Louis II of Monaco

Louis II of Monaco , born the July 12th 1870 with Baden-Baden and deceased the May 9th 1949 with Monaco, was the son of the reigning prince Albert I {{er}} and of Lady Mary Victoria Douglas Hamilton.

The reign of the Prince-Soldier

Louis II, called the prince soldier , assembles on the throne of the Principality of Monaco the June 26th 1922. Before this date, it served in the French Army , with the Foreign legion where it acquired the Major general rank of in 1939.

The behavior of the prince Louis II during the Second world war was very germanophile. By integrating the French Army in 1944, the young prince Rainier III of Monaco avoids with the Grimaldi family a charge of collaboration with the Nazis. It is only later that the truth will burst.

Louis II enriched the philatelic collection by Albert Ier, collection which is made up in a postal museum by Rainier III in 1950.

Its descent

He meets, in 1898, in an Algerian garrison town , Marie-Juliette Louvet, girl of modest peasants of the Pays of Caux, which exerted the trade of “ model for photograph of art ”. A natural girl, Charlotte Louise Juliette Louvet was born with Constantine from this relation; she was not recognized immediately. Louis II not having a legitimate child, the France worried that the title of reigning prince can one day fall to a German cousin, a prince of Wurtemberg, going down from the princess Florestine of Monaco duchess of Urach. In 1919, Raymond Poincaré, former lawyer of the princely family and president of the Council, convainquit Louis II to recognize Charlotte bus of the agreements made between the principality and France provided that in the event of transmission of the throne to Germans, Monaco would lose his sovereignty with the profit of France. Charlotte became Grimaldi, titrated " Mademoiselle" of Valentinois, and hereditary princess of Monaco.

Marriage

Louis fell in love with an actress who played the Eaglet with the theater of Monaco: Ghislaine Dommanget . Much young person than him, Victor Jeannequin, French Consul, note the May 12th 1942: the prince alone is in love. The old mistress of Louis is unsuitable with consumption. Here thus several years that prince Louis seeks elsewhere fresh flesh which claims its senile appetite, the age and the whiskey helping . It also worries about the financial aspect, for the prince, who until now, drew some by small more or less clean but sufficient financial speculations to counter a rather average way of life. What occur will when the pretty teeth of Ghislaine, will have more largely still bitten on the personal cassette (...)? . He married it in 1946. After the death of the prince, Ghislaine Dommanget, naturalized Monegasque lost his lawsuit against the Grimaldi family which showed it to waste the fortune of the prince Louis II. It did not give children to Louis II, and died in 1991 in Paris.

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