'The Other Royal Wedding!' Less Accessible But Worthy Of A Look! Albert, Charlene & Some Grimaldi From The Past!

A bright shining sun, spilling onto a sparkling sea reflected on shimmering cliffs, surrounding a port full of magnificent yachts, nestled below grandiose casinos full of billionaires and beauties; posed against the picture perfect postcard inspired houses, period buildings and the great pink palace of the Grimaldi’!

With such a Proustian inspired lead-in, it is not hard to guess that this principality on the Mediterranean is very much a fairy-tale world, and even the charming name of Monaco itself is enough to bring the place vividly alive in most people’s minds, especially in that of the esoteric.

In the popular imagination of those current in the mid-late 20^th century and the early 21st, the recent history of the centuries-old city-state is primarily hyper-focused on the marriage of a beautiful American movie star, Grace Kelly, to the then reigning prince, Rainer III. In April, 1956, Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier were married in a televised ceremony that attracted international attention like the recent royal wedding in Britain.

In Monaco, not unlike that in France, a civil marriage must take place before a religious ceremony can be celebrated; as a result, Grace and Rainier held two weddings. On Wednesday, April 18, 1956, the couple was legally wed in the elegant baroque throne room in the Palace of Monaco in a ceremony attended by their close family and friends. Grace wore a beige lace dress and hat, and after exchanging their vows, husband and wife made a brief appearance on the palace's balcony to wave to the swelling crowds of Monegasques waiting below.

The next day, Thursday, April 19th at 9.30am, Grace and Rainier held a religious ceremony at the Cathedral of Monaco, attended by around six hundred guests and watched on television by an estimated audience of thirty million worldwide. After the wedding ceremony, dubbed the 'Wedding of the Century' the newly wed princely pair drove through the streets of Monte Carlo in an open-top vintage Rolls-Royce; a gift from the people of Monaco, to wave to the thousands of well-wishers.

Notable guests at the almost week long nuptial celebrations included Hollywood stars Cary Grant, David Niven and his wife Hjördis, Gloria Swanson, Ava Gardner, religious leader and crowned head, the Aga Khan, socialites' Gloria Guinness, Daisy Fellowes, Etti Plesch, and Lady Diana Cooper; hotelier Conrad Hilton. Frank Sinatra initially accepted an invitation but at the last minute decided otherwise, afraid of upstaging the bride on her wedding day and not to be left out was Monaco’s nuisance; the Greek ‘heavy weight’; Aristotle Onassis!

Flash forward fifty-five years later and it now seems unlikely that the wedding of Grace and Rainer’s son; Prince Albert of Monaco and Miss Charlene Wittstock will be televised live in the United States.  Clearly the éclat associated with the marriage of Hollywood royalty and that of European royalty all those years ago is not anticipated with the nuptials on July 2^nd of this year.  It is to be expected that major American networks like CNN or Fox will have reports throughout the day of the religious wedding, but decided not to purchase the broadcast rights outright for the wedding.

Collectively, the American and British news organizations don't have the interest nor the cash to splash out on ‘this’ royal wedding! All their time, energy and ‘ducats’ were centered round ‘the’ royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge this past April.   

As mentioned before, in the comparing of apples to oranges to peaches of royal weddings, there will be far less world interest in the Grimaldi wedding in Monaco.  Granted Prince Albert is half-American, a former Olympian and the only son of former screen goddess, Grace Kelly, but those hallmarks won’t present enough of a connection to warrant the networks in purchasing the broadcast rights for a wedding that will be performed in French.

On the upcoming big day in a few weeks, current bride and future Princess of Monaco, Charlene will be ready to make her own way down the path trodden by the past Princess’ of Monaco before her.  If the picture above is any indication, she is well on her way!

Along that vein; Charlene has revealed, although she is an almost exact doppelganger of the late princess, how she has no intention to try and outdo Albert's late mother, Princess Grace, once they are married.

She said: ‘I didn't set out in this relationship to try and fill someone's shoes or to walk in someone's footsteps. I've always said that to try to be somebody else is going to be the biggest contradiction to myself.’

‘I could never compare myself to Albert's mum and I wouldn't want to; I wouldn't want to try and be like her because I wouldn't think that's natural.’

One princess that Charlene nor Grace herself could ever outdo, even if they had tried was Prince Albert’s paternal grandmother, the Hereditary Princess Charlotte of Monaco, Duchesse de Valentinois.

This ‘Gallic’ firecracker was a headline maker practically her entire life, or at the very least from a young age.  Although I have posted about her in the past, there are a few entertaining articles below to relish in reading about the life of this enigmatic princess who led an existence more reflective of a Harold Robbins’ novel as opposed to real life!

THE END OF THE PROUD MONACO DYNASTY

IS THREATENED BY DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

April 9, 1930

For over a thousand years the family of Grimaldi has ruled their principality from the picturesque rock of Monaco.  The present Prince of Monaco has only a foster-daughter to succeed him and there is a considerable doubt now whether she or her children will ever assume control of the picturesque miniature estate.

The Grimaldis have the longest unbroken royal line in Europe, for they have a thousand years of authentic history behind them and another three hundred years which may be added to that since the first Grimaldi, according to tradition, was given Monaco to run in the year six hundred.

Little by little, the principality has shrunk, what with conquests and secessions, until today, ‘the principality of Monaco consists of just eight square miles. However, that eight square miles are important out of all proportion to geographical extent, for Monaco is famous for many things, its history, it beauty, its gambling, its oceanographically  and anthropological researches, and for its curious civic status. Monaco stands on a rock jutting out into the sea off the coast of France. Its prince and people live on the proceeds of the folly of other nationalities, for it is the greatest and most celebrated gambling place in the world.  There are two things which distinguishes its citizens – they pay no taxes and in return, they must not gamble.  Sufficient to let their visitors do that for the benefit and advantage.

The last Prince of Monaco, Albert the First, was ne of the greatest of the Grimaldis.  In 1911 he gave this toy-principality constitutional government and a national council, but above and beyond that, he made Monaco celebrated the world over as the home of oceanography, the science and study of life in the sea whence all life came.  His Serene Highness, as Prince Albert was called, realized that in and about Monaco was unlimited evidences of the early life of man. In its caves were anthropological remains which did, indeed, add volumes to the study of man on earth, but out beyond, in that dazzling blue sea, were mysteries no man had ever tried to fathom.  So Prince Albert took his share of the money wasted by gamblers and bough ships and equipment and proceeded to bring up specimens of life from as far as nine thousand feed under the sea.  Then he founded an institute and museum where such things could be studied and put to the use of science. 

However, his heir, Louis the Second, the present Prince of Monaco, did not follow the example set by his father. He is a man of great wealth, but he prefers to live chiefly away from Monaco.  His foster-daughter, Princess Charlotte, married Count Pierre de Polignac, ten years ago.  There are two children, little Princess Antoinette and little Prince Rainer, named for a celebrated Grimaldi of the thirteenth century. Now they have decided that they cannot live together again.  The princess is tired of Prince Pierre and Prince Pierre wants the custody of the two children.  He rather enjoys his princely prerogatives, and although his wife is heiress to the principality, he intends to stay right on in Monaco and carry on the duties which he has assumed in the course of the last few years.  But what is to happen to the dynasty? Even at best it will be bolstered up by an adopted heiress, but if Princess Charlotte secures the divorce she is after, her children would be compromised, while if she secures an annulment Prince Pierre will be simply Comte de Polignac again and the children without legal status.

Meantime the little principality is in an uproar over it all and its parliament is trying to solve the dynastic tangle, Prince Louis, however, declines to have anything to do with it, and remains comfortably on his estates near Paris. Now the Princess, now the Prince, dash into Monaco to talk the matter over, careful to time their arrivals and departures so that they need not meet.

Princess Charlotte, immensely popular in Monaco and the people are delighted whenever she is in residence at the royal palace there. Consequently, they are somewhat resentful of Prince Pierre and they base the next election campaign, which takes place this month, upon the divorce.  It lends a comedy touch to the affairs of this romantic and sunny principality. 

CINDERELLA PRINCESS

RENOUNCES THRONE

Beautiful Charlotte
The Laundress’ Daughter

Who Became Heiress

To The Principality Of Monaco

Abdicates To Marry Italian Nobleman

The Milwaukee Journal

March 12, 1933

MONTE CARLO -  A newcomer stepped up to the firing box at a pigeon shoot here last summer.

‘Bang!’ A poor bird, ripped to shreds, gave a squeak of agony and fluttered down to earth, never to rise again.

A wave of polite hurrahs went up from the ultra-fashionable throng and then, as the marksman turned to bow an acknowledgement, women looted at one another with jealous eyes. ‘What a silhouette!’ they whispered in admiration. ‘What a handsome devil!’ ‘What shoulders!’ ‘What eyes!’ He turned out to be the Marquis di Strozzi, an Italian, and he had such good looks, such a daring way, that the eligible ladies feted him like a demi-god come down to earth.

The shot was more vividly dramatic, more fateful in consequences, than anyone could dream at the time.

A woman’s heart was also shattered in the same volley, so much so that the beautiful Hereditary Princess Charlotte has just renounced her rights to the throne of Monaco, given up her home in this lovely principality, and abandoned a fairy-like destiny to follow the man of her inclinations.

For high flame, for a revelation of the deep, overpowering passions which sway their human marionettes, the gaming rooms across the harbor have never witnessed the like. 

His most Serene Highness, Louis II, the bachelor reigning Prince, faced a grave problem some years ago. He lacked an heir to carry on the 700 year old Grimaldi dynasty, if he passed away heirless, the succession would go to a German branch of the family, whereupon France would lay its hand on the principality without an instant’s hesitation.  With a magic pass, Prince Louis, then heir apparent, reached behind a veil of mystery, a veil that dates back to the time when he was a young officer in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria in 1898 – pulled out the daughter of a very pretty but obscure laundress to carry on his princely line and legally adopted her.  The other royal houses of Europe almost fainted with astonishment, even though they are the same clay as other mortals and have shadows in their closets.

It is like a fairy story. In the twinkle of an eye, the time it takes for a clock to strike 12, the daughter of the laundress was snatched from a modest home in Paris and found herself a princess in the castle at Monaco with the title of Duchess of Valentinois.  In fact, the Prince himself kidnapped her in a motor car.

Prince Albert, who was then reigning, was dumbfounded by this slight of hand manner of procuring an heir, but it seemed to be the most just, the happiest way out of an unhappy predicament.

The little Princess, then 13 – it was 1911, grew up in the great castle where charming and blue-blooded Grimaldi princesses of past centuries, all from great French feudal families, smiled down at her.  At the foot of the great rock jutting into the sea, on which the castle and its gardens are built, stretched the fairest and richest little kingdom in the whole world; a jewel of a city nestling luxuriously on the steep hillside above the blue Mediterranean.  The place where men need not worry or struggle for a living, for 2,000,000 fools came every year to woo the tempting wheel of fortune and leave everything but their skins behind.

From a worldly point of view, the perfect paradise, where beauty, riches, fashion and nobility sparkle and scintillate day and night, like the myriad lights along the coast, and financial anxiety is unknown even today.

A real Cinderella could not have received more gifts, more honors, and more homage than the little ‘Mademoiselle of Monaco.’ She herself was charming, a lively, vivacious brunette, gracious to all her future subjects.

In 1920 Prince Albert, her grandfather, found her a perfect husband – the young Comte Pierre de Polignac of the great French family of that name, who took Monegasque nationality to be her consort.  They were married under a shower of roses. 

He was pale, quiet, well bred, and even tempered, a model of politeness and discretion.  She was gay, light hearted, and romantic with all the ardor of a girl born under Algerian skies.  Old Monacans shook their heads.

In 1922, Prince Albert passed away, Prince Louis II succeeded, and Princess Charlotte became the direct heir.

The young couple had two children, Antoinette, now 12, and a boy, Rainer, now 9, but also many spats.  Prince Louis gave a sigh of relief.  The succession was assured – a succession broken only on two occasions since 1220 A. D., when it had to pass through the female side.  He could wiggle his fingers at the French, who are ready to step in, and also at his German cousins.

Prince Albert’s sister, known as ‘Aunt’ Florestine, had married into the Ducal Urach family of Wurttemberg in 1863, giving her husband, Count Wilhelm, four sons and four daughters.  By the Grimaldi statues the succession would pass into this line if the main branch became barren, and when Prince Albert wanted to step on France’s toes, for one reason or another, he promenaded some of the Urachs ostentatiously up and down the tiny but strategic coastline, an ideal submarine base.

France simply suffocated at the thought of a German Duke descending the throne of Monaco, for it is an enclave within French territory, has been a French fief for centuries, and could become dangerous in a Mediterranean conflict.

The marriage of state which Prince Albert arranged between his granddaughter by adoption and Comte Pierre de Polignac could not last. Hardly anyone expected it would.  Their temperaments were utterly different and while the principality below smiled smugly the old castle on the rock above resounded with their tiffs.  It ended four years ago with a bang: the husband, known as Prince Pierre of Monaco, leaving for his home in France with the two children.  Princess Charlotte complicated matters tremendously by falling in love with an Italian doctor named Dalmazzo, who had been attending her.

‘The daughter of the laundress has succeeded brilliantly in turning out badly,’ some French commentators remarked sarcastically.

‘I am the most unhappy woman in the world,’ Princess Charlotte retorted frankly.  ‘I have been given everything but the one thing I desired, that is, to love a man of my own choice.’

A German shadow across the rock of Monaco was bad enough, but when the Princess threatened to get the marriage dissolved and marry the Italian, the chancelleries of Europe were almost panic stricken.  Charlotte was the heir apparent and would succeed her father, Prince Louis, who is 62 today. If the latter passes away before Prince Rainer becomes of age, an Italian influence behind the throne and a German shadow over it, with France at daggers drawn with these two countries would be a pretty stew.  Prince Louis, who isn’t as smooth a diplomat as his father; hardly knew what to do!

Monaco is not only a gilded web into which silly moths swarm to singe their wings on the flame.  It is an ideal center for a German or Italian espionage net to be flung over French military and naval movements, on land and on the whole Mediterranean, either in peace or in wartime. During the war, when Prince Louis was attached to a French army headquarters staff, it was a notorious German spy nest, for they were hidden under so many vague nationalities they could not be entirely rooted out.  The casino itself was packed with them.

Premier Clemenceau finally got so mad in the summer of 1918 that he made a new treaty with Prince Albert under which France could intervene at anytime, any future ruler must be of French or Monacan nationality and France could blackball any heir apparent of whom it disapproved.

To impose this treaty on Germany, Clemenceau made it Article 436 of the Versailles peace treaty and thereby eliminated the Urachs, so he hoped.

The love affairs of the daughter of the pretty laundress were therefore a very delicate international concern, for an Italian Romeo slid in behind the throne and she was reigning Princess, the armies of France might be forced to march.  Italy might have something to say and Germany also, not to mention all the signatories of the Versailles Treaty.  It was a fantastic situation. 

An Italian hovering in the background might stir up as many jealousies as poor Rizzio, the secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots.  The Princess never held out her hand to Dr. Dalmazzo to kiss, but that the news was flashed instantly to the great chancelleries.  Suppose this charming young woman, she is 35 today and fresh as a rose – did something precipitate? Suppose, and it was highly probable, that she fell violently in love?

So grave a view was taken that Former President Poincare was chosen to arbitrate between Charlotte and her husband and decide what their status would be.

He decided that the two children were to remain 10 months of the year with their father in France, only spending two months in Monaco, but he frowned on anything more than a legal separation. To let her free entirely from the marriage, to dissolve it, in fact, as Charlotte demanded, would be a calamity, from a political viewpoint.

The Princess, raged, pleaded and wept.  She had never really love Comte de Polignac and never intended to in the future.  Indeed, she had never asked to be kidnapped from her mother and to be made Princess of Monaco.  Now that she was definitely separated from her husband, all that she desired was to be allowed to live her life in peace and love some man of her choice.  She loved her children, as any mother, but she didn’t care a whoop for the riches and honors heaped on her.  If she wasn’t freed, well –

The powers that be shook their old heads, but they couldn’t block an instinct that was welling up in her.

Dr. Dalmazzo faded out of the picture . . . he wanted the Princess to do some heavy financing, it turned out but – the moment the Marquis di Strozzi stepped into the firing box at the pigeon shoot last summer something clicked.  It was THE MAN.  A short time later the telegraph lines to Paris were buzzing and ominously, too, for he was an Italian.  Another Italian silhouette thrown across the rock and a silhouette, too, of a devil may care fellow with a gun in his hands was too much.  Rome might exult, but Paris would surely rage.  It seemed almost like another fine Italian plot to get the upper hand in Monaco, which is already overrun by Mussolini’s subjects. From the viewpoint of the princess who is exceptionally vivacious, it is a supreme tragedy to be condemned to spend her life in solitude just for political reasons and if it is true that she has been too frivolous it is also true that she had much provocation. From the day she entered the palace, at 13, she never had a mother.

At the time she arrived, in 1911, Prince Albert have already divorced his two wives, Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton, mother of Prince Louis, and the former Alice Heine of New Orleans, U. S. A.

The romance of Princess Charlotte and the Marquis di Strozzi was rapid fire and she again asked permission to have her marriage dissolved in order to marry the Italian.

A reply from Paris brought a dramatic climax to her career as Hereditary Princess of Monaco.  The French government stated very regretfully that it would be reluctant to see her ascend the throne eventually, which simply means that she is out and that Paris doesn’t care what she does.  The Princess herself took the lead to wind up the final formalities.

‘Having given to my family and to the country the two children who are the legitimate hope of the dynasty I believe that I have accomplished my duty,’ she wrote to her father in a public letter on Jan. 9, ‘and that reasons of state should not condemn me to remain tied by the bonds of a marriage contrary to my feelings for the sake of political interests whose responsibility I do not feel the strength to assume.’

Prince Louis had no other choice than to accept this abdication and he will now undoubtedly help her to have the marriage dissolved and to make a new life.

He has always loved her as his own daughter, as she is.  He wanted to marry Juliette Louvet, the pretty laundress, when the child was born.  He honestly recognized the girl as his own on the birth certificate. His position as the Hereditary Prince of Monaco and an officer of the French army prevented his marriage. He still loves her, in spite of any heartbreak and if she ever cares to return she will be welcome.

The shot which winged the pigeon and also the Hereditary Princess was a master stroke of ironic fate.

Aimed at the most humble, it landed squarely in the all highest of the principality, the dynasty that has held the great rock in both fair weather and storm for 700 years.  In Charlotte the volley reached the one vital person who could step in and carry on the reign in case of a critical break in the dynastic succession.

Her father is 62.  Her son is 9.  If the two lives do not overlap a regency will have to be set up and regencies almost invariably collapse.

Louis II knows it.  The deepening lines on his face show that he knows it, but he has only infinite tenderness for the one who may end the rule of his race.

MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS MAY

SOLVE PROBLEM OF MONACO

Palm Beach Daily News

February 1, 1936

Paris, Feb. 1, - (US) – Paris society gossips today matching Sir Basil Zaharoff, multi-millionaire munitions king, with Princess Charlotte of Monaco, and devoting a large share of Zaharoff’s wealth to straighten out the tangled finances of Europe’s tiniest principality.

Those close to the oldest royal family in Europe, the Grimaldis of Monaco, understand that Princess Charlotte, only child of the gambling state’s reigning Prince Louis, is about to obtain an annulment of her marriage to Comte de Polignac, otherwise known as Prince Pierre of Monaco.  The couple has two children. They have been separated a number of years and divorced proceedings have been begun in Paris courts, but the princess is awaiting a decision of the sacred Rota tribunal in Rome, hoping that her marriage will be dissolved.

Her smiling brunette beauty and flashing wit have captivated the octogenarian Sir Basil and the princess, the gossips have it, would be willing to marry him were she free. They say that for her it would be a choice of country over love. 

By so doing she would help her father, Prince Louis, secure the affection of his people.  Recently there has been rioting in the streets of Monte Carlo against Prince Louis. 

Now a major general in the French army, the Prince, when a young lieutenant became the father of Princess Charlotte! Later he legitimized her birth and created her Duchess of Valentinois. 

What his subjects hold against Prince Louis is the fact that Monte Carlo’s gambling and tourist business has fallen off, the casino has stopped paying heavy taxes and they, the citizens, are subsequently more heavily burdened.

In the dilemma Sir Basil is said to have made known that he would leave a part of his money to Monaco if only Princess Charlotte would become his wife.

But Charlotte has been seen a great deal in Florence in the company of a handsome Italian, Count Strozzi, and many wonder what she will do, whether love or duty will win.

NR

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