Charlene of Monaco: this other little-known princess who fled the Rock before her
Absent from the Rock for 2 months, Charlene of Monaco is not the first princess to have fled the principality. Tatler recalls the fate of another fugitive: Princess Alice, wife of Albert I, great-great-grandfather of Albert II. For the magazine, the coincidences are more than disturbing…
Does History repeat itself? Is there a curse in Monaco? In any case, for the site of the magazine Tatler, the coincidences are disturbing. While some hope a return of princess Charlene, treated abroad since mid-November, for Sainte-Dévote, Monegasque patron saint reported in the principality on January 26 and 27, the bible of the European elite recalls the fate of Princess Alice of Monaco, “whose life echoes” to that of the wife of Albert II.
Fascinating character that this highness forgotten by the general public, it is true. Born Alice Heine in New Orleans in the mid-19th century, she was not only the first American, long before Grace Kelly courted by Rainier III, and a stranger, like Charlene, South African swimmer extricated from her pools by Albert II, to reign over the Rock. Princess Alice was the wife of Albert 1st, great-great-grandfather of the current sovereign who, like his ancestor nicknamed “the learned prince” we “The Explorer Prince”, campaigns for the protection of the environment and that of the oceans in particular.
A love marriage that explodes after 10 years, without a divorce ever being pronounced
Widow of the Duke of Richelieu, Princess Alice had to wait – like Charlene – more than 10 years before being married by Albert 1er, whose father Charles III disapproved of the inconstancy of love. Before meeting Alice the American, the ancestor of Albert II was actually married to the Scottish Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton. Unhappy union which he will obtain the annulment in 1880, as Princess Caroline would obtain the annulment of her marriage with Philippe Junot, some 200 years later. Marriage which however produces an heir, Prince Louis II recognized by his father, 10 years after his birth. Thus, like Charlene, whose relations with Jazmin Grace and Alexandre, elders of Albert II, intriguing, Alice Heine has become Monegasque princess and mother-in-law at the same time, by marrying Albert 1er.
Passionate about the arts, Princess Alice contributed to the creation of the Ballets de Monaco and, more broadly, to the development of cultural life on the Rock. For ten years. At the dawn of the 1900s, the princess got tired of Albert 1er’s expeditions. As pointed out Tatler, these are not only learned. As they embodied “one of the first real love marriages in the principality”, Princess Alice and the Sovereign do not share the same interests, they take comfort in other arms. In 1902, the wife of Albert I left Monaco for the United Kingdom, without divorce from her prince. She died far from the principality, in Paris, in 1925, 3 years after the great-great-grandfather of Albert II…
Photo credits: Claudia Albuquerque / Bestimage