Following Princess Charlene of Monaco‘s lengthy stint in South Africa last year and a subsequent lawsuit alleging he fathered a child when dating the former Olympian, Prince Albert II and his wife Princess Charlene have been dogged by rumours of unhappiness and discontent. It seems that Charlene is still reportedly in a treatment facility recovering from ill health, missing family birthday celebrations and Saint Dévote’s Day, a religious holiday marking the feast day of the Patron Saint of Monaco on 27 January.
The House of Grimaldi has been claimed to be cursed: tradition has it that Prince Rainier I abducted a Flemish lady in the 13th century, and she retaliated by cursing him and his descendants. She is reported to have warned him: ‘Never will a Grimaldi find happiness in marriage.’ Considering the terrible early deaths of Princess Grace and her son-in-law, Stefano Casiraghi, as well as the divorces of her daughters, Princess Caroline and Princess Stéphanie, this appears to have been the case with several family members in the last century alone.
Charlene’s narrative shares similarities with another Princess of Monaco, who departed the principality owing to infidelity rather than sickness and waited nearly a decade to marry her husband. Alice Heine, an American heiress, is frequently referred to as the first American princess of Monaco (as well as the first absent princess of Monaco) having arrived decades before Grace Kelly, the famous Hollywood icon. We are bringing Princess Alice’s tale back into the spotlight after Charlene’s stint away from the principality for most of 2021 – there certainly are some similarities between the stories of these two princesses, that’s for sure.
Alice was born on February 10, 1858, in New Orleans, the daughter of a rich mother and a banker father, and grew up in the French Quarter associating with the upper crust of society. Following the American Civil War, the Heines became influential figures in the court of Napoleon III. Alice Heine was therefore granted a significant place on the 19th-century marriage market as a result of her parents’ prominence, marrying the seventh Duke of Richelieu a few weeks after her 17th birthday and becoming a member of the French nobility.
For a family of new money, the marriage represented a step up the social ladder. Unfortunately, tragedy struck, and Alice Heine’s marriage was abruptly ended. During a trip to Athens in 1875, the Duke of Richelieu died and Alice was a widowed mother of two small children at the young age of 22. Nonetheless, due to her wealth, she was able to immerse herself in European society, and while in Portugal, she met Albert, the future Prince of Monaco, and the two fell rather in love.
However, Albert’s father, Prince Charles III, did not accept the relationship, and the pair had to wait eight years until his death in 1889 before they could marry. She was immediately loved in the principality, not only because of her very evident love for the prince (who was a well-liked leader), but also because of her wealth, which injected some much-needed glitz and elegance into the old resort.
‘Prince Albert I was deeply in love with her,’ according to Thomas Fouilleron, director of the Monaco Palace Archives, who told the Monaco Tribute that this was ‘one of the very first love marriages of the Principality.’
Nevertheless, the pair did not have a fairytale ending, and within a decade, they were both having affairs. When they divorced in 1902, Alice relocated to London to seek solace in the city’s high society. Here she stayed in a suite at Claridge’s and became friendly with Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII.
Alice died in 1925. This was three years after Albert I just shy of a century before another outsider married into the House of Grimaldi for love and has seen her life turned upsidedown and particularly, her marriage thrown into the spotlight. Once more, this princess is compelled to spending much of her time outside of Monaco, often escaping to Grace Kelly’s Roc Agel or even returning to South Africa.
So is the Grimaldi family really cursed? You decide.