Monday 11 April 2005

On the Eve of Grace: The First American Princess of Monaco

The death of Prince Rainier III of Monaco – and consequent succession of Prince Albert II – on April 6^th has been lamented as the end of a royal fairy tale that began when Rainier married the American actress Grace Kelly in 1956. In reality, as long as the world was caught up in the idealization of that dramatic era, it was all but impossible to remember that the glory days of Monaco actually began more than 140 years ago and culminated in the reign of Prince Albert I of Monaco – the present Prince Albert’s great, great grandfather – and his consort, the first American princess of Monaco, Princess Alice.  

More than 65 years before Princess Grace captured the world’s attention and focused it on the Principality of Monaco, there was Marie Alice Heine. Unfortunately, in the shadow of Grace, the footprint Princess Alice left on both Monaco and history is largely overlooked, despite the fact that to discover her is to reveal a great many surprises. Not only was she the first American princess of Monaco, Alice was also the first American to marry a reigning sovereign and the first woman with a Jewish background to become the legitimate wife of a reigning sovereign. Beyond her role as princess of Monaco, she was a strong and independent woman who attracted the intellectual and social elite of her day at her famous Paris salon. But perhaps most significant to today’s scandal-percipient society, Alice gracefully withstood the embarrassment of a humiliating public row with her jealous husband and a subsequent marital separation, and forged ahead to become close friends with Britain’s Queen Alexandra and act as hostess of one of the most renowned salons in London. 

Like Grace, Alice was blonde, beautiful and came from a wealthy family. Her father, who had helped fund the Emperor Napoleon III’s war with Prussia, was undoubtedly one of the most important and powerful financiers in France. The German poet Heinrich Heine was her great uncle and she was also related to the famous German banker and financier Solomon Heine. Also like Grace, Alice brought far more to Monaco than the principality could have ever hoped for – including prominence, sophistication, culture and good society. Even more so in Alice’s day than in Grace’s, there’s little doubt that Alice brought more to Monaco than Monaco brought to her. By the time she married Prince Albert I of Monaco in 1889, she was a wealthy woman in her own right who carried an important French title as the dowager duchess of Richelieu.  

Monaco, on the other hand, had only recently gotten beyond being an insignificant backwater and one of the poorest states in Europe.  

Between 1815 and 1860, the principality had been a protectorate of Sardinia, barely scraping by until July 1860, when it became a protectorate of France. On February 2, 1861, during the reign of Albert’s father, Prince Charles III of Monaco, France and Monaco signed a treaty that formally recognized the independence of Monaco. In return, however, Monaco was forced to cede the towns of Menton and Roquebrune – lands that comprised 80 percent of its territory – to France in exchange for a payment of four million francs. Undoubtedly, the money came in handy for the bankrupt sovereign, but even he knew that it wouldn’t go far. For several years, the idea of transforming Monaco into a Mecca of state-run gambling had been promoted by Charles’ mother, Princess Caroline, and by late 1857 the Villa Bellevue casino had opened, although it experienced little success. 

Finally, in 1863, François Blanc, a Frenchman who had become wealthy running a successful casino in Bavaria, was given a 50-year concession to establish a casino and sea bathing in Monaco’s Spélugues district, which was renamed Monte Carlo (Mount Charles) in 1866 in honor of the prince. Under the agreement, Blanc bought out the owners of the Villa Bellevue and took over operation of the Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Étrangers à Monaco (the Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners’ Circle of Monaco), or SBM. In exchange for granting the concession, the prince was to receive 154,000 francs a year, plus 10 percent of the net profits, and 400 shares in the SBM.¹ Construction began immediately on the new casino, known to us today as the Monte Carlo Casino, following designs by architect Charles Garnier, who also designed the Paris Opera House.  

As the beautiful casino rose from the rocky Monte Carlo terrain, hotels, restaurants and shops all began to spring up around it, with each contributing to the increasing prosperity of Monaco and its royal family. When the railway line between Nice and Ventimiglia, which passed through Monaco, was completed in 1868, a prosperous future for the principality seemed to be ensured. By 1869, the casino was so successful that Charles abolished all forms of direct taxation on the citizens of Monaco. Not surprisingly, both Prince Charles and François Blanc are remembered for their efforts: Blanc earned the nickname “the Magician of Monte Carlo” and Charles is credited with creating the modern Monaco – albeit thanks to his mother’s influence. 

Around the same time Princess Caroline was guiding Prince Charles into manoeuvring the successful gambling venture, she was also busy arranging a marriage for her grandson, Charles’ heir, Albert. Born on November 13, 1848, Albert was the only child of Charles and his wife, Antoinette de Mèrode-Westerloo. By 1864, Antoinette had died of cancer and Charles was blind, leaving Caroline to manage the young prince’s life. As with all else, she was ambitious and wanted nothing more than to see Albert marry a member of the British royal family. In “The Grimaldis of Monaco,” Anne Edwards states that Caroline had tried to make a marital match between Albert and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, the cousin of Queen Victoria and future mother of Britain’s Queen Mary, but to no avail. The failure did not dissuade Caroline from her goal and it was to this end that she sought the help of the French Emperor Napoléon III (Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) and his wife, Empress Eugénie.  

Somehow, the emperor managed to convince Caroline that Queen Victoria was unlikely to allow one of her own to marry a Grimaldi, but nobly suggested Lady Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton, his second cousin and sister of his good friend the 12^th Duke of Hamilton, as a suitable alternative. As the daughter of the 11^th Duke of Hamilton, Mary may not have been royalty, but her family was sufficiently rich, well connected, and – best of all – was connected to the French royal family through her mother, Princess Marie Amelie of Baden, who was descended from Stephanie de Beauharnais - a cousin by marriage of Josephine Bonaparte and adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although Albert and Mary had never met, the marriage was duly arranged and the parties agreed to a dowry of 800,000 francs. The couple met for the first time in August 1869 at a ball hosted by the emperor and empress of France, and the wedding followed at the Château de Marchais (which is still in the possession of the Grimaldi family today) in Champagne on September 21, 1869.

The 21-year-old groom and the 18-year-old bride were both young, attractive and fashionable, so it was no real surprise when, just under a year later, on July 12, 1870, Mary gave birth to the requisite heir, Louis. As outwardly successful as the birth appeared, however, the fact was that Mary gave birth to Louis while in Baden-Baden, separated from her husband. The realities of married life and the couple’s incompatibilities, combined with Mary’s complaints that, due to problems regarding her dowry, she had been treated as a virtual prisoner in Monaco, led to Mary essentially “running away” from Monaco. To further complicate matters, she had settled in with her maternal relatives in Germany on the cusp of the Franco-Prussian war – a situation that placed the newlyweds on opposing sides of the conflict. For five years, Albert and Mary neither saw nor spoke to each other. Finally, in 1875, Mary asked Albert to have the marriage annulled; a process which was finally completed on July 28, 1880, although a special provision was made by the Vatican that allowed for their son Louis to remain legitimate.  

During her separation from Albert, Mary had fallen in love with Hungarian Count Tassilo Festetics von Tolna, whom she married, while pregnant with his child, on June 2, 1880 – almost two months prior to the dissolution of her marriage to Albert.² As for Albert, during his estrangement from Mary, he spent as much time as he could either indulging in his passion for oceanographic study and exploration, for which he became known as the “Navigator Prince” or the “Wise Prince,” or at the Paris salon of the widowed duchess of Richelieu, Alice Heine.  

Marie (or Mary) Alice Heine was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans on February 10, 1858,³ and was the second child of Michel (or Michael) and Amélie Heine. Michel was a German Jew who had immigrated to New Orleans in 1843. He and his brother, Armand, left Berlin in 1840, and settled for three years in Paris before making their way to the United States, where they started their own banking house, A&M Heine. Within ten years, the company was the most successful banking operation in New Orleans, and Michel’s position was such that he was able to marry Amélie Miltenberger, the daughter of a very wealthy first-generation German-American and his Creole wife, also of New Orleans. Shortly after their wedding, the young couple traveled to Paris to open a European branch of A&M Heine, and for years afterward they lived part of the year in Paris and part in New Orleans, alternating responsibilities for the businesses on each continent with Armand.  

The Heine brothers were as successful in France as they had been in America, and by 1863 A&M Heine was one of France’s most important banking houses. With the onset of the American Civil War, the family settled permanently in Paris, and Michel and Amélie became regulars at the court of Napoléon III. The emperor and empress became godparents to Alice and her older brother George, and A&M Heine lent the emperor a substantial sum of money in his fight against Prussia. After the emperor was defeated by the Prussians, Amélie, who was a close friend of the Empress Eugénie, was with the empress when she was forced to escape her palace in Paris for exile in England.  

Although Alice was born in the United States and was an American citizen, her unusual upbringing meant that she was in many ways as much European as American. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli in “Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy Tale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier,” Alice only returned to New Orleans twice in her life after her family settled permanently in Paris. And despite her strong German ancestry, Alice was “more inclined in style to Spanish than to German influences,” according to Anne Edwards in her book, “The Grimaldis of Monaco.” Edwards also describes Alice as, “A combination of her exotic mother and her pragmatic father, even in appearance, Alice spoke many languages – all fluently and all with a melodic American Southern accent…” 

When she was just 16, Alice was presented to Paris society, and it didn’t take long for the attractive blonde heiress to receive offers of marriage from among France’s society elite. On February 25, 1875, Alice married Armand Chapelle, 7^th Duke of Richelieu and Marquis de Jumilhac – a distant relative of the infamous 17^th century Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of King Louis XIII of France – in Paris, bringing with her a substantial dowry. Although she had been raised in the Jewish faith, Alice converted to Catholicism on her marriage to the duke. The couple settled at the duke’s country estate, the Château de Haut-Buisson, and had a son, who eventually became the 8^th and last duke of Richelieu, in 1875, and a daughter in 1879. When the duke died suddenly in 1880, he left Alice a reported 17 million francs, making her – once again – a very sought after young woman.   

The rich young widow spent most of her time at her Paris home in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where she presided over her popular intellectual salon, which attracted the likes of Marcel Proust and the “Wise Prince” himself, Prince Albert. As the heir to the Monegasque throne, Albert didn’t have a prescribed role and spent an increasing amount of time with Alice, who encouraged him to pursue his intellectual endeavors. As both Alice and Albert were considered highly eligible marriage material after 1880 and they shared a number of interests, it’s not surprising that they began an affair in 1885. According to Anne Edwards, Alice was “…initially drawn to Albert because of his adventurous spirit. Always ready to learn about subjects previously unknown to her, she found his knowledge of oceanography and his voyages off the coast of Africa interesting. He also had a certain masculine mystique about him, unlike the intellectual, artistic and sometimes effete men who were part of her set.”

The couple wanted to marry, but were unable to do so without the permission of Prince Charles, who neither liked that Alice held a salon in her home nor was overly enthused about her Jewish background. Nevertheless, the couple continued their affair and, on the death of Charles III on September 10, 1889, Albert succeeded to the Monegasque throne as Albert I. A little over a month later, on October 31, 1889, Alice and Albert married in a small, quiet ceremony in Paris. Her father provided Alice’s new husband with a reported dowry of $6 million – the equivalent of around $120 million today.

The new sovereign prince of Monaco must have been full of hope in early 1890 when he arrived in newly chic Monaco with a substantial amount of cash in his hands and a beautiful and agreeable consort on his arm. For her part, Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Monaco must have felt equally excited at the prospect of reigning over her new realm as successfully as she had reigned over her Parisian salon. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long for the couple to be haunted by the specter of the notorious “Grimaldi Curse,” which was purportedly placed on the family in the early days of the more than 700-year-old dynasty when a witch promised: “Never will a Grimaldi find happiness in marriage.” For Alice, the realization of this prophecy would come as a slap in the face.

That, and more, next time in Part II.

Until then, 

- Tori Van Orden Martínez

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¹ Today, the SBM still owns and operates all five of Monaco’s casinos, as well as a multitude of resort properties, restaurants, night clubs, shops, and a golf course, just to name a few. The modern day Grimaldis hold a 69.6 percent controlling share of the company. 

² Mary and Tassilo had one daughter, Maria, whose descendents include the late fashion designer (Prince) Egon von Fürstenberg – whose Belgian wife, Diane, popularized her signature wrap dress in the 1970s – and actress and jack-of-all trades, (Princess) Ira von Fürstenberg, who was periodically linked romantically to Prince Rainier after the death of Princess Grace. 

³ Today, Alice’s childhood home at 900 Rue Royale in New Orleans’ French Quarter, one of three interconnected townhouses built by her mother’s family in the 1830s, is an art gallery.