Revolution of 1848 in Luxembourg

After being annexed by the French in the Napoleonic Wars, Luxembourg was elevated to a Grand Duchy and awarded to the Dutch King by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

While it was supposed to be ruled by him in personal union, separate from his kingdom, the King-Grand Duke William I treated it as a mere province of the Netherlands.

It would also remain in the German Confederation.In 1841, William II authorised the first constitution of Luxembourg, a document which left all meaningful power in the hands of the sovereign.

It was elected indirectly, the ballots were not secret, and the vast majority of the population were excluded from political life by a system of census suffrage, requiring the payment of 10 florins per year in tax.

[2]: 22  The Assembly's sessions were held in private, and its assent was required only for penal and fiscal laws, the civil list, and the extraordinary budget.

In 1841, this constitution was generally welcomed, but over the years, voices started to be raised in the Assembly of Estates, demanding a return to the civil liberties which had applied under the Belgian annexation of 1830-1839.

Various other issues were a cause for discontent, such as the muzzling of the press, the ban on associations, the exorbitant expenses of the civil list, and lack of judicial and educational reforms.

The 1845 law forbidding straw roofs in houses, introduced after several destructive fires, likewise burdened the poor, who could scarcely afford the required renovations.

The February revolution of 1848 in Paris set off a revolutionary wave across the continent, which threatened the established monarchic and absolutist order.

Workers from the suburbs assembled in front of the house of the mayor, Fernand Pescatore, who was suspected of wheat speculation: again, it took the gendarmerie and the Prussian military to prevent any violence.

Gendarmes, forestry and customs officers, and federal German troops, were deployed to the affected areas on 23 March to take down the revolutionary flags and restore order.

Similarly, on 19 March, a pastoral letter from the Apostolic Vicar of Luxembourg, Jean-Théodore Laurent, was read out in all churches, appealing for calm and reminded the Catholic population of their loyalty to the throne.

These promises led most citizens and supporters of "law and order" to finally side with the government and distance themselves from any further revolutionary acts.

Political life in the early 19th century had been dominated by a bourgeoisie composed of high-ranking civil servants who valued order and authority.

[3]: 12  The government underwent nominal changes, with the former governor becoming the "president of the council", and its members receiving the title of "administrator general".

Conservative and progressive bourgeoisies belonged to the same social milieu: they were members of the same clubs and associations, and would meet in Masonic lodges.

[1]: 32  After the dissolution of the Frankfurt Parliament, the federal diet of the Germanic Confederation in 1851 enjoined the individual states to ensure their constitutions accorded with the principle of the sovereign power of rulers.

While admitting that there was a "certain nervousness" in the country in 1848, it goes on to claim that the Luxembourgish people were able to obtain in a peaceful manner the rights and freedoms which elsewhere were won with bloodshed, and that this was due to the great wisdom and generous initiative of the Grand-Duke.

[5] Orangist historiography primarily aimed at legitimizing the Orange-Nassau dynasty, interpreting Luxembourgish history through a dynastic lens to connect the reigning family to the country's founding myth.

[5]: 52  He noted that the views of traditional historiography on 1848 belonged more to the realm of myth or of a softening presentation of the facts, as it only reproduced the official statements of those in power, in an attempt to justify the policy of the King-Grand Duke and his Orangist supporters.

[5]: 53  This may explain why his book was mostly ignored by the press and review journals such as Hémecht and Cahiers Luxembourgeois; likewise, the historians Nicolas Margue and Joseph Meyers did not take account of Calmes' ground-breaking work in their 1969 revised edition of Herchen's textbook.