Monaco's crown prince kidnaps daughter

February 8, 1908

The Marquise de Fontenoy reports today on the scandal facing the Crown Prince of Monaco. The prince has been "remarkably successful of public scandal," us now facing a charge brought against him by a Mme Louvet, "to the effect that he has kidnapped their daughter." His father, Prince Albert, has said that he will not be "in any way responsible for the pecuniary obligations contracted by his son."
It seems that "seven or eight years ago" Prince Louis "married a woman of humble birth." As he knew that this marriage would not have the approval of his father, Louis continued to live in his father's mansion in the Avenue du Trocadero, and rented another flat for his wife and daughter in another area of Paris.

The mother was "left much to herself," and "eventually developed such characteristics as to lead to a complete severance of all save the financial relations between herself and the crown prince."

Despite the secrecy of his marriage, the crown prince realized that his daughter "had a claim to be considered his legitimate daughter, and as a princess of the blood, entitled in the case of his death without male issue to the eventual succession to the throne of Monaco." Louis decided that the little girl had to be removed from her mother's "pernicious surroundings" and have her brought up "in a manner befitting her future station in life."

Mme. Louvet refused to give up the child, so the crown prince "carried his daughter off one day in a carriage," and will not return to her to her mother.
The mother has found herself in a quandary as the crown prince, as a member of a reigning house of Europe, is "entitled to extra territorial privileges when abroad," and, thus, is exempt from the "jurisdiction of all French courts."

The Prince of Monaco had not known about his son's marriage, and regarded the arrangement as a "mere feminine entanglement of a temporary character." Now he is furious, and he is demanding that his son have the marriage annulled. He also wants his son to repudiate the woman and their daughter. Crown Prince Louis has refused to do this. He is willing to "secure a legal separation" but not a divorce as he is Roman Catholic. He also claims that "having married according to Roman Catholic rites, " his daughter is not morganatic, but "fully legitimate."
The crown prince has stated that there is nothing in the family statues or the Monegasque constitution that requires the permission of the sovereign for a prince to marry a woman who is bot royal.

Louis has pointed out that his own mother, Lady Mary Hamilton, was the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and his father's second wife was born Alice Heine in New Orleans. His grandmother was a Countess de Merode by birth, and the wife of Prince Florestan, the grandfather of the present Prince, was the daughter of a pork butcher.

Prince Louis is the only legitimate offspring of the reigning prince, and the throne will eventually devolve on the seven-year-old girl, Charlotte. Her father describes her as Princess Charlotte.

Prince Louis' parents marriage was annulled on the grounds that Lady Mary was forced to wed Prince Albert by her mother, a Princess of Baden, and her kinsman, Napoleon III, who gave the bride away at the wedding in 1869.
The annulment decree, which was confirmed by Monaco's civil courts, stipulated that the couple's only child "should be regarded as legitimate."

Mary took her son to Italy, where the Italian police, acting on behalf of Prince Albert, tried to take the child from her. Grand Duchess Helen of Russia came to Mary's rescue, and was able to frustrate the Florence police force in their attempt to bring the little prince back to Monaco. Louis's mother is the wife of Count Tassilo Festetics, grandmaster at the court of Hungary.