The country's subdivision into cantons and administrative communes dates from the decree of the
Committee of Public Safety (the
French Revolutionary government) of 31 August 1795, barely three months after French forces had taken the
Fortress of Luxembourg. At the time, Luxembourg still had its historical borders and comprised a larger territory, before the later
Partitions. From this day, there was a rift between the people (except for a handful of notables, who were large-scale property owners) and the Dutch regime. Ironically, at the time of the
Belgian Revolution in 1830, the canton was sometimes called the "Dutch canton". This term came from the fact that several prominent members of the Orangist cause came from the canton. The wider population, on the other hand, were on the side of the Belgian revolutionaries. When the Revolution broke out in October 1830, the tax agents in Remich only remained unharmed thanks to the intervention of the mayor, Jacques D'Martigny. After the third
partition of Luxembourg in 1839, where much of its territory was ceded to Belgium, a decree from 12 October 1841 by the
King-Grand Duke William II reorganised government districts, cantons and communes, creating the state of affairs that largely remained unchanged to the present day, save for some minor modifications. Since then, the canton of Remich has comprised the same communes that it still does, Lenningen, Stadtbredimus, Bous, Waldbredimus, Remich, Wellenstein, Remerschen, Burmerange, Dalheim, and Mondorf. It formerly also included Weiler-la-Tour, but in 1846 this was transferred to the canton of Luxembourg, following the wishes of the commune's inhabitants. The Moselle region experienced several years of suffering in the following period, after multiple consecutive bad harvests. In 1854 for example, the grape harvest was not even a tenth of a normal year's harvest. In desperation, many winegrowers and day labourers chose emigration en masse, in families and groups of families from the same village, towards the United States. It is likely that Remich's expansion around the middle of the 19th century was due to its importance as a river port before the construction of the railways. The latter started in 1859 with the construction of the Luxembourg-Thionville line. The network's framework was completed by 1867 with the building of the Ettelbruck-Troisvierges line. Before then, river traffic on the Moselle had been significant, helped by exports of cast iron and ore headed for the Rhine and Saar rivers. In the canton of Remich, this movement of goods flowed mostly via the river port of Stadtbredimus. In 1872, the residents of Bech, Kleinmacher, and
Schwebsange, petitioned the
Chamber of Deputies to separate them from the commune of Wellenstein. The dispute dragged on for a long time. Finally, at a session of the Chamber on 20 December 1878, it was established that tensions had died down. This was because the post of mayor, which had been filled by a Wellenstein resident for 18 years, was recently awarded to someone from a different part of the commune. In the end, the communal council unanimously decided to withdraw its petition of 1872. ==Population==