User:Dr Gangrene/Norbert Le Gallais

Luxemburgensia

Norbert Jules Le Gallais, was born 17 April 1860 in Septfontaines.

Ancestry
Norbert was the child of Léonie Metz (1836-1909) (daughter of Charles Metz), and Edmond Le Gallais (1814-?).

Edmond Le Gallais was born on the island of Jersey, and his ancestors were the lords of Chasteau Crocq in Brittany. From 1607, one of the family was the seigneur of Rouge Bouillon on Jersey. Edmond had been an engineer and businessman. In 1856, he came to the Grand Duchy with the Waring Brothers and the Irishman Thomas Byrne to construct the viaducts of the northern railways in Luxembourg. After the construction of the viaducts, he remained in Luxembourg.

(1) Léonie was the daughter of Charles Metz (1799-1853), who married a Vannérus.

Life
He attended the Athénée de Luxembourg, and when on to study law. He became a lawyer in 1884, and in 1890 was admitted to practise in the court of appeals.

In 1890 he became the secretary-general of the Eich foundry, becoming its director in 1895 after the death of Edouard Metz. In 1904, the company name was changed to "Le Gallais, Metz & Cie", and he succeeded Emile Metz as commandité-gérant.

During this time he was pre-occupied with developing the factory in Dommeldange, equipping the factory with an electric steelworks, which started working from 1908.

In 1911, the Société Le Gallais, Metz & Cie. merged with the S.A. des Hauts fourneaux et Forges de Dudelange and the S.A. des Mines du Luxembourg et Forges de Sarrebruck (Burbach) to form ARBED, with Norbert Le Gallais included in its board of directors.

In July 1891 he was the vice-commander of the honour guard of Grand Duke Adolphe when he entered Luxembourg an fulfilled the same function in 1893 for the entry of the hereditary Grand Duke William and his young wife Marie-Anna de Bragance. For this he received the croix de chevalier de l'ordre grand-ducal d'Adolphe de Nassau.

From 1892 to 1895 he was in the conseil communal of Luxembourg city (?). In 1908 he entered the Chamber of Deputies.

In 1912, the Luxemburger Wort published its famous anonymous article "Minenkonzessionen". A purchasing conglomerate involving ARBED had made a bid for a number of mining concessions; then, Thyssen had made a rival bid, which would have been of greater value to the state. Following this, the ARBED group had withdrawn its bid. The Wort article insinuated that ARBED was only pretending to withdraw its bid, in order to allow its supporters in the Chamber to vote on the concession law. Norbert Le Gallais, Auguste Laval, Léon Metz, Adolphe Schmit, all members of the board of ARBED, sued the Wort for libel. The ultra-Catholic politician and deputy mayor of Clervaux, Émile Prüm, declared that he had not written the article, but had inspired it in a conversation. The court case ended in the plaintiffs' favour.

Le Gallais was the British consul in Luxembourg, and during World War I and the German occupation of Luxembourg, he feared harassment because of this. Therefore, he chose exile, and left the country after resigning as a Deputy in 1916.

Returning to the country after the war, he rejoined the Chamber in 1919. During the later split in the liberal party, he sided with the conservative faction and ran in the constituency of Luxembourg-Centre in 1925 on the list of his friend Robert Brasseur.

In 1926 Le Gallais played a decisive role in national politics. The government of Pierre Prüm, including the liberal Norbert Dumont, the radical Etienne Schmit, and the socialist Othon Decker, had been in power since March 1925, with a thin majority. In 1926 the government submitted to the Chamber a bill for paid workers' holiday. Le Gallais voted with the opposition, the government lost the vote, and was forced to resign.

Le Gallais died in 1934.

Miscellaneous
In his private life, he was an avid hunter and was interested in driving cars.

From 1914, he was on the board of administration of the Institut Émile Metz.

He was also on the national committee of the FNEL, the Luxembourgish scouting association.

Private life
His first wife was his cousin Juliette Metz (1872-1909), with whom he had 4 children. One of these was Hugues Le Gallais (1896-?), chamberlain to the Grand Duchess, and ambassador of Luxembourg to the United States.

His second wife was Marie Anne de Gargan.