough about the language of Luxem-
burg, popular, literary, and oflieial. Let me add,
however, that, as it seem: s to in ~ the extent to which
French is employed in the city of Luxemburg no
more proves that the Grand Duchy ought to be, or
even that it wishes to be, anuexA to France than
the extent to which French is employed in Brussels
proves the s ane thing in respect to Belgium.
But it mast not be supposed that French, the offi-
cial language everywhere, is only used as a converl
sational language in the chief of the Luxemburg
towns. There are whole villages of Luxemburgers
who speak the same sort of French that one hears
from the Alsatian water-carriers in Paris, and I have
come across several shopkeepers-who speak French
with purity. Among the upper classes the use of the
French. language is a tradition and a habit ; but I
was unable, without assistance, to make out how it
happened that French was so familiar to men who
could not have learnt it as children, and who had-