Cliopolitan: Prince Albert got married last weekend!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Prince Albert got married last weekend!

Ah, the principality--such a delightfully European invention, toy countries like Lichtenstein and Andorra, tiny fiefdoms and dukedoms. Monaco is my favorite, a beautiful bauble of a city-state, nestled against the seacliffs and redolent of Mediterranean glamour and mystery. Monaco is ruled by what has to be the most ridiculously good-looking royal* family in existence, all lustrous dark hair and long legs and full lips. The Grimaldis are less inbred than most royal families (and how! See The Prince and The Laundress, below) and their efforts to improve the princely gene pool has certainly borne impressive results.

Princess Caroline

Princess Stéphanie Even my autograph is sexy.

Charlotte Casiraghi, Caroline’s daughter, who somehow manages to be even MORE gorgeous than her mother.

The newest addition, Her Serene Highness Charlene, The Princess Consort of Monaco. Yep, another hideously unattractive Monagesque princess! You have to admire Prince Albert for taking one for the dynastic team with such a hag ;)

The men are more of a mixed bunch—Albert has lost some of his hairline but strongly resembles his beautiful mother, Princess Grace. (And is a multiple Olympic athlete to boot, which by definition makes him completely hot.) Albert's father, the late Prince Rainier, was not exactly an Adonis, but oozed suavity and Mediterranean charm. Luckily his grandsons are there to pick up any aesthetic slack.

Andrea and Pierre Casiraghi, the sons of Princess Caroline

And the romance! The marital history of the Grimaldis reads like an unpublished Anthony Hope novel by way of Harold Robbins. Rainier claimed the throne of Monaco through his mother, Princess Charlotte, the daughter of Prince Louis II. The Princess had actually been born illegitimate, however and the sleight of hand required to give her a title was borne of a succession crisis involving Monaco and its German cousins—no one wanted the throne to fall into German hands. Why, you may ask, didn't Prince Louis ever marry Charlotte's mother? Because his mistress was a laundress—a laundress! It’s all so deliciously 19th century.

Now any student of history recognizes that it is fairly common--encouraged, even--for princes to sow their wild oats and sire a few royal bastards**. It is, however, decidedly less common for their sisters to do likewise, but Princess Stéphanie*** has done her best to challenge this double-standard. Not only were all three of her children born out of wedlock, but she refused even to identify the father of her youngest! You have to admire that kind of cool indifference to propriety—“nice customs curtsy to great kings,” indeed.

Félicitations à Prince Albert II et son belle mariée, la Princesse Charlene!

*I'm using the term royal in the colloquial sense--correctly, the Grimaldis are not royal, they are princely (as the sovereign of Monaco is not a king, he is a prince).

**Prince Albert has two ( that we know of!)—Alexandre and Jazmin Grace, who is currently a student right here in New York City.

***I have a strong affection for Stéphanie and her complete lack of pretension. Running away to wait tables? Stooping to conquer with her bodyguards? And why does she get away with it? Because she’s a rock star. (Literally.)

1 comment:

Relax MaxJuly 18, 2011 at 7:28 PM
Interesting. Informative.

Delicious. :)
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Three cities in Italy...

Each had their unique charms—the decadent, serpentine beauty of Venice, infernal Naples with its buried poisons—but Rome, old, old Rome affected me the most. Walking along the banks of the Tiber up which sailed pirates and apostles and queens, standing atop Capitoline Hill and observing the Temple of Saturn where the ancients prayed, and the Coliseum where they died. Keats’s room overlooking the Spanish Steps, where he breathed his last. The ecstasy of Bernini’s fountains and plazas, culminating in the literal embrace of St. Peter’s Square. Every street was a poem dense with meaning, an opportunity to close my eyes and realize—those people were here. These are the stones upon which they walked, this is the air they breathed, the water they drank. We were here. We lived, loved, died here. We are just like you.

This is why I study history—to hear those voices from generations ago, millennia ago. People change so little; history teaches the same lessons again and again. The past illuminates the present. And the lessons are manifest in other disciplines; art, drama, literature, music, philosophy, all contribute to this continuum. A few years ago I performed the role of Helen in Trojan Women and in preparation I reread The Iliad. Afterward I thought—this work appeared 2800 years ago, and the story takes place some 500 years before that. And yet it could be told today. A wife runs off with another man. Young men are dazzled by the glamour of conquest. A father mourns his son. We were here.

As the title indicates, I write about history. But I can't ignore Clio's fellow Muses--Calliope, Melpomene, Thalia, their sister musicians. So--also poetry. And theater, and music. My favorite periods are the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance, and the American post-WWII era, but I also have a fondness for ancient civilizations.

I have a B.A. in English/music and am currently studying history at Columbia to prepare for grad school. Comments are welcome but I reserve the right to delete/ban trolls.