by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Prince Albert II of Monaco; Credit – Wikipedia

Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco (Albert Alexandre Louis Pierre) was born on March 14, 1958, at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco.  He is the only son and the second of three children of Rainier III, Sovereign Prince of Monaco and American actress and Academy Award winner Grace Kelly.

• Unofficial Royalty: Ancestors of Prince Albert II of Monaco
• Unofficial Royalty: First Cousins of Prince Albert II of Monaco

Albert was christened on April 20, 1958, at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Monaco. His godparents were:

• Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain, born Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria
• Prince Louis de Polignac, first cousin of his paternal grandfather

Prince Albert on left with his family; Photo source: The Telegraph

Prince Albert has two sisters:

• Princess Caroline, Princess of Hanover (born 1957), married  (1) Philippe Junot, no children, marriage annulled  (2) Stefano Casiraghi, had two sons and one daughter  (3) Prince Ernst August of Hanover, had one daughter
• Princess Stéphanie (born 1965), married (1) Daniel Ducruet, had two children, divorced  (2) Adans Lopez Peres, no children, divorced; Stephanie has one illegitimate daughter

Prince Albert with his mother in 1972; Photo Credit – Wikipedia

Prince Albert received his primary and secondary education in Monaco and graduated from the Lycée Albert Premier of Monaco in 1976. He spent time in his mother’s native country at Camp Tecumseh on Lake Winnipesaukee in Moultonborough, New Hampshire where he attended summer camp and was a camp counselor for six summers in the 1970s. Prince Albert spent additional time in the United States when he attended Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts as Albert Grimaldi. At Amherst College, he joined the Chi Psi fraternity, and the Amherst Glee Club, graduating in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

Prince Albert addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations; Photo source: http://www.un.org/

After he graduated from college, Prince Albert had several educational opportunities that broadened his experience. From September 1981 – April 1982, Prince Albert trained onboard the French Navy’s helicopter carrier “Jeanne d’Arc.” He trained with various international companies in the United States and Europe in communication, financial management, and marketing from January 1983 to late 1985. Since May 1993, Prince Albert has led the Monaco delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations and has regularly taken the floor on behalf of the Principality of Monaco.

Photo Credit – royalcorrespondent.com

Prince Albert has enjoyed participating in a variety of sports. He represented Monaco in Two-Man Bobsled and Four-Man Bobsled in five Winter Olympics (1988/Calgary, 1992/Albertville, 1994/Lillehammer, 1998/Nagano, 2002/Salt Lake City). Prince Albert has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1985 and is President of the Monegasque Olympic Committee.

Prince Albert II being blessed by the Archbishop of Monaco at the Mass on July 12, 2005; Credit – Zimbio

Prince Rainier III died on April 6, 2005, and Albert became the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. On July 12, 2005, at the end of the official period of mourning, Prince Albert’s accession to the throne was celebrated by a Mass at St. Nicholas’ Cathedral followed by a garden party for 7,000 Monégasques born in the principality. A second ceremony was held at St. Nicholas Cathedral on November 12, 2005, attended by many guests and royalty from around the world. The evening ended with a gala and opera performance in Monte Carlo.

In 2006, Prince Albert founded The Prince Albert II Foundation, a charity that has donated millions to various environmental projects. The foundation concentrates on environmental protection, sustainable development, climate change, the promotion of renewable energies, and biodiversity.

Before Prince Albert’s marriage in 2011, there was much discussion about what seemed to be his perpetual bachelor state and his dating experiences. On July 6, 2005, a few days before his enthronement ceremony, Prince Albert officially confirmed through his lawyer that he had an illegitimate son. Alexandre Coste (born August 24, 2003, in Paris, France) is the son of Prince Albert and Nicole Coste, a former Air France flight attendant, originally from Togo in Africa. Then in 2006, Prince Albert confirmed that he had an illegitimate daughter. Jazmin Grace Grimaldi (born March 4, 1992, in Palm Beach, California) is the daughter of Prince Albert and Tamara Rotolo, a California woman who reportedly worked as a waitress. DNA tests confirmed the paternity of both children and neither child has a claim on the throne of Monaco.

In June 2001 at the Marenostrum International Swimming Meet in Monaco which Prince Albert presided over, he met Charlene Wittstock (born 1978), a South African swimmer, who had represented her country in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. They were first seen together at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. Charlene moved in with Prince Albert in 2006. She began accompanying him to events including the weddings of the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden in 2010 and of the Duke of Cambridge in 2011. On June 23, 2010, the Prince’s Palace announced the couple’s engagement. The civil ceremony was held on July 1, 2011, in the Throne Room of the Prince’s Palace.  The religious ceremony took place on July 2, 2011, in the courtyard of the Palace.

• Unofficial Royalty: Wedding of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock

Photo source: BBC/AP

Prince Albert and Princess Charlene have two children, boy and girl twins.  Even though their daughter was born first, their son is the heir apparent because Monaco’s succession is male-preference cognatic primogeniture.

• Princess Gabriella of Monaco, Countess of Carladès (Gabriella Thérèse Marie), born December 10, 2014, at The Princess Grace Hospital Centre in Monaco
• Jacques, Hereditary Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux (Jacques Honoré Rainier), born December 10, 2014, at The Princess Grace Hospital Centre in Monaco

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Principality of Monaco Resources at Unofficial Royalty

• Principality of Monaco Index
• Line of Succession to the Throne of Monaco
• Monegasque FAQs
• Monegasque Orders and Honours
• Monegasque Royal Burial Sites
• Monegasque Royal Christenings
• Monegasque Royal Dates
• Monegasque Royal Residences
• Monegasque Royal Weddings
• Profiles of the Princely Family of Monaco
• Rulers of Monaco

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

by Scott Mehl  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Princess Caroline Louise Marguerite of Monaco was born January 23, 1957, at the Prince’s Palace, the eldest of the three children and the elder of the two daughters of Rainier II, Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly.  Caroline was christened on March 5, 1957, at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Monaco.  Her godparents were:

• Margaret Davis, her maternal first cousin
• Prince George Festetics de Tolna, grandson of Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton and her second husband Prince Tassilo Festetics de Tolna. Mary Victoria’s first husband was Prince Albert I of Monaco. They were the parents of Prince Louis II, Princess Caroline’s great-grandfather.

Caroline was titled the Hereditary Princess of Monaco from her birth until the birth of her brother Albert the following year.  From 2005, when her brother Albert succeeded to the throne of Monaco, until December 2014, when Albert’s twins Princess Gabriella and Prince Jacques were born, Caroline was the heir presumptive to the throne of Monaco.

Caroline has two younger siblings:

• Prince Albert II (born 1958), married Charlene Wittstock, had twin son and daughter; Albert had one illegitimate son and one illegitimate daughter
• Princess Stéphanie (born 1965), married (1) Daniel Ducruet, had two children, divorced  (2) Adans Lopez Peres, no children, divorced; Stephanie has one illegitimate daughter

Princess Caroline (center) with her parents and younger siblings
photo source: Daily Mail

Caroline was raised in Monaco, attending school in France and England, after which she attended the Sorbonne in Paris, earning a degree in Philosophy with minors in Psychology and Biology. She also studied ballet and music in Monte Carlo.

Embed from Getty Images

In May 1978, she married Philippe Junot, a Frenchman seventeen years her elder. The marriage ended in divorce in 1980. Having married in both civil and religious ceremonies, the Princess petitioned the Vatican for an annulment. After much wrangling back and forth, a formal annulment was finally granted by Pope John Paul II in 1992.

Princess Caroline is very active in charities and organizations in the Principality, and upon the sudden death of her mother in 1982, Caroline took on the role of First Lady of Monaco. She also assumed many of the patronages held by the late Princess Grace. Some of these organizations are the Guides of Monaco (now The Association of Guides and Scouts of Monaco), UNICEF, The Garden Club of Monaco, The Monte Carlo Arts Festival, The Prince-Pierre Foundation. In later years, she helped to establish the Monte Carlo Ballet, a cause that her mother had been championing for many years. She was also named Chairman of the Princess Grace Foundation in 1984, at the express wish of her father.

Caroline regularly attends important social events in Monaco related to the Monégasque Princely Family. Due to her commitment to philanthropy and arts, Caroline was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2003.

Embed from Getty Images
The christening of Pierre Casiraghi, the third child of Caroline and Stefano Casiraghi

In December 1983, Princess Caroline married Italian businessman Stefano Casiraghi in a civil ceremony held at the Prince’s Palace. Tragically, Stefano was killed in a speedboat accident in 1990 just off the coast of Monaco. The couple had three children:

• Andrea Casiraghi (born 1984), married Tatiana Santo Domingo, had three children
• Charlotte Casiraghi (born 1986), son with actor Gad Elmaleh; son with film producer Dimitri Rassam (married 2019)
• Pierre Casiraghi (born 1987), married Beatrice Borromeo, had two children

In January 1999, on her birthday, Caroline married HRH Prince Ernst August of Hanover, becoming HRH The Princess of Hanover. Ernst August is the pretender to the throne of the former Kingdom of Hanover. While initially very happy, the couple now leads separate lives. Caroline and their daughter live primarily in Monte Carlo, while her husband remains at his homes in Germany.

The couple had one daughter:

• Princess Alexandra of Hanover (born 1999)

Embed from Getty Images
Princess Caroline with her daughter Princess Alexandra of Hanover, 2020

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

by Scott Mehl © Unofficial Royalty 2013

Princess Charlotte of Monaco, Duchess of Valentinois; Credit –  Wikipedia

Princess Charlotte of Monaco, Duchess of Valentinois, was born September 30, 1898, in Constantine, French Algeria, now in Algeria. She began life as Charlotte Louise Juliette Louvet, the illegitimate daughter of the future Prince Louis II of Monaco and Marie Juliette Louvet. Her parents had met the previous year in Paris, where Marie worked as a hostess in a nightclub.

Because Louis was unmarried and without an heir, the Monegasque throne was likely to pass to his first cousin once removed Wilhelm, the Duke of Urach, a German nobleman, the son of his father’s aunt Princess Florestine of Monaco.  To avoid this, Louis’ father, Prince Albert I had a law passed recognizing Charlotte as Louis’ heir and part of the sovereign family. However, this law was later ruled invalid under earlier statutes. So, in October 1918, another law was passed allowing for the adoption of an heir with succession rights. On May 16, 1919, Louis legally adopted Charlotte, giving her the Grimaldi surname. Her grandfather created her HSH Princess Charlotte of Monaco and Duchess of Valentinois. Upon Louis’ accession in 1922, Charlotte became the Hereditary Princess of Monaco.

Charlotte and her husband Count Pierre de Polignac – photo source: Mad for Monaco

In March 1920, at the Cathedral of Monaco, Charlotte married Count Pierre de Polignac, who took the name Grimaldi and became Prince Pierre of Monaco. It had been an arranged marriage and neither was particularly interested in the other. By 1925, they were living separate lives and formally divorced in 1933.

• Princess Antoinette, Baroness of Massy (1920 – 2011), married (1)  Alexandre-Athenase Noghès, had three children who were born before marriage but were later legitimized, divorces  (2) Dr. Jean-Charles Rey, no children, divorced  (2) John Gilpin who died six weeks after the marriage
• Rainier III, Prince of Monaco (1923 – 2005), married Grace Kelly, had one son and two daughters

Charlotte knew the very Catholic Monaco would never fully accept her. In 1944, Charlotte renounced her succession rights to the Monegasque throne in favor of her son Rainier. Five years later, her father died and Rainier became Sovereign Prince of Monaco. Charlotte left Monaco and moved to the Château de Marchais, the Grimaldi family’s sprawling estate outside Paris, France. She attended college, received a degree in social work, and although her family objected, turned the estate into a rehabilitation home for ex-convicts. She had a relationship with René Girier, a famed jewel thief known as ‘René la Canne” (René the Cane). Her last appearance in Monaco was in 1956 at the wedding of her son Prince Rainier III and Grace Kelly.

Princess Charlotte of Monaco, Duchess of Valentinois, died in Paris, France on November 15, 1977. She is buried at the Chapelle de la Paix (Chapel of Peace) in Monaco, along with her former husband who died in 1964.

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2013

Prince Albert I of Monaco; Credit – Wikipedia

Besides being the Sovereign Prince of Monaco, Albert I left an interesting legacy.  He was a pioneer of oceanography and founded the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco.  His interest in the origins of man caused him to found the Institute for Human Paleontology in Paris, which conducted many archeological digs. Because of his quest for world peace, the prince founded the International Institute for Peace, a predecessor of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Albert Honoré Charles was born in Paris, France on November 13, 1848.  His father was Prince Charles III of Monaco and his mother was Antoinette de Merode, daughter of Count Werner de Merode and Countess Victoire de Spangen d’Uyternesse. Albert was his parents’ only child.

Albert’s first marriage was to Scottish Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton, daughter of William Alexander Anthony Archibald Hamilton, 11th Duke of Hamilton and  Princess Marie Amélie of Baden. The couple was married on September 21, 1869, a month after their first meeting, at the Château de Marchais in Champagne, France.

The couple had one child:

• Prince Louis II of Monaco (1870 – 1949), married Ghislaine Dommanget, no children; had an affair before his marriage with Marie Juliette Louvet, had one daughter Charlotte who was later legitimized and was the mother of Prince Rainier III of Monaco

Having been more or less forced into marriage, Mary Victoria and Albert were less than compatible.   Albert thought that his new wife was empty-headed and although Mary Victoria thought her husband to be handsome, she did not particularly like him.  Additionally, Mary Victoria did not like Monaco and the Mediterranean, so unlike her native Scotland.  19-year-old, pregnant Mary Victoria left Monaco with her mother and headed to her mother’s family home in the Grand Duchy of Baden now in Germany.

It was in Baden that Mary Victoria gave birth to the future Prince Louis II of Monaco on July 12, 1870.  Mary Victoria and Albert never reconciled.  Their marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church in 1880 and civilly dissolved the same year by Prince Charles III of Monaco.  Their son Louis was raised in Baden by his maternal grandmother and did not see his father until he was 11 years old when he returned to Monaco to be trained for his future royal duties.

On September 10, 1889, upon the death of his father Prince Charles III, Albert became the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. The following month, on October 30, Albert married the Dowager Duchess de Richelieu, born Marie Alice Heine in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Alice’s family was a German Berlin and Paris banking family and she was a cousin of the German poet Heinrich Heine.   Alice had married Marie Odet Armand Aimable Chapelle de Jumilhac, Marquis of Jumilhac, 7th Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac while a teenager, was widowed at age 21, and was left with a son and a daughter.  Alice and Charles did not have children, but Alice did much to make Monaco a cultural center with world-class opera, theater, and ballet.  Both Albert and Alice had affairs and the couple legally separated in 1902 but remained married.

Albert’s great interest for much of his life was the ocean.  In his younger days, he had served in the Spanish and French navies, and by the age of 22, he began to study the new science of oceanography.  He devised several techniques and instruments used for oceanographic measurement and exploration and participated in 28 scientific expeditions.  Albert was nicknamed “The Prince of the Seas” and his four research yachts, Hirondelle, Princesse Alice, Princesse Alice II, and Hirondelle II, took him all over the Mediterranean Sea, the Azores, and the Arctic.  Albert made four scientific voyages to Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the northernmost part of Norway for oceanographic and zoological study. In honor of his Arctic journeys, the northwestern part of Spitsbergen, Svalbard was named Albert I Land.  The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, which he founded, has a world-class aquarium, museum, library, and research facilities in Paris.

Statue of Prince Albert I in Monaco; Credit – Wikipedia

Prince Albert I of Monaco died in Paris, France on June 26, 1922, at the age of 73.  He was buried at the Cathedral of Monaco.  His second wife Alice died in Paris, France on December 22, 1925, and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.

Grave of Prince Albert I in Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Monaco, Photo Credit – findagrave.com

This article is the intellectual property of Unofficial Royalty and is NOT TO BE COPIED, EDITED, OR POSTED IN ANY FORM ON ANOTHER WEBSITE under any circumstances. It is permissible to use a link that directs to Unofficial Royalty.

Principality of Monaco Resources at Unofficial Royalty

• Principality of Monaco Index
• Line of Succession to the Throne of Monaco
• Monegasque FAQs
• Monegasque Orders and Honours
• Monegasque Royal Burial Sites
• Monegasque Royal Christenings
• Monegasque Royal Dates
• Monegasque Royal Residences
• Monegasque Royal Weddings
• Profiles of the Princely Family of Monaco
• Rulers of Monaco

Louis II, Prince of Monaco. Photo credit: Mad for Monaco blog

May 9, 1949 – Death of Louis II, Prince of Monaco

Louis’ Wikipedia page
Louis’ biography of Mad for Monaco

Louis was the only child of Albert I of Monaco by his Scottish-born first wife Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton. Through his mother Louis was a descendant of Stephanie de Beauharnais, the adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis’ parents separated when he was an infant; he resided in Germany with his mother, stepfather, and half-siblings until the age of 11.
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Louis attended the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in France. He followed up his education with service in the French Foreign Legion in Africa. Louis met singer Juliette Louvet in Algeria, whom he was forbidden to marry. The couple’s daughter Charlotte was born in 1898. Louis later served with distinction with the French Army in World War I, rising to the rank of Brigadier General.

During this time, Louis did not show interest in marrying or fathering legitimate children. The lack of other heirs meant that control of Monaco would be passed to Louis’ German cousin Wilhelm of Urach, who had naturally fought against the French during World War I. A law was passed in 1911 (later declared invalid) to allow Charlotte to inherit the Monagesque throne, while a second law allowed Louis to adopt Charlotte as his legal heir. Charlotte officially became her father’s heir in 1919.

Louis succeeded Albert as Sovereign Prince of Monaco in 1922, where cultural life continued to thrive as it had under his predecessors. The principality was occupied during World War II, first by the Italians and later by the Germans. Louis’ offered his support to the French Vichy government headed by his former colleague. Charlotte passed her claim to the principality to her son, the future Rainier III, in 1944.

Following World War II, the aging Louis spent most of his time in France. He married actress Ghislaine Dommanget in 1946 and lived with her near Paris, allowing Monaco’s prosperity to decline. Louis died in Monaco and is buried at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Monte Carlo.