Princess Antoinette of Monaco

Here is a biography of the late Baroness de Massy who was Prince Rainier's only sibling

Antoinette Grimaldi was a Princess of Monaco and a Countess of Polignac by birth. Upon her first of three marriages, she became Baroness—in French, Baronne—de Massy. She lived for 90 years. Hers was a colorful life, full of intrigue. She was a bold figure, despite her diminutive size. But the princess, affectionately known as “Tiny” throughout her life, had a big heart and was very sensitive. A great supporter of the arts, and a lover of animals, she also promoted alternative and complementary medicine. The twice-divorced mother of three, who was predeceased by one child, left behind six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her brother, Prince Rainier III, was left a widower after Princess Grace's death in September 1982. Exactly one year later, Princess Antoinette also became a widow. That was her last marriage, but far from her last act.

The last time we saw her was in January 2011. Pushed along into the Cafe de Paris in Monte-Carlo, amid her grown-up children and grandchildren, the nonagenarian matriarch of the House of Grimaldi was the very picture of smiles and health. Yes, indeed, in the wheelchair, she seemed happy and comfortable. Her daughter, Baroness Elisabeth-Anne de Massy, and her niece, Princess Caroline de Hanovre, freshly-tanned from holidays in Brazil, presided over the luncheon that was organized by the Monegasque women's club in celebration of her 90th birthday. Princess Antoinette Louise Alberte Suzanne Grimaldi had actually turned 90 on 28 December 2010. Certainly, with full hearts, the ladies all seemed to celebrate as if keenly aware that it might be her last.

What awaited her at home, her modest villa in Eze-sur-Mer, with its small swimming pool and set on a cliff overlooking the sea? Her dogs and cats, for starters. Bertie was a Hungarian Vizsla, one of her favorite canine breeds. She loved this breed so much that she joined and became the royal patron (“marraine,” or godmother, as they say in Monaco) of the Hungarian Vizsla Club, one of only two reputable Hungarian Vizsla breeder groups in the world. The website warns visitors of many disreputable clubs who look genuine, but are in fact causing serious harm to the breed itself by overbreeding and careless breeding standards.¹

I am looking at a photo of the Princess at her home in Eze-sur-Mer in April 2001, wearing a Basset Hound tee shirt and jumpsuit.² She stands in front of an old couch on which sits none other than Winnie the Pooh! The bookshelves and tabletops around her are cluttered beyond imaginings with photo albums, framed family snapshots, trinkets, and candles. Did her house always look like that or was it arranged like that by the press crew to exhibit her sentimental treasures? What was the purpose of this press crew being invited into her personal sanctuary? It was ten years before her demise, almost to the day. The Princess was 80. Rainier III, her brother three years younger, was still alive. On the surface, by that point, the siblings' relationship looked cordial, even friendly. Rainier and Antoinette, the only children of a broken marriage of a time before broken marriages were the norm, had at last reached the twilight of life.

Much is written about the son, not so much about the daughter, of the eccentric humanitarian Princess Charlotte and Prince Pierre, née de Polignac. About the early life of Antoinette Louise Alberte Suzanne Grimaldi, we have been told little beyond that she was born in Paris and educated at home—unlike her brother, who was sent to boarding schools abroad. There is one Grimaldi biographer who paints a vivid picture of Antoinette's youth. It's a sad picture, and arguable. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairy-Tale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier, drew a pitiful comparison between the sister and the wife of Rainier. In Taraborrelli's picture, Antoinette and Grace were both products of overly critical and cruel mothering which rendered them incurably insecure, and from which there was only one saving grace for Grace (the creative outlet of acting) and not a one for (in his telling) poor resentful Antoinette. Pity, says Taraborrelli, that the sisters-in-law never found solace in their common suffering. Instead, as his telling implies, there was little besides resentment and bitterness between them. Be that as it may, it is not the job of this work to quarrel with the established biographers or to get to the truth of Antoinette's relationship with the former Grace Patricia Kelly, or anyone else for that matter. Yet how can it be true that Antoinette didn't have an outlet for her pain, or that her mother, so compassionate of the ex-convicts coming through her château, was really such a monster?

Princess Antoinette died overnight at Monte-Carlo's Princess Grace Hospital, almost to the day of her parents' marriage in March 1920. That marriage, like so many aspects of Antoinette's entire life, was carefully crafted for dynastic objectives. Antoinette's mother, Charlotte Louise Juliette Louvet Grimaldi, daughter of Monaco's sovereign Louis II and a cabaret singer, married by political arrangement into the very aristocratic Polignac family. Prince Louis was certainly the father of Princess Charlotte, but his marriage to her mother being illegitimate, it was expedient for him to adopt her. Thus cloaked in the trappings of the Grimaldi dynasty, Charlotte became his heiress. This was the means by which Prince Louis II cunningly thwarted the claim to the throne of his German cousin, Prince Wilhelm Karl of Urach—a very undesirable prospect for the principality in an age of widespread anti-German sentiment.

Charlotte became pregnant with Antoinette almost immediately. Nine months after the marriage between Charlotte and Pierre (who changed his name to Grimaldi and was promoted from Count to Prince) the heiress gave birth to an heiress! A photograph from about the time of Antoinette's birth shows the baby in the hands of her great-grandfather, Prince Albert I de Monaco. One of her names was Alberte.

Antoinette was two and a half years old when she gained her one and only sibling. Antoinette's birth had signaled continuity for the Principality. But Rainier's birth—the birth of a boy whose name could never change—strengthened it. The boy came on 21 May 1923, one year after Louis II succeeded Albert I as the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. Many Grimaldi biographers have said that Antoinette was jealous of the little upstart, that she even resented him, merely for being a boy. A baby sister would not have supplanted her in the line of succession. But Antoinette's reaction to having a newborn baby brother might have been like many two-year-old's reactions to such an event—temperamental, selfish, and jealous of supplanted affections, whether real or imagined.

Fast forward: Prince Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi has come through his first Christmas. Prince Pierre holds his son, who seems to want to crawl over him.³ Princess Charlotte slouches only a bit, but is dressed in the style of a flapper, cute and fashionable for the time. The sovereign, Louis II, looks content as he holds onto his granddaughter, perched between his knees. The little girl looks bored to tears waiting for the photograph to be captured.

Prince Pierre and Princess Charlotte were legally separated in 1930, but many biographers claim that they had already been leading separate lives from the day of their marriage. In February 1933, they were finally divorced. There was a bitter battle over the custody of the children. Charlotte won, to no one's surprise. Prince Louis took Pierre to court in England for taking Rainier out of England, where he was at school, and obtained a court order banning the father from taking his own son outside of the UK during school holidays.⁴

Divorced parents, distant and self-absorbed; nannies and governesses skulking around; brother at boarding school.... What was Antoinette's relationship with her parents? Her son, the Baron Christian Louis de Massy, claimed in his 1980s memoir that it was not close or affectionate. If we believe Christian's vengeful book, then Antoinette was a lonely kid who never did anything moderately. When she ate, she ate large portions. She'd gain weight, didn't like it, and so dieted until she was bone thin. Furthermore, the son's picture portrays a tempestuous little rascal who called her governesses idiots.⁵

Yet her childhood certainly had its advantages. In a decade that for many was an economically depressed period, Antoinette was having ballet lessons, piano lessons, and was learning to play tennis by the world champion of the sport, Martin Plas. And she was doing all this in multiple homes—a Paris apartment, a chateau in the country, and grandpa's palace in Monaco.

How do her friends recall her?

Nicole Manzone-Saquet, advocate for the rights of women and LGBTQ: “Always young…. and very mischievous….”⁶

Bernard Spindler, a Monegasque sports writer/director/broadcaster, described the Princess as an “infinitely jovial woman, with a very caustic humor, who also loved to provoke….” He gives the example of her tendency to suddenly break out in song in the middle of dinner!⁷

What little details can we gather from pictures?

• Antoinette and Rainier had a canine friend, a black Labrador who was a puppy at the time of the boy's birth.

• Antoinette had a scooter.

• By about age three, Rainier was wearing his own Carabinier uniform (from the princely Compagnie des Carabiniers de Monaco), complete with cape, trumpet, and plumed helmet.

• For Monaco National Day, Rainier wore his uniform and Antoinette wore a curly wig of the pre-French Revolution fashion. The girl also wore a brooch that probably weighed more than she did.

But brooches were the least of the little girl's troubles. There is an intriguing story from the World War II years when Monaco was occupied by German troops. Apparently, Antoinette fell madly in love with one of the occupying lieutenants, whose name was Winter. As the story goes, she wanted to marry the officer, but her grandfather, Louis II, put his foot down.⁸

During the Second World War, when she was 21, she and her brother united to remove Monegasque children to safe holiday settlements in the Swiss Alps. Ten-year-old Jean-Joseph Pastor was one of the children removed to the Alpine city of Veyrier. He remembers it as a happy time. Despite the war, and thanks to the Grimaldi siblings, he and the other children were safe to accumulate “fabulous memories”⁹ of eating chocolate, playing ping pong, and singing in a choir. Antoinette fixed herself in the boy’s heart when she paid a personal visit to this beautiful sanctuary. As an adult, Pastor recalled for the writer Milena Radoman how a very mother-like Princess came among them to teach them church hymns. Jean-Joseph Pastor got to know her very well. She took a special interest in his education. She contributed to his tuition at a private school in Monaco. Pastor says that if he is successful today, it is owing to Princess Antoinette.¹⁰ Pastor also echoes the idea of writer Bernard Spindler. Antoinette, Spindler says, was the opposite of a conformist. She was a provocateur. She looked for challenges, not for complacence. She sought honesty and truth, not fine words.

Fast forward again: Rainier’s 21st birthday. Prince Louis, well into his seventh decade, felt he must resolve the succession question. In a symbolic gesture of support for the future sovereign, Rainier's mother and sister formally relinquished their claims to the throne, just one day before his 21st birthday. It hardly mattered to Antoinette. Her brother was already ahead of her in the line of succession, just by virtue of being a boy. Besides, Antoinette was in love again, and we all know what preoccupies a young girl in love! According to her son, Christian, she could never do anything by halves! This time, the love of her life was Alexandre-Athenase “Aleco” Noghes, a Monegasque of Spanish descent. The Noghes family are an integral part of Monegasque history as far back as the 17th century. Aleco's grandfather founded the Automobile Club of Monaco during the reign of Albert I, and his father, Antony, organized the first Grand Prix in 1929. There was no Grand Prix in 1947, which was the year of the birth of the couple’s first child, Elisabeth-Anne.

Antoinette and Aleco Noghes had a son named Christian Louis in 1949, shortly before the death of Louis II. Another daughter, named Christine Alix, was born in 1951. Several months after Christine's birth, the parents finally decided to marry each other, thereby legitimizing their children. Prince Rainier III conferred the title of Baron de Massy on Noghes. Antoinette, the first Grimaldi princess ever to marry a Monegasque, continued to use the title after the divorce in June 1954, and her two surviving children, Elisabeth-Anne and Christian, perpetuate it. The practice of children claiming their parents' titles is not uncommon in Monaco. Prince Rainier and Princess Antoinette both claimed their father's title, Count/Countess de Polignac. Their mother's title, the Dukedom of Valentinois, being the traditional title for the heir to the throne in Monaco, was continued only by Rainier III, and eventually passed on to his heir apparent, Prince Albert—later the Sovereign Albert II. The Polignac title is carried on today by Princess Stephanie, sister of Albert II, who is style as Princesse de Monaco et la Comtesse de Polignac.

Until Rainier's marriage in April 1956, Antoinette was the "first lady" of Monaco. No longer an heiress to the throne herself, she nevertheless harbored regal ambitions for her son, Christian Louis. These ambitions were disappointed by the births of her niece and nephew, Princess Caroline and Prince Albert, in the years immediately after the princely marriage between Rainier and Grace. There are many accounts which claim that most of Rainier's family, most notably his mother and sister, were hostile to Princess Grace. Taraborrelli claims in his book that Princess Charlotte's disdain for the newcomer was at least partly founded on Prince Pierre's approval of the actress. According to him, when Charlotte discovered that her ex-husband liked Grace, she immediately decided that she disliked her son's bride.

In 1961, Antoinette married for the second time, this time to the Monegasque politician Jean-Charles Rey. Rey was a member of Monaco’s legislative body, the National Council. The couple lived together with her children in Eze. They also had accommodations at the Palace until Rainier and Grace suspected the couple of conspiring to overthrow him. Rey was fired from the National Council and he and Antoinette and the children were banned from ever setting foot in the Palace again.

The ban did not last. Eventually, Rainier reconciled with his sister. He even restored Rey to the National Council. At first, the reconciliation might have been more for the sake of appearances than genuine forgiveness, but their relationship did genuinely seem to improve over time. By 1965, the relationship was cordial enough that Princess Antoinette's 18-year-old daughter, Elisabeth-Anne, was invited to be the godmother of Princess Stéphanie. Elisabeth-Anne herself, born in 1947, barely more than ten years before Rainier married Grace Kelly, is coincidentally named like Grace's sister, Elizabeth Anne "Lizanne" Kelly Levine.

Antoinette’s marriage to Rey ended in divorce in 1974. But if Antoinette was no longer instigating trouble, her son Christian was picking up the slack. In the 60s, Christian was expelled from Institut Le Rosey, his Swiss boarding school where his uncle Rainier had also been educated. Christian finished his secondary education at an all-boys’ Catholic school in Somerset, England; he got into Cambridge, but dropped out because the workload interfered with his social life; he wrecked his Alfa Romeo; and he was even jailed after a bar brawl. He ended up getting married in Buenos Aires. The marriage lasted about seven years and produced a daughter—Laeticia de Massy, born 1971. In the 80s, just within days of Princess Grace's death, he married a Norwegian model. He decided he wanted to be a Formula 1 racing driver. In his tell-all book, published in 1987, he called his uncle an "autocrat" for shattering that dream. Yet he denied writing the book “as an act of revenge” and suggested that, if that were true, the book would have been 20,000 pages of “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.”¹¹

I don't want to focus too much on the children and forget the mother, but it is interesting that Christian was sent at different times to Africa and South America in the family's attempt to make him be serious, or at least put distance between his misconduct and Monaco's reputation. Christian, who often comes across as having a distressingly inflated sense of self-entitlement, once said: “I lost everything. They took everything away from me.” At the age of 37, he reflected: “Life in Monaco was easy. I never worked in my life. And although I never had a lot of money in my pocket, I lived like a king.”¹²

The daughters of Antoinette were much quieter. Elisabeth-Anne was married for six years (from 1974 to 1980) to a descendent of grand dukes, by whom she had a son named Jean-Léonard. Prince Albert is that son's godfather. Elisabeth-Anne married a second time (to choreographer Nikolai de Lusignan, of the Rotterdam Dance Academy) and had a daughter named Mélanie-Antoinette, born in Monaco in 1985.¹³

Tragically, Elisabeth-Anne's sister, Christine Alix, died from cancer on 15 February 1989. Christine's Philadelphia-born son, and only child, Sébastien Knecht de Massy, was 17 when she died. Ten years later, he married Donatella Dugaginy and they have four daughters. Christine-Alix had married secondly Leon Leroy, without issue, barely more than a year before she died.¹⁴ “Christine’s death was a big shock [to all her family and friends], a nightmare,” says family friend René Philippe Halm in an interview with Milena Radoman.¹⁵

Princess Antoinette was the widow of John Gilpin, a retired ballet dancer who had a star career with the London Ballet until his injury in 1976. Gilpin, her blond blue-eyed “angel,” married her in September 1983 and he had a heart attack and died five weeks later. This was exactly one year after the death of Princess Grace. It was also the year that Princess Antoinette founded the Monaco International Talks about complementary and alternative medicine, a subject of great interest also to King Charles of the UK. The aforementioned Professor Halm, who was close to both Antoinette and her daughters, worked with the Princess on the issue of alternative medicines. He confirms what most others who knew her well say: that she was a non-conformist, with non-traditional, sometimes unorthodox,  and often forward-thinking ideas.¹⁶

Princess Antoinette honored her late husband's legacy with the John Gilpin Scholarship Award for students of the Princess Grace Academy of Classical Dance. She had taken over the presidency of the Academy after the death of the sister-in-law she allegedly hated. The fact is that Grace and Antoinette did have much in common. For instance, they shared an appreciation for stage acting. Antoinette was for a time president of the World Festival of Amateur Theatre. Princess Antoinette ceded her presidency to her niece Princess Caroline, but remained as the chair of the festival's honorary committee until her death.

Princess Antoinette is perhaps best known as a great lover, protector, and breeder of dogs. She was the lifelong president of Monaco's society for the protection of animals. She was the patroness of the Hungarian Vizsla and the Scottish Kennel Club. She was lady patroness of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, another organization in the UK that provides shelter and finds homes for stray dogs and cats. Under her presidency, Monaco's Kennel Club organized the International Dog Show.

Immediately after her death, the Palace issued a communiqué, recalling this central aspect of her public work:

“Very involved in the defense of animals, she presided over, among others, the Society for the Protection of Animals of Monaco.”¹⁷

One last quote, more intimate and from her close friend, Professor Halm:

“The Princess Antoinette was absolutely not worldly. She was a real, authentic person, outside the world of sequins and not at all looking for media. She had 25 dogs at the house, so many cats. She had even recruited two veterinary nurses to be there 24 hours a day. She also had an extraordinary sense of humor.”¹⁸

On 24 March 2011, Princess Antoinette was laid to rest alongside her father in Monaco’s Chapelle de la Paix. Stefano Casiraghi, husband of Princess Caroline, is also buried in this chapel. Its name translates to Chapel of the Peace. Antoinette Louise Alberte Suzanne is literally resting in peace.

Recommended Further Reading (see also the footnotes):

Delorme, Philippe. “Antoinette Grimaldi, baronne de Massy: Une Princesse Libre,” Point du Vue, March 2011, Issue #3270.

Glatt, John. The Royal House of Monaco: Dynasty of Glamour, Tragedy, and Scandal, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

1. Hungarian Vizsla Club. Accessed November 21, 2016. http://www.hungarianvizslaclub.org.uk/.

2. Photograph © 2001 Alain Benainous/Getty Images, Editorial # 108379646.

3. Photograph © 1924 Alain Benainous/Getty Images, Editorial # 108379649.

4. J. Randy. Taraborrelli, Once upon a Time: The Story of Princess Grace, Prince Rainier and Their Family (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 2003).

5. Christian De Massy and Charles Higham, Palace: My Life in the Royal Family of Monaco (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1986).

6. Bonarrigo, Sabrina. “L’adieu à l’aîne des Grimaldi. Monaco Hebdo. 30 March 2011. ” https://web.archive.org/web/20120628125835/http://www.monacohebdo.mc/4962-l’adieu-a-l’ainee-des-grimaldi.

7. Bonarrigo.

8. Sarah Bradford, Princess Grace (New York: Stein and Day, 1984).

9. Radoman, Milena. “Ma marraine de cœur.” Monaco Hebdo, accessed 21 November 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20120628125835/http://www.monacohebdo.mc/4962-l’adieu-a-l’ainee-des-grimaldi.

10. Radoman.

11. Keith Tuber, "Life in a Palace," Orange Coast Magazine, April 1987, accessed 21 November 2016, https://books.google.com/books?id=LGEEAAAAMBAJ&dq=Baron Christian de Massy&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

12. Tuber.

13. Mad for Monaco blog: http://madmonaco.blogspot.com/2009/08/elizabeth-anne-de-massy.html

14. Monaco, accessed 21 November 2016, http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/gotha/monaco.html.

15. Radoman.

16. Radoman.

17. Mathieu, Clément. “Monaco en deuil. La princesse Antoinette nous a quittés.” Paris Match, 18 March 2011, accessed 21 November 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20171201184047/http://www.parismatch.com/Royal-Blog/Monaco/Monaco-La-princesse-Antoinette-est-decedee-Albert-Charlene-Caroline-n-iront-pas-au-bal-de-la-Rose-165661

18. Radoman.