A GRAND DUCHESS AND HER THRONE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 162, 5 April 1921, Page 5

A GRAND DUCHESS AND HER THRONE

THE STORY OF MARIE OF LUXEMBOURG. ANOTHER VERSION. Sir,—ln your edition of Mordb 29 you printed an interesting story under the heading: “Ciown of Luxembourg”: “How Grand Duchess Marie Lost It.” Perhaps you will allow a native of Luxembourg to point out that there is another version to that story. When, in 1912, Marie Adelaide, then a frail girl of 18, took the oath in the time-honoured formula: "Je mainticndrai” ("I will maintain”), she included her religion in her promise, and to her last day in Luxembourg she proved as faithful to tho latter as she did to the Constitution under which she ruled. Luxembourg, With a Catholic population, totalling up to 99J per cent., claims to bo the most Catholic country in the world. Such a fact is surely deserving of tho attention of a ruler who seeks to .do his duty by all the people. French anti-clericalism had, however, raised its head in Luxembourg as well as in Belgium, and tho first manifestation of it was a school law aimed at the Catholic Church. To this law tho brave young girl showed a determined opposition, and ilhis it was that laid tho foundation for the hostility evinced towards her by tho Social’ist-cum-Liberal clique that happened to be in power. Close on this inauspicious opening came the great war. The floodgates were Hung open, and in a day and a night Luxembourg found itself an invaded country. To rule over a country, occupied by a foreign Power, and yet not governed by the latter, was the task set this frail girl ruler, and, if I err not, there was no precedent in history for such a political situation. Her first duty clearly was to consult tho interests of her people, to safeguard their national existence, and to minimise the evils arising out of such an abnormal situation. Thar, in tho execution of this difficult task, she drew upon herself the criticism, not only of the enemies of the Crown—for we have such people in Luxembourg, as you have them in New Zealand—but even of loyal adherents, is surely not unusual. How many regal crowns fell between the North and the Black Sea during those years! How many successive Governments rose and fell even in Allied countries! War is the fertile mother of distrust, suspicion, and hatred. To theso the brave girl ruler fell a victim. Sho was accused of leaning unduly towards Germany, when, in the interests of her people, she was but striving to maintain a correct neutrality. Similar charges, equally groundless, were made against people of eminence in Allied countries. Mrs. Asquith’s autobiography is there to prove to us, had we not known it already, flhat even high-minded, loyal nnd patriotic. English statesmen, and their wives, were not proof against such ntBeset by difficulties, hedged in by distrust, her every action misrepresented by the foreign Press, her motives suspected by a section of her own people, the brave girl nevertheless stuck to her task, • until that task was accomplished, and the end of the war saw Luxembourg an independent country still—a dream which, during those tragic years, we had almost given up in despair. She then resigned and withdrew to Switzerland. A plebiscite, ordered by the Allied Powers, disclosed the real strength of the opposition to *her House. By an overwhelming majority to 16,000( the people declared in favour of the ruling House aga-inst a republic. Her sister, Princess Charlotte, ascended the throne, and soon tihis child of the House of Orange wedded a scion of the House of Bourbon, thus uniting in Luxembourg two ancient and illustrious houses that once guided the destinies of England, France, and Spain. Then came the announcement that the ex-Grand Duchess had entered a convent in Italy. It did not startle Luxembourg, for it had been rumoured for years that sho contemplated taking such a step. That one of the wealthiest women of our time, nnd one of the most beautiful, should bury her youth and beauty within the four walls of a Carmelite convent may seem a tragic denouement to her short, but chequered, career as a ruler. I, for one, however, feel certain that within the peaceful walls of the cloister sho has found, at last tho happiness which, we all prophesied for her in 1912, and of which Fate did so tragically rob her. In her voluntary exile she retains the devoted affection of Hie great majority of her former subjects. As your cavaliers long ago drank to "the King across the water ” so in Luxembourg to-day many a glass, filled with good Moselle wine, is raised to “our queen across the Alps. In her musings in her convent cell the thought that she left Luxembourg, as she found it, a free and independent country will be her sweetest memory, as it wili also prove to be her justification when the passions of our time have cooled down and history is written impartially.-! am, ® to^ ONDEINGEI?) S . M . April 3, 1921.