Aline Mayrisch-de Saint-Hubert

Saint-Hubert was the daughter of Xavier de Saint-Hubert, and sister of Jeanne de Saint-Hubert, who had married Xavier Brasseur the previous year (and would marry Brasseur's cousin, Robert Brasseur, in 1914). She married the industrialist Émile Mayrisch, who would become President of the steel giant Arbed, on 15 September 1894. Together, they lived in Dudelange. The first of many organisations that she set up was the 'League for the Defence of the Women's Interests' (l'Association pour la Défense des Intérêts de la Femme) in 1905. Saint-Hubert offered the patronage to Hereditary Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide, but she declined, as a Roman Catholic feminist organisation was due to be set up. The league's main purposes was to seek the establishment of public girls' schools, which gained momentum with the League's creation of the associated Association for the Creation of a School for Young Girls. This campaign achieved success in 1911 when the Chamber of Deputies unanimously voted to establish publicly funded girls' schools in Luxembourg City and Esch-sur-Alzette. At the same time, Mayrisch persuaded a group of other prominent Luxembourgish ladies to establish the Association of Girl Guides. She was active in work for charitable organisations such as the Luxembourgish League against Tuberculosis, and the Luxembourgish Red Cross, as well as advocating for the professionalisation of social work. On the outbreak of the First World War, Saint-Hubert set up a hospital near Dudelange, for the aid of servicemen of either side. After the war, she played a key role in setting up the Luxembourgish League Against Tuberculosis, of which she was Vice-President. She and her husband Émile were the main donors to the League and her other endeavours over the years. She soon became involved in the Luxembourg Red Cross, being appointed a member of its administrative council in 1926, Vice-President after the death of Émile in 1928, and President in 1933. She and her husband moved to Colpach in 1920, and after the war they received many German and French intellectuals here under the name of Cercle de Colpach, such as Paul Claudel, Jean Guéhenno, Jacques Rivière, Karl Jaspers, Bernard Groethuysen, André Gide, Jean Schlumberger, Ernst Robert Curtius, Annette Kolb and Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi. They turned their old house in Dudelange into a home for children, the Fondation Kreuzberg. During World War II, she lived in Cabris in the south of France.