The Tragic Lady of Monaco A Doomed Hollywood Romance
LADY CLAUDINE’S HUSBAND DENIED HER THE TITLE THAT WAS RIGHTFULLY HERS THE MOST FAMOUS GRIMALDI MARRIAGE ENDED IN A TRAGIC ACCIDENT
Though the marriage of Claudine,
Lady of Monaco was described by her contemporaries as a happy one, the relationship between her and her husband, Lambert Grimaldi di Antibes, was certainly contentious. In 1457, at the age of six, Claudine ascended to the throne of Monaco after the deaths of both her parents. As the only child of Catalan Grimaldi and his wife Blanche del Carretto, it was far from ideal that she was a girl. However, the rules of succession, as laid out by Claudine’s grandfather Jean I, stated that a female Grimaldi could rule if they kept the Grimaldi name. As a result, the Grimaldi name would be passed down to her children, and her husband would be required to adopt the family name himself. In Claudine’s case, this was not a problem with Lambert being her distant cousin and already carrying the Grimaldi title.
As Claudine was six years old when she came to power, a regent was appointed to oversee her duties until she became of age. Claudine’s grandmother, Pomellina Fregoso, had been named in Catalan’s will as his daughter’s regent, which had also named Lambert as his daughter’s future husband. Dissatisfied with the regency arrangement, Lambert decided to take matters into his own hands, ousted Pomellina from power and claimed the throne for himself. Though Lambert did not marry Claudine until 1465 when she was older, he had himself declared sovereign Lord of Monaco in 1458 and in the process deposed his soon-to-be wife. Thus, Claudine lost many of her rights as the ruling sovereign and instead, upon her marriage, became consort to her husband.
Claudine may have lost her power due to her husband’s coup, but things only got worse for her after his death. When Lambert died in 1494, their eldest son, Jean II, became Lord of Monaco.
Jean’s 11-year reign ended abruptly when a fight broke out between him and his younger brother Lucien. Claudine allegedly witnessed the altercation in which Jean was stabbed to death by his brother. Despite there being many supposed political motives for Lucien to have murdered Jean, historians have been unable to conclude a definitive reason for the killing. Lucien succeeded his brother as Lord of Monaco, and poor Claudine, having had her title taken from her, had also been subjected to watching one of her own children kill another.
Of all the love stories from the history of the House of Grimaldi, one always springs to mind. In 1955, one of Hollywood’s most beloved and glamorous movie stars attended the Cannes Film Festival where she was introduced to the reigning Prince of Monaco. Sparks flew between 26-yearold Grace Kelly and 31-year-old Prince Rainier III, and though they kept their romance secret for a while, they were married within a year of meeting. While the tale of the Prince and the movie star may seem like a perfect fairytale, there have been suggestions that Prince Rainier, who ruled Monaco from 1949 to 2005, had been looking for a celebrity bride to marry in order to boost the reputation and status of Monaco, which was struggling at the time. Furthermore, in order to marry into Monaco’s royal family, Kelly had to give up her career as an Oscar-winning actress to take up royal duties and, apparently, pay a wedding dowry of a whopping $2 million. The couple’s grand wedding was an incredibly high-profile affair, with celebrations lasting a total of eight days, and the wedding itself happening over a two-day period.
Aside from all the gossip and rumours that inevitably circulated around the high-profile marriage, it seems as though the union between Princess Grace and Prince Rainier was a generally happy one. Together they had three children – Caroline, Albert and Stéphanie – and though it is thought that several attempts were made by Hollywood directors and producers to entice Kelly back to her acting career, Kelly remained committed to her work as Princess of Monaco. It seemed that Kelly and Prince Rainier’s marriage would stand the test of time, and that Prince Rainier had escaped the Grimaldi curse. But that all changed when tragedy struck on 13 September 1982.
While driving her youngest daughter, Stéphanie, to the train station, Princess Grace suffered a stroke which caused her to lose control of the car. The car, with Princess Grace and 17-year-old Stéphanie inside, drove off the side of a winding road and down an embankment. Luckily, Stéphanie escaped the accident with minor injuries, but her mother never recovered. The following day, the world went into mourning when Princess Grace died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of just 52. The death of Grace Kelly came as a shock to all, especially her husband who never quite recovered from the loss of his wife, according to their son Prince Albert: “It was pretty obvious that he was deeply affected and he wasn’t quite the same man as he was before the accident.” After Princess Grace’s death, Prince Rainier
III never remarried. He died in 2005 at the age of 81 and was buried next to his late wife in the Grimaldi family vault in the Cathedral of Monaco. Stéphanie also struggled to come to terms with her mother’s death, having survived the accident that killed her. It was after Princess Grace’s sudden and tragic death that the tale of the Grimaldi curse came to the attention of the wider world.
The question of marriage for Princess Louise Hippolyte became a huge issue that drove a wedge between her and her parents. The oldest surviving daughter of Antonio I and his wife Marie de Lorraine-armagnac, Louise Hippolyte was the heiress to the throne of Monaco on account of the fact that she did not have any brothers. It was decided that upon her marriage, her husband would take the Grimaldi name and the couple would rule side by side. But, when it came to choosing a husband for Louise Hippolyte, her parents could not agree on a candidate. Antonio’s suggestion was disliked by his wife, who had another man in mind for her daughter, and their incapability to concur resulted in a two-year-long argument between the pair. Louise Hippolyte, on her mother’s advice, refused to marry her father’s choice of man and in retaliation Antonio had his daughter confined to a convent for two years before he released her when he realised his candidate was not favoured by the French court. However, the relationship between Louise Hippolyte and her father had been damaged irreparably after their years of fighting and disagreements.
Eventually, Louise Hippolyte married the candidate originally put forward by her mother, Jacques François Goyon, Count de Matignon. Louise Hippolyte and Matignon lived in France, away from her parents in Monaco, and had nine children together, four of whom survived into adulthood. After both her parents died, Louise Hippolyte took her place as Monaco’s ruler in 1731, though in doing so she eschewed Matignon and pushed aside her father’s arrangements for her to rule in partnership with her husband. The new Princess of Monaco declared that she would be the state’s sole ruler, with many historians suggesting that her marriage was not a happy one and that she therefore did not wish to allow Matignon to have any power. Sadly, having fought against her father and come into her own as Monaco’s Princess, Louise Hippolyte died of smallpox just 10 months into her reign.
“THE NEW PRINCESS OF MONACO DECLARED THAT SHE WOULD BE THE STATE’S SOLE RULER”