LUXEMBOURG SWIFT REVOLUTION OVERTURES TO FRANCE

FROM H.C. BAILEY. LUXEMBOURG, FRIDAY.

I expected to come into a Grand Duchy. What I am in I cannot be sure. In these days no man knows whether the state for which he sets out will be there when he arrives. I might add that east of Belgium and France, no man is quite certain that the government of tonight will be in office tomorrow morning. Perhaps I should append the critical note that in many places it does not seem to make much difference. When I left Cologne this morning I knew, as all the world knew, that there were chances of a change in the policy of Luxembourg. But as I crossed the frontier between Luxembourg and Germany, where, to illustrate the complexities of the organisation or disorganisation of modern Europe, it was an American sentry who challenged me and wanted to ace my pass, I was quite unaware that Luxembourg had changed its policy already, and nothing in the picturesque, well-worked countryside or the placid villages between the frontier and the capital suggested revolution. The capital itself was preserving absolute calm. Even in these days, it is not every man who can boast that he has walked about the capital of a state less than a day after it has dismissed its sovereign. I have to report that in the case of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg the experience does not induce nervous excitement. When I spoke of a little matter of a revolution yesterday, I was met by a smile and an amiable wonder that the stranger should bother about such a trifle. Was the Grand Duchess unpopular? Before the war, I was told, everybody liked her. During the war, there was much disapproval of her attitude to the Germans. Now the Germans are duly beaten, and it is felt that the Grand Duchess is the wrong woman in the wrong place. Such are the sentiments of the town; but the country people are as loyal to her highness as ever. When you speak to anyone in Luxembourg in German, he generally answers in French, and when you speak in French he answers in German. This may be a fair criticism on the accent of the stranger, but it complicates the exchange of ideas.