A ROYAL ROMANCE AT MONACO.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 2

A ROYAL ROMANCE AT MONACO.

(By Fe'lix Morton.)

A situation has arisen in the little principality of Monaco which has had no counterpart in Europe since the days of the Roman Emperors. The heiress to the princely throne is not even a remote connection of the ruling family of Grimaldi. She is the adopted daughter of the- new Prince. The late Prince Albert of Monaco married twice. His first wife was Lady Mary Hamilton, a sister of the late Duke of Hamilton. By her lie had one son. Prince Loins. That marriage was annulled by the Pope, and after a few years Prince Albert married again, his second wife being the Dowager Duchess de Richelieu, the widow of one of the oldest peers of France and the daughter of M. Heine, one of the wealthiest and most famous' of Parisian hankers. But this second matrimonial venture proved no more successful than the fir-t. It ended in a judicial separation. The Princess ■of Monaco —now to he known as Alice, Princess of Monaco — is a great lover of music and spends much of the year in England. .Shortly after the annulment of their marriage Prince Albert’s first wife married Prince Festetics. an immensely wealthy and powerful Hungarian magnate. and for a. second time became a Serene Highness. Until the debacle of the war, Princess Festetics was the leading figure in Hungarian society—then the mo-'t brilliant and exclusive in Europe. Now. like all the Hungarian magnates, the Festetics arc forced to live on their conn try estates and Budapest knows them, and the glittering world they gathered about them, no more. Vet Princess Festetics might have been called upon to make her curtesy to a King and Queen of Hungary, whose throne was supported, as her first husband had been supported, by tlm nrotils of the gaming tables of Monte Cairo! The Hungarians offered their crown to Prince George of Greece. The offer was refused, hut if it had been accepted the granddaughter of M. Rhine, who created Monte Carlo, would have been Queen of Hungary. The mother of Princess George of Greece was a daughter of M. Blanc. She married Prince Roland Bonaparte, ami Die large fortune Princess George of Greece now enjoys is derived entirely from her grandfather's interests in .Monte Carlo. The annual sum paid to the Prince of Monaco by Hie “Estahlissoment” at Monte Carlo in return for his concessions is enormous. Consequently Prince Louis, the new ruler of tin- little principality. is one of the richest men in Enrol)!'. Me is a bachelor, over ot). and very shv. hut, not too shy to lane adopted; a da lighter whom Ins father recognised. Wlien 'he married a cadet of the ancient Prench family of Polignac, Prince Albert created husband and wife Duke and. Duch<'ss of Valent.inois— one of the many titles held by the Prince of Monaco. This lady is the heiress-apparent to (he throne of Monaco, a fact which is only possible by the Princes of Monaco being free to make their own laws. Such a situation lias not been known m Europe since i he Roman Emperors appointed their adopted sons as t heir successors.