Louis II (Monaco)
Louis II of Monaco (actually Louis Honoré Charles Antoine Grimaldi ; * July 12, 1870 in Baden-Baden ; † May 9, 1949 in Monaco ), also known as Ludwig II in German , was from June 26, 1922 until his death ruling prince of Monaco. The official title of the prince was Son Altesse Sérénissime le Prince Louis II (German: His High Prince Highness Prince Ludwig II).
Louis was the son of Prince Albert I of Monaco (1848-1922) and Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton and the grandfather of Prince Rainier III. of Monaco (1923-2005).
Life
Prince Louis first grew up far away from the Monegasque court with his mother, who mostly stayed in Baden-Baden (her mother came from the family of the Grand Duke of Baden ). She had separated from her husband, then Hereditary Prince Albert of Monaco, shortly after the wedding , and their marriage was annulled in 1880 . Louis didn't meet his father until he was ten years old. Like his mother, he was a citizen of Baden and, even decades later, spoke German fluently and without an accent . During the Second World War he took a pro-German attitude.
At the age of twelve he was sent to a boarding school in Paris and graduated from high school in 1889, the year his father ascended the throne. In 1890 he joined the French Foreign Legion and met his longtime lover, the former laundress Marie-Juliette Louvet, in Algeria (in other sources her profession is given as a "cabaret singer" or a "variété dancer", while her stepmother was a laundress) ). Marie-Juliette Louvet had previously been married to a photographer for erotic images. The daughter Charlotte emerged from the relationship with Louis . Although Prince Albert I forbade his only son's improper marriage with Marie-Juliette, Louis was allowed to bring his daughter to Monaco and legitimized and adopted her on May 16, 1919 with the consent of his father and the French government, immediately after the First World War wanted to prevent a possible succession to the throne of the otherwise next relative entitled to inheritance, the German cavalry general Wilhelm Karl Herzog von Urach .
He completed his military career in the French army and was honored in the First World War . In 1922, a few months after his father's death, he was promoted to Brigadier General and ascended the Monegasque throne. At the beginning of his reign, the country struggled with economic difficulties, as World War I had severely reduced the casino's income . In addition, gambling was also allowed in France and Italy in 1933, which meant that Monaco lost its exclusive position. Louis therefore had the Monte Carlo casino privatized. The tax exemption at that time attracted numerous companies to locate to Monaco. It is not uncommon for corporate profits to migrate to the casino.
The time of the Nazi dictatorship was one of the blackest chapters in Monaco’s history, the official documents about it are largely kept under lock and key to this day. The prince's policy was determined by sympathy and naive indulgence towards Germany. Monaco partially extradited Jewish emigrants from Germany and Austria to the Vichy regime . These Jewish refugees were often destitute and did not fit into the picture of rich and sophisticated Monaco. Shortly before the beginning of the war, Louis suspended the constitution and ruled with sole power. Due to the economic crisis, there were repeated demonstrations, which he attributed to a foreign plot. Later he made an open pact with Germany because his Marchais Castle was located within the German zone of occupation in France and he wanted to prevent looting like the one that had occurred during World War I. The occupiers eventually allowed him to keep his movable possessions safe and even bought his German securities from him at an inflated price. Relations with National Socialist Germany improved as a result, and numerous German cover companies were founded in Monaco.
Louis transferred more and more state business to the seedy Prime Minister Emile Roblot, and the number of unclean business dealings in Monaco continued to grow. Soon, however, Roblot fell out with Louis' grandson, later Prince Rainier , also because of various intrigues that Roblot had launched against Rainier's father Pierre de Polignac with the Prince's consent, which also put a heavy strain on the relationship between Louis and Rainier. In order to prevent Rainier from becoming the ruling prince in the event of his death, Louis raised the age of majority to 21 and later even stipulated that the Regenier Council should act as Rainier's guardian until he was 30.
In 1944, Louis' granddaughter Antoinette, Rainier's sister, had an affair with a NCO of the German occupation troops . The prince was less concerned about the fact that he was a German than about the lack of a professional connection. The government council classified the relationship as a threat to the throne in the event of a German defeat. Louis finally managed to get the soldier transferred to the Russian front, where he fell towards the end of the war.
On September 3, 1944, the Second World War ended in Monaco. Prince Louis rejoined France politically. In 1946 he married the actress Ghislaine Dommanget , with whom he lived until his death.
literature
- Louis II. , In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 29/1949 of July 11, 1949, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
Web links
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Albert I. |
Prince of Monaco 1922–1949 |
Rainier III. |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Louis II |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grimaldi, Louis Honoré Charles Antoine |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prince of Monaco |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 12, 1870 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Baden-Baden |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 9, 1949 |
| Place of death | Monaco |