Grand Duchess Charlotte Monument

She stands here in bronze, larger than life, in a long coat with her hands open towards you. It is not the pose monarchs usually get — no horse, no sword — and that is the point. It is the pose of someone being welcomed home, and the words that go with it are the ones the crowds shouted at her in 1945: Mir hu Iech gär. We love you.

Charlotte took the throne in January 1919, at twenty-two, at the lowest moment the monarchy had known. Her sister had just abdicated after four years of being seen as too close to the German occupiers, and there was serious pressure to abolish the Grand Duchy altogether or fold it into Belgium or France. A referendum that September settled it: nearly four out of five voters chose to keep the monarchy, with her.

Then it happened again. In May 1940 the Germans came back, and she and the government left rather than legitimise the occupation — first to France and Portugal, then to London. From there her voice reached home on the BBC, one of the few threads still connecting Luxembourgers to the idea that their country existed. When she returned on the 14th of April 1945, the reception in these streets was, by every account, overwhelming.

She reigned for forty-five years, until 1964, and handed the throne to her son Jean while she was still alive. This statue, by the Paris sculptor Jean Cardot, was unveiled on the 29th of April 1990, five years after her death.