A tale of one principality

ONCE upon a time a beautiful Irish-American actress named Grace Patricia Kelly fell in love with His Most Serene Highness Prince Rainier III. The Grimaldi heir persuaded Grace to leave Hollywood for the world's oldest reigning dynasty. Photographers flocked to the Lilliputian principality of Monaco - also known as the Rock - to record the lives of the royal couple and their three children. They were supposed to live happily ever after.

They did, until Caroline, the eldest daughter, was photographed sunbathing topless on the yacht of a French playboy 17 years her senior. Grace and Rainier grudgingly gave in to Caroline's whim, and she paraded her bridegroom through the streets of Monaco with her long Dior gown trailing behind her. When the marriage went sour two years later, despite her strong Catholic beliefs, Princess Grace encouraged her daughter to divorce.

The enclave never recovered from the loss of Grace Kelly, who died in a car crash on the winding mountain road above Monaco in September 1982. At her funeral, Caroline's tear-stained face could be seen through her black veil. Rainier sobbed like a baby.

Grace was a saint, the inhabitants of the enclave still tell visitors; the Pope should canonise her, they say.

Caroline assumed the duties of first lady, and in 1983 married Stefano Casiraghi, a young Italian businessman. Because the Pope had not yet annulled her first marriage, the couple were married in a simple civil ceremony. They had three children, Andrea, Charlotte and Pierre, before Casiraghi was killed in a speedboat accident in October 1990. Once again, Caroline appeared grief-stricken before the world's cameras.

Grace and Rainier's headstrong youngest daughter Stephanie, now 31, was the problem child. The trauma of surviving the car crash that killed her mother left her unbalanced, the tabloids suggested. Stephanie started careers as a rock singer and fashion designer, but got bored. She went out with the sons of French movie stars, then fell for Daniel Ducruet, a divorced palace bodyguard who had already fathered an illegitimate child. Stephanie had two children with Ducruet before Prince Rainier finally consented to their marriage in 1995.

Last August, a photographer hiding in a bush filmed Ducruet making love to Miss Nude Belgium next to a Monaco swimming pool. The images, sold to Italian and Spanish magazines, were so explicit that even the French tabloids refused to publish them.

Stephanie was reportedly willing to forgive Ducruet, but Rainier wouldn't hear of it. The divorce was finalised within weeks.

Caroline's hair fell out - apparently from the stress of her sister's scandal - and she launched a new fad in baseball caps and turbans. When the Grimaldi family repaired to Jamaica over New Year, "Caro" and "Steph" - as the sisters are known in France - mended their lapsed friendship. Caroline will be 40 on January 23rd.

Prince Albert (38) seems almost dull compared to his sisters. Athletic but shy, awkward and balding, Albert's public appearances with supermodel Claudia Schiffer and other beauties inspire speculation but lead nowhere. Ahead of their time, the Grimaldis accepted female succession at the beginning of the 18th century, so the family is not in danger of extinction. But Monegasques are impatient for Albert to settle down. "Life will not be easy for my future wife," he told Le Figaro recently. "I became accustomed at an early age to the incessant presence of photographers. Some of my girlfriends who have been exposed, even for a very brief time, to this sort of life were not at all pleased. This is one of the reasons I am not in a serious relationship at this time."

The principality's 29,972 inhabitants (of whom only 6,617 enjoy Monegasque citizenship) are also wondering when 73-year-old Rainier, who underwent heart surgery two years ago, will abdicate in favour of Albert.

With an annual family allowance of £12 million, running the House of Grimaldi is no small task. Albert is in charge of this year's 700th anniversary celebrations which began last Wednesday with a Mass given by Pope John Paul II's assistant Monsignor Jean-Louis Tauran. Mgr Tauran's sermon about "this Rock which shines in the eyes of the world" sounded like a morality lecture. "Princes have more duties than rights, compared to other men," he said. "The greater they are, the more they must give great examples."

The Grimaldi's motto is Deo Juvante (With God's Help) and the family's origins are rooted in Church history. Thirteenth century Italy was divided into two parties, the Guelphs, who supported the Pope, and the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor.

Because the Grimaldis were Guelphs, they were expelled from their home in Genoa. On the night of January 8th, 1297, Francois - nicknamed "the mischievous" - Grimaldi disguised himself as a Franciscan monk and knocked at the door of the Monaco fortress. When the door opened, he and his men pulled swords from under their cassocks and massacred the castle's Ghibelline inhabitants.

TO this day, the family seal celebrates the bloodbath by depicting two monks bearing swords. As part of the anniversary celebrations, a bronze statue of Francois Grimaldi in monk's costume was unveiled in the public square between the royal palace and the cathedral on Wednesday.

The Grimaldis shrewdly charged a tax on ships passing through their waters. To encourage travellers to remain in their small enclave, they exempted residents from tax as early as the 14th century. The tradition continues today, although the late President Charles de Gaulle insisted French inhabitants of Monaco pay French tax.

It was Charles III who, in 1856, first realised the potential of the roulette wheel. He built casinos and luxury hotels, turning Monaco into a watering-hole for the aristocracy of Europe.

Charles's son Albert I distinguished himself by coming to the defence of Captain Dreyfus, the French Jewish officer whose unjust trial became a cause celebre.

But sex scandals were even then not far away. Albert's son Louis - the grandfather of the present Prince Rainier - started an affair with Juliette, the daughter of a French laundress, while serving with the French foreign legion. Establishing a family tradition, the turn-of-the century Grimaldis refused to allow the couple to marry and Juliette bore an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, whom Louis raised in the palace. He remained single, but legitimised Charlotte and in 1920 gave her in marriage to the French Count Pierre de Polignac, the father of Prince Rainier and the grandfather of Caroline, Albert and Stephanie.

Perhaps infusions of commoners blood account for the Grimaldis vitality and longevity. Under the watchful eye of a French-appointed prime minister, Monaco is coping with economic crisis. (Casino croupiers even had to accept a cut in wages, from £6,000 to £3,600 per month!) The government has run a slight deficit for the past two years to finance Prince Rainier's pet construction projects - a business conference centre and an enlarged port for cruise ships. But despite momentary difficulties, the principality with its slot machines, off-shore companies and 43 banks still has an annual turnover of £4.82 billion. So the Monegasques could still live wealthily ever after.