The garrison would be a big prize for anyone who could claim it. So on the night of January 8, 1297, Francois donned the heavy brown robes of a wandering Franciscan monk and banged on the wooden gate begging refuge. The unsuspecting guards allowed him to enter. Before they could shut the gates, he’d pulled a sword from under his robes, his henchmen had rushed in, and the massacre had begun. Within hours, the Grimaldis had declared the rock to be their own.
Significantly, Monaco’s coat of arms boasts a pair of friars wielding swords.
Over the next 100 years, the Grimaldis lost Monaco twice and regained it twice, although by the first quarter of the 15th century they’d pretty well established their feudal rights over Monaco and the two neighboring towns of Roquebrune and Menton. They were officially allied with France until 1524 when the ruling prince made a deal with Spain for “rights to the sea.” That meant he could levy a tax of two percent on the value of merchandise in the hold of any ships passing within sight of the rock. Taxing ships like that was a decent family business until the middle of the 17th century when a later ruling prince realigned Monaco with France. Then the French Revolution got in the way. The Grimaldis were removed from their throne and Monaco was annexed to France. In 1814, the family’s claim was restored by the Treaty of Paris. The following year the Treaty of Vienna placed Monaco under the protection of the Kings of Sardinia. It wasn’t until 1861 that Monaco was once and for all recognized to be an independent state.
As the 33rd ruler of Monaco, Rainier III not only represented the oldest ruling family in Europe but, following the death of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito in 1989, he became the longest-serving monarch in the world.
Chapter 9
Growing Up Monegasque
On December 18, 1933, the Principality of Monaco declared war on the United States of America.
Well, not exactly the entire US of A, just Mississippi.
A series of bearer bonds issued by Mississippi in the 1830s had been stashed in bank vaults and forgotten about for more than 90 years, until the heirs of the original owners discovered them and tried to secure the monies due. With interest, the nominal $100,000 value of the bonds had turned into $574,300. But Mississippi had defaulted on the loans in 1841.
They tried to sue Mississippi, only to learn that American law prohibited such an action, as an individual state may only be sued by another state, by the US Government, or by a foreign government. So they looked around for a foreign state, approached Prince Louis II of Monaco and offered him 45 percent of the action if the principality would assume ownership of the bonds and press the court case.
Monaco applied to the United States Supreme Court for permission to file the suit. However, because Mississippi had amended its own constitution in 1875 specifically barring all claims against those bonds, the principality first had to prove that the amendment was unconstitutional. Attorneys for Monaco argued that they were giving the State of Mississippi, “An opportunity to erase this stigma from her reputation.”
Even the New York Times came out in favor of the Monegasques.
In an editorial on December 19, 1933, the paper suggested, “Surely Mississippians should think kindly of a foreign state which owes the United States nothing.” Two days later the same newspaper wondered, “How would it be if Mississippi proposed to Monaco to roll dice for the money?”
The United States Supreme Court heard the arguments in January 1934 and immediately ordered Mississippi to show cause why the principality should not be permitted to file suit.
Attorneys for Mississippi now claimed that Monaco was not an independent state. They cited the 1918 treaty with France where Monaco undertook to exercise its rights of sovereignty “in accord with the political, naval and economic interests of France.” But the French Foreign Office testified that the treaty did not imply that Monaco had surrendered its rights as a foreign entity.
Unfortunately for Monaco, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes rendered the opinion that the principality, like the original holders of the bonds, did not, in fact, have the right to sue the State of Mississippi without consent of the state and that consent would not be forthcoming.
The war was over, Mississippi declared victory, and the Principality of Monaco has been at peace with the United States of America ever since.
GqH
Prince Charles III, for whom Monte Carlo had been named, was succeeded to the throne by his son, Albert I, a tall, handsome man with a well-groomed black beard whose first love was marine research. Under his reign, the casino brought to the principality an era of unparalleled prosperity. But certain influential Monegasque families resented the fact that prosperity had turned Monte Carlo into a company town.
The Societe des Bains de Mer et Du Cercle des Etrangers (SBM)—the Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners’ Club—was the publicly quoted company that controlled Monaco’s gambling franchise. As Monaco’s largest employer and by far the nation’s largest source of revenue, SBM wielded a grossly disproportionate amount of political power. Certain influential Monegasque families soon began to feel that Albert had sold them out by allowing SBM to wedge itself in between the prince and his people. A plot was hatched to force Albert’s abdication and put his son on the throne. Recognizing that it was best to offer radical change before it was forced upon him, Albert relinquished his powers of absolute rule.
His constitution of 1911 separated the Prince’s household from the government. The prince remained chief executive but the government was now composed of a Minister of State plus three counselors. Legislative power was to be split between the prince and the newly formed National Council, whose members would be elected by the people.
Immediately following World War I, Albert negotiated a long-awaited, vitally important pact with France, which was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles. He agreed to exercise his rights in conformity with the political, military, and economic interests of France.
The French, in turn, agreed to defend the principality’s independence and sovereignty. They were worried about a distant German branch of the Grimaldi family that could possibly one day make a claim. From this came the accord that, should there be no heir to maintain the line, Monaco would be formed into a French protectorate. However, the ruling prince would always have the option of adopting an heir should he not be able to produce one, thus forever assuring the Grimaldi line.
Ironically, Albert’s son was born and raised in Germany.
In 1869, at the age of 20, Albert had married 18-year-old Lady Mary Victoria Douglas Hamilton, daughter of the late Duke of Hamilton, Scotland’s premier peer. The alliance had been arranged by Napoleon III. But within five months she’d walked out on him and had gone to live with her mother in Baden-Baden, where their son, Louis, was born. Albert requested and received a church annulment, then dissolved the civil marriage by decree.
Despite his official status as hereditary prince, the young Louis didn’t set foot in Monaco or even meet his father until he was 11. When they did meet, they didn’t get along. The pair lived together, mainly in Paris, for five years, until Louis escaped to serve with the French Foreign Legion.
While posted in North Africa, Louis fell in love with a young laundress named Marie Juliette Louvet. Albert refused to grant them permission to marry, either because she’d once been married or because she came from working-class family. Their love-child, Charlotte, was born in 1898. Now Albert refused to recognize either their alliance or his granddaughter’s legal rights. Louis and Marie Juliette separated when Charlotte was very young. While Louis always acknowledged Charlotte to be his rightful heir, it wasn’t until her 21st birthday that Albert finally conceded that her accession to the throne was the only sensible option to perpetuate the family’s grip on Monaco. He insisted Louis officially name her as his successor and, just in case there might be any lingering doubt, ordered Louis to legally adopt her.
A tiny, feisty woman who always spoke her mind, Charlotte was an eccentric in the wonderful way that some wome
n from the 19th century were natural eccentrics. Married at the age of 22 to a distinguished and cultured French nobleman, Count Pierre de Polignac, she was revered by her family, especially her grandchildren who always called her “Mamou.”
Rainier characterized her as a woman with a kind heart who’d been a nurse during World War I and who spent her later years helping less fortunate people, among them prisoners.
“My mother lived most of her life in Paris and at Marchais,” he explained. “But it was sad, really, because she was unhappy almost from the start of her marriage. She never had very good memories of Monaco. I think she was always lonely here. She didn’t have any friends here. She didn’t have anyone around her. Being an only daughter, I’m afraid there were times in her life when she was badly torn between her husband and her father.”
To keep the family name alive, Albert required Pierre to change his name to Grimaldi, becoming Prince Pierre Grimaldi Count of Polignac, the day before his wedding.
Rainier described his father as a man of old-fashioned elegance with a pencil-thin moustache who was interested in music, art and literature, and also fluent in several languages. “He was a very delicate, very sensitive man. Although, looking back, he might not have been very accessible where the younger generation was concerned. I regret maybe not having listened and spoken to him more. But that might be the problem with all young people. When you’re young you don’t listen enough.”
Pierre and Charlotte’s first child, Antoinette, was born in 1920. Two years later, when Albert passed away, Louis became ruling prince. Then, on May 3, 1923, Charlotte’s second child—Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi—was born in the Palace in Monaco. He was the only grandson and eventual heir of a ruling monarch, so his home was wherever the sovereign held court.
Rainier continued, “We’d only come to Monaco for about three months of the year. It was usually in the spring around Easter when the weather was good. I liked that because there was always a lot to do and the people were very welcoming. We wintered at Marchais. The Palace of Monaco was closed. My family, my grandfather’s entire staff, the cooks, valets, footmen, maids, everybody would go to Marchais for five or six months. Except the government. They stayed in Monaco. I remember my grandfather installed a telegraph at Marchais so he could keep in touch with them. It was very exciting, something brand-new for us. I can still see a secretary tapping out messages all day long. There were also a couple of months every year when the family went shooting in Scotland. But I hated that. It never stopped raining. It was very boring.”
Claiming that his childhood was “basically a contented one,” Rainier acknowledged that his parents’ divorce in 1929 left him feeling insecure. “Insecure in the sense that children of divorced parents are always getting shuffled around and are never quite certain where they belong. There are times when you doubt your parents’ love.”
It had been agreed that Rainier and Antoinette would spend part of each year with their mother and grandfather and part of the time with their father. “When we were with mother we were always being told, when you see your father don’t say anything to him about me or your grandfather. When we were with father we were always being told, don’t say anything to your mother or your grandfather about me. That wasn’t easy. Like any child who is the product of divorced parents, I felt hurt by it.”
Nor was his childhood made any easier by political tension at home. Louis found himself under severe pressure, which began just as the “Roaring 20s” drew to a close. The National Council tried to force a showdown. Under the constitution they could only make recommendations to the prince. They had no real power. This was the first of many things they wanted changed. For example, they were unhappy with the way SBM operated as a state unto itself, contending that the company somehow threatened the independence of the country. They also wanted the prince to hold SBM to its contractual responsibility of supplying Monte Carlo with basic services such as water, gas and road maintenance. They claimed SBM had neglected its obligations by investing instead in new tennis courts and a beach.
At the same time Princess Charlotte asked her father for permission to divorce Prince Pierre. Louis agreed to his daughter’s divorce and effectively banished Pierre from the principality.
A newspaper report of the day described Monaco as, “a box of toys in which everything is brilliant and artificial and a little fragile and must be kept carefully fitted into its place if it is not to be broken.”
Louis’s problem was that he never really understood just how fragile that box of toys was.
Chapter 10
The Birth of
Modern Monaco
It had been agreed at the time of Pierre’s divorce from Charlotte that he would take charge of Rainier’s education. “My father wanted me to have an absolutely superior education so he sent me to England in 1934. I started at the Summer Fields School at St Leonard’s-on-Sea. It was a horrible place. Short pants, cold showers, and canings. The only good time I had there was boxing. I won the school title in my weight class. Other than that, I hated it.”
From there Rainier went to the equally British, Stowe. “It was a beautiful setting, but I remember arriving there with my father, not knowing any of the house masters or any of the students. I found the old castle atmosphere very dreary. It rained all the time so as soon as you went out to play any games you were knee-deep in mud. Then I had to learn about things like fagging, which meant doing menial chores for the older boys. Happily they were nice fellows but the whole thing always struck me as being stupid. I wasn’t very happy at Stowe either.”
So unhappy, in fact, that he ran away. “On my third day I escaped. It turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. I left the grounds and headed for the railway station. My plan was to buy myself a ticket to London and then make my way home from there. But I guess I wasn’t very good at that kind of thing. I never thought there was anything unusual about going to the railway station with my school cap still on my head.”
The moment the school authorities realized he was gone, the police were notified. And as soon as the station-master noticed a lad with a school cap on his head trying to get to London, he rang the school.
“I was picked up and promptly brought back to Stowe,” Rainier said. “The head master, an ex-military man, came to fetch me in his enormous car. I thought I was in for trouble and would be severely caned. But he took me back to his study and welcomed me home with a gigantic high tea. He didn’t reprimand me at all. He said, ‘You must be hungry so here’s something to eat.’ It was the first meal I’d had all day. I thought to myself, finally someone understands. But then I was put in the school infirmary because they couldn’t figure out why any child wanted to run away from this heaven.”
The young Rainier was officially “under observation” for two entire weeks, confined to doing absolutely nothing, until the staff gave up trying to figure him out and returned him to his dorm and his classes.
All those years later, he felt, the problem should have been obvious to them. Even though he spoke perfect English—“We had a British nanny so I spoke English before I spoke French”—he was a chubby, timid child, and the only foreigner among 500 boys. He’d withdrawn into his shell. Yes, he could handle himself very competently with a pair of boxing gloves strapped onto his hands but his innate shyness outside the ring was a red flag for the school bullies.
Rainier said he told his father how unhappy he was and that his father must have mentioned it to someone because, before long, Louis began to fear that Pierre might try to take him out of England, might somehow prevent the child from returning to Monaco or otherwise come between Rainier and his grandfather.
So in August 1936, Louis filed a petition in London for custody of Rainier, seeking to restrain Pierre from removing the 13-year-old from Great Britain.
During the March 1937 High Court hearing, it came out that Louis had made similar appeals in Monaco and France and had won both times. Among the intrig
uing possibilities actually considered in the London action was making an heir to Monaco’s throne a ward of the British courts. In the end, the judge ruled in favor of Louis but not before the affair hit the front pages and generally served to embarrass everyone concerned.
From England, Rainier was sent to Le Rosey, one of the finest of the Swiss boarding schools.
And there, he said, he was very happy. “I adored it. I was there until 1939, until the first bombing of Lyons. It was a wonderful place to go to school. There were only about 100 boys at Le Rosey in those days and the girls’ school was just across the way. It was the sort of place where, if you wanted to learn, everything was possible. If you wanted to work, it was great. If you didn’t, they simply didn’t worry about you. We even spent part of the winter in Gstaad.”
After graduation from Le Rosey, he attended the University of Montpellier where he received his BA, then spent a year in Paris studying Political Science. His mother formally resigned her position on May 30, 1943, the day before Rainier’s 21st birthday. Three days later Louis officially proclaimed Rainier as heir to the throne.
It was not an especially joyous moment, he said. “It was, in some ways, very sad. My mother renounced because she felt incapable. She was unhappy. I felt sorry for her. At the same time it meant a severe change of style in my life. I suddenly had to assume a lot of responsibilities.”
A few months later, as soon as he finished school, Rainier was commissioned as a second lieutenant and assigned to the headquarters’ intelligence staff of the 2nd Corps, 1st French Army.
The young prince suffered through the winter campaign in Alsace and saw some action.
“But not as much,” he said, “as I wanted to. I had a pretty useless job posting notices on factories. It would have been more fun if we could have blown the damn things up. Because I spoke English I was sectored off to the 36th Infantry Division in Strasbourg, the Texas Rangers, and acted as a liaison on the general staff.”
Grace of Monaco Page 9
