Grace of Monaco

by Robinson, Jeffrey

  Later, fashion designer Oscar de la Renta would say, “On her wedding day, Grace Kelly gave new meaning to the word icon. Her whole look, from the regal veil to the feminine lace details and the conservative gown, made her an ageless bride.”

  Protocol had it that she would wait at the altar for Rainier to arrive. The way the script was written, she was to wait there alone, but her father wouldn’t have it and Jack stood near by.

  As the story goes, during the rehearsal, Grace expressed some concern about a bride waiting at the altar for the groom to make his appearance. In the States, it’s always the other way around.

  Rainier is said to have joked, “Don’t wait more than half an hour.”

  That quip may or may not be true. But it sounds exactly like his sense of humor.

  In any case, she didn’t have to wait long. He joined her at the altar wearing a uniform he’d designed himself, based on the uniform of Napoleon’s marshals. The trousers were sky blue with a gold stripe down the sides. The jacket was black with gold oak leaves on the lapels and gold braid over his right shoulder.

  As they took their seats, he gave her a fleeting smile. Then the two of them looked straight ahead, unable to hide their nerves.

  The choir sang Bach’s “Uxor Tua” and Purcell’s “Alleluia.”

  There was an awkward moment as Rainier had trouble getting the ring on Grace’s finger—she had to help—and both were still so nervous that their vows were only loud enough for the Bishop to hear.

  He asked her in French if she took the prince to be her lawfully wedded husband, and she whispered, “Oui.”

  They kneeled and prayed, he gave them his blessing, and then it was over. The Bishop declared them man and wife.

  And now there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  As Rainier kissed his bride, the Cathedral’s bells rang out to signal that they were, in the eyes of God, one.

  Six hours of parades, receptions, and balcony appearances later—which included a ride through the streets of Monaco in the brand-new black and tan Rolls Royce convertible that was a gift from the citizens of Monaco—they boarded his boat and left for a one-month honeymoon cruise around the Mediterranean.

  They literally sailed off into the sunset.

  Hollywood couldn’t have ended the day better.

  Six thousand miles away, the show-business newspaper Variety announced the wedding with the headline, “Marriages—Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier III. Bride is film star, groom is non-pro.”

  Chapter 8

  Rainier Reminiscing

  Shortly after Grace and Rainier married, the couple bought a farm called Roc Agel in the French hills, 3,000 feet above the sea, overlooking the Principality of Monaco, a crab-shaped pocket that stretches no more than two miles along the eastern corner of the French Riviera, and never more than a few hundred yards inland.

  The property is not huge, but behind the always-guarded gates, and surrounded by the Prince’s trees, there’s a medium-sized, modern stone house at the end of a long asphalt driveway. There’s a swimming pool and three tiny cottages on the property, which he later turned into playrooms for his grandchildren. There are swings and a merry-go-round and a lot of dogs.

  Now, just after dawn, wearing slacks, a golf shirt, and a comfortable pair of old loafers, Rainier pointed out with great pride how he’d personally worked so much of the land here. “I put in about 400 trees here. I also made all the paths around the property. I drove the bulldozer myself.”

  The 26-year-old, dark-haired, dark-moustached, slightly awkward man who had ascended to his country’s throne in May 1949, had slipped into his latter years a handsome, self-assured man, whose hair and moustache were snow-white, but whose natural shyness was always evident, only barely hidden by a well-practiced reserve.

  “It’s very satisfying to do that,” he said, “to work with your hands. I have a workshop here where I can weld iron and metal or make things with bits of iron and bolts. It gets me away from reading official papers. That’s one of the reasons I don’t read a lot of books any more. After three or four hours a day of reading papers I just want to get away and do something manual.”

  There’s a fair-sized vegetable patch for lettuce and tomatoes and a large group of apricot, apple, cherry, and plum trees. He kept poultry for eggs and a couple of Jersey cows for fresh milk. For many years there were also four llamas, a hippopotamus named Pollux, and a rhinoceros he bought in England that was already called ­Margaret.

  “They both weigh about two tons. But you can go up to the rhino and walk around and she’ll follow you like a dog. The hippo is also quite domestic.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I love animals,” as if there could have been any doubt about someone who kept a rhino and a hippo at home. “I believe I understand them. When you show them you’re the boss, that you’re not afraid, that you mean them no harm, you can have a real communication with them.”

  Returning to Monaco from that trip to Africa with his “Rainier’s Ark” of animals, he installed them in the gardens below his Palace. When word got out about his collection, friends started giving him gifts to help it along. The King of Morocco sent a couple of lions and the King of Siam offered a small baby elephant, although the elephant quickly outgrew the place and Rainier had to give it to a safari park where they could keep it better.

  His collection became the Monaco Zoo. “I run it myself. It’s very popular because visitors can get as close as is safely possible to the animals. But these days there are so many safari parks, both good ones and bad ones, that people have gotten a little tired of zoos.”

  Even if the public had tired of zoos, he never did.

  In the mid-1980s, when he heard about a circus going bust and realized they had some good animals that had all been born in captivity, he couldn’t resist. “I bought an entire herd of big Manchurian camels, some dromedaries, an African buffalo, two guanacos and a couple of ponies. I had them delivered to Marchais, my family estate between Paris and Brussels, and put them out in the pasture with the cows.”

  That property, the Chateau de Marchais, lies at the foot of the Ardennes and is no less than six times the size of Monaco. It includes a pair of working farms and some very fine shooting. But as soon as the camels moved in, it became something of an unexpected local attraction.

  He grinned broadly. “It’s very funny to see people drive by in a car. I can almost hear the wife say, ‘Look at the camels over there,’ and the husband says, ‘What do you mean, camels?’ Then you hear the brakes jammed on and you see the car back up. Come to think of it, I guess it is a little strange to see camels grazing with cows in the French countryside.”

  In addition to animals, he was also fond of automobiles. “I have cars but I can’t say that I am a serious collector. If a car comes up in a sale and appeals to me because it’s a special model, I may buy it. I enjoy cars but I’m not terribly passionate about them. I’ve got cars ranging from a 1903 Dion up to a 1938 Packard eight cylinder.”

  By the time he’d acquired 45 cars, he couldn’t help but notice that the Palace garage was cramped for space. Instead of selling off some of the cars to make room, he asked the state for space to create a museum.

  “The cars are all in driving order,” he said, “but I’m not sure driving them is always a good idea. The Packard, for instance, is a very heavy car with no power steering. People must have been terribly strong in 1938. I drove the car for an afternoon and had to stay in bed for three days afterwards.”

  The 225-room Palace overlooking the Port of Monaco, with its small private apartments and large, formal halls was where Grace and Rainier and their three children had their official residence. But Roc Agel was where Mr. and Mrs. Grimaldi and their three children were often happiest to spend their time.

  The main house is a mixture of chintz and rustic. The living room is comfortable, with every sign of being lived in. There are bedrooms enough for their children and a few extra for grandchildren, too. The kitchen is modern, m
uch of it having been shipped from America when Grace complained that she didn’t see anything at all romantic about preparing meals in what was originally a typically cramped, badly equipped European kitchen.

  “Grace was pretty good at doing barbecues,” he said. “She also used to like to cook breakfast for the family.”

  While they always maintained a full household staff at Roc Agel, at the Palace, and at Marchais, too, Rainier occasionally showed his hand in the kitchen. “But only for fun. I’m not a great cook by any means although I can do a terrific crêpe suzette. I used to do pancakes with maple syrup in the morning for the children and was very good with Aunt Jemima mix.”

  For him, and for Grace, too, Roc Agel was where they could get away from phone calls and official appointments, and listen, uninterrupted, to music.

  “Grace loved classical music,” he said, “especially Bach, enjoyed opera and of course loved ballet. But she wasn’t very fond of Wagner. She liked jazz and so do I. Music has always played a role in our family life and there was always music playing. Grace would play music when she painted or pressed flowers. She even did gymnastics to music. And this, I’ll have you know, was long before Jane Fonda and aerobics.”

  As for himself, “I once tried to learn to play the saxophone but didn’t get very far because it’s a difficult instrument and especially painful for people around you while you’re learning. So I stopped that and took up the drums. I still sometimes play them for fun. I like music immensely although I’m by no means a great musician. I happen to love Tchaikovsky. I guess I’m a great fan of romantic music. On the other hand I’m not that fond of Mozart because I find it repetitious and I don’t like Wagner because it’s too clashy, too Teutonic. I don’t like any of the Wagnerian operas because I don’t like the sound of the voices. But I like Italian opera, which I think is the best.”

  Perhaps not surprisingly, Grace and Rainier at Roc Agel—but especially Rainier—were not the same people one saw in Monaco. When he was at the Palace, he was the prince. At Roc Agel, he was a husband, Grace was a wife, and together they were parents. Later, he would also be a grandfather.

  Throughout his life he’d maintained a certain reserve, was always a man very aware of his position and conscious of the image that went along with that. But when he was at Roc Agel he showed himself to be a simple man. It was only when you saw the difference that you could start to understand that his role was not an easy one.

  At the end of the 19th century, a play was written about one of Rainier’s ancestors, Prince Florestan. It was called Rabagas and was advertised as a political comedy. The most touching part of the piece is Florestan’s monologue on the weight of his responsibilities.

  “If I go for a walk, it is found that I have too much idle time. If I don’t go for a walk then I am afraid of showing myself. If I give a ball I am accused of wild extravagance. If I do not give a ball then I am mean and avaricious. If I hold a review I am attempting military intimidation. If I do not hold a review I am afraid I cannot trust the troops. When fireworks are let off on my birthday, I am wasting the people’s money. When I suppress the fireworks, then I do nothing for the people’s amusement. If I am in good health it is because I am idle and take no trouble over public matters. If I am in bad health, that is the result of debauchery. If I build, I am wasteful. If I do not build, then what about the working classes? Everything I do is proclaimed detestable and what I do not do gives even greater ­offence.”

  More than a century later, Rainier claimed, that speech touched close to home. “It’s as true today as it was then. It’s a very thin line to walk. And it took me quite some time to figure out where that line is because it’s not something you can just learn. You have to feel your way. My grandfather would say to me, ‘Don’t go to too many things. You must choose where to be seen, otherwise the Prince’s presence doesn’t means as much.’ But no one ever told me if ten events were too many or if five were not enough. In the beginning I had a tendency to go whenever I was asked, to shake hands, to give away cups and prizes, to be seen. It took awhile to know how much is the right amount. That’s something I’ve tried to teach my son, Albert, who will one day succeed me. He’s got to be seen around in the beginning and he should go to a lot of things. But then he must start choosing so that his participation, his presence, is something of value, something people will look forward to.”

  In other words, the job required a talent for aloofness. “At times I must be aloof because aloofness gains respect. Otherwise people see you everywhere and it doesn’t mean anything when you give your patronage to something. I’m not saying to my son that he shouldn’t walk around and be accessible, but part of my job and the job he will inherit from me is in learning where to draw the line between being accessible and being over familiar. That might not be a difficult thing to do for say, the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of England or even the Mayor of Paris. But it’s especially difficult here because the place is so very small.”

  Did that mean, he was asked, there’s no question of ever strolling out of the Palace in a pair of Bermudas and heading to a pizza joint at the port for a beer?

  He thought about that for a moment. “I guess nowadays I could but I wouldn’t be inclined to. Albert can. He’s younger and that’s more the trend these days. But he mustn’t do it every day. He goes out with friends and plays tennis at the Country Club and goes to the stadium to workout. That’s good. However he’ll have to draw the line when he succeeds because he can’t then have fellows coming up to him on the street saying, ‘Hey Al, let’s go jogging.’ The rules change when he becomes the sovereign. Nowadays it’s even more difficult than it was when I was his age. Sure, going down to the port for a pizza with some friends might be fun. But I’m very aware of the fact that, with the press as active as they are, a picture might be taken of me there and who knows what the caption under it will say.”

  Rank may have its privileges, he knew, but he’d learned the hard way that it never comes without a price. And this was, he said, a lesson that Albert had had to struggle with, too.

  He explained that when Albert was five or six, he was sitting with a group of children who were each in turn asked by an old lady, “What would you like to do when you grow up?” One little boy said he wanted to be a fireman and another said he wanted to be a policeman, the way children always answer that question. Then she turned to Albert and asked him. He answered, “I don’t have any choice.”

  Rainier shook his head. “I’m not sure he understood until now just what that really means. He’s discovering, as I did, that it’s not always easy knowing who to trust. Albert’s had to learn the hard way that some fellows who’ve been seen around with him were really only interested in what he could do for them. That it was a one-way street. Now he’s much wiser about that sort of thing and tries to find out who people are before he allows them to get close. He has to protect himself, especially here, again, because it’s so small. We live under a microscope.”

  GqH

  The Principality of Monaco is a city-state of 30,000 people. As only about 6,000 are actually Monegasque, it is unique as a country because the natives are so outnumbered by foreigners. The majority of those foreigners are French, with Italians, British, and Americans well accounted for. Altogether Monaco can boast residents from nearly 100 other countries.

  Less than half the size of New York’s Central Park, or just about the same as London’s Hyde Park, it was once described by Somerset Maugham as “a sunny spot for shady people” because its 480 acres were made famous by bright sunshine, mild winters, the most glamorous casino in the world, millionaires, movie stars, courtesans, wannabes, yachts, expensive restaurants, expensive hotels, expensive apartments, jewelry stores, banks, Formula One race cars, stamps, high-priced black tie suppers straight out of a Scott Fitzgerald novel, and no income tax.

  Monaco’s residents have the highest per capita net worth of any state in the world, plus the highest ratio of automobiles
: 30,000 people own more than 15,000 cars. There is no poverty to speak of, the state is extremely benevolent when any of its citizens suffer social problems, and the standard of living is, even by French Riviera criteria, impressive.

  Two-thirds of the way between city of Nice and the Italian market town of Ventimiglia, the principality is surrounded by France, the border is made of flowers. French is the official spoken language, although English and Italian are close runners-up. There’s a tongue called Monegasque, which sounds more like Italian than French, but the only time you ever really hear it these days—except in a local high school class—is at weddings. Still, the Monegasques are not French, and they staunchly defend their right never to become French.

  For nearly 2,000 years Le Rocher was ruled by a succession of peoples: Phoenicians, Ligurians, Romans, Barbarians, Saracens, the Counts of Provence, the Church, the Genoese, and the Ghib­ellines. Towards the end of the 13th century, the Grimaldis were just another clan of wealthy ship owners and merchants from Genoa. When the Guelphs went to war with the Ghibellines, the Grimaldis weighed in on the side of the Guelphs. But they were backing the wrong Godfather. The Ghibellines took the upper hand and the Grimaldis decided they would stay healthier if they were living somewhere else.

  They might well have been destined for historical obscurity as a family in exile except for the Grimaldi known as Francois “Le ­Malizia”—Frank the Spiteful. He wanted revenge. The Phoenicians and the Greeks had both constructed temples on a slice of rock jutting out to sea some 100 miles east of Genoa that came to be called Monoecus, after the local name for the god Heracles. But neither of them could hold onto it and by the year 1162, it had been claimed by the Ghibellines. They valued it so highly that they built an almost impenetrable, four-turreted, 37-sided, high-walled fortress there. Sitting above a tiny, natural harbor, the rock protected the eastern approach by land and sea to the Bay of Genoa.