[May 9] Louis II, prince of Monaco

True Name: Louis Honoré Charles Antoine
Parents: Albert I, prince of Monaco, and Mary Victoria Hamilton

Date of Birth: 12 July 1870

House: Grimaldi
Spouse: Ghislaine, daughter of Robert Dommanget and Marie Louise Meunier

Predecessor: Albert I

Reign: 1922 – 1949

Summary: In a family constantly plagued with single children, Louis was no exception to the rule. He was the only child of his parents. His mother was strong-willed and did not much like Monaco or her husband. She left the country only months after Louis was born and she never returned. Her marriage was annulled in 1880. Louis was raised by his mother and stepfather, Prince Tassilo von Tolna. He did not see his father until he was 11 when he was obligated to return for royal instruction. Louis did not get along with his father either. As soon as he reached an appropriate age, he enrolled in the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in France and joined the French Foreign Legion in Africa. While in Algeria, Louis fell in love with an actress, Marie Juliette Louvet, and the couple may have married in secret. They produced one daughter, Charlotte, in 1898. Louis finally returned to Monaco in 1908 after serving with distinction in Africa. When World War I broke out a few years later, Louis joined the French Army where he eventually became a brigadier general. The succession problem came to light in 1911, when Prince Albert, Louis's father, was forced to recognize the illegitimate Charlotte as the second-in-line to the Monegasque throne. A further law in 1918 confirmed the decision. A second law in 1918 was passed requiring prior approval of all future Monegasque princes by the French before coronation. This was to ensure that no enemy of France would crop up on France's southern border. On 27 June 1922, Prince Albert I died and Louis became Louis II.

Louis II continued his father's cultural revival of Monaco. He brought the Grand Prix to Monaco in 1929. He also opened the Napoleon Museum beside the Royal Palace of Monte Carlo. He brought sports to Monaco beginning in 1924 with the formation of the Monaco Football Club and ended in 1939 with the construction of a large stadium that hosted the World University Games. During World War II, Monaco remained as neutral as possible while officially supporting the Vichy France government that surrounded his principality. Loyalists to Benito Mussolini's Italy caused unending drama in Monaco during the war's early years and in 1943, Italy invaded and occupied Monaco for a short while. Germany moved in later that year and began deporting the small Jewish population. Louis actively worked with his police force to warn those who were slated for deportation by the Gestapo prior to their capture. Still, Louis's apparent collaboration with the Nazis caused his grandson, Rainier, to rebel against his father. During a communist uprising in 1944, the Monaco monarchy was almost abolished but Louis held on. When the Allies liberated the principality that year, Louis II had given up. He did nothing to restore it to its former glory and, indeed, went to Paris in 1946 and rarely returned. Oddly, he married a French film actress in 1946 in Monaco but then left again. He died in Paris in 1949 and was buried in Monte Carlo. His wife lived until 1991. Charlotte, the heir-apparent, passed her rights to her son, Rainier, in 1944 and he became the prince when his grandfather died as Rainier III. With Louis's death, the French hereditary title Duke of Valentinois finally went extinct, the French monarchy being ended in 1848 and the title being non-transferrable to illegitimate children such as Charlotte.

Date of Death: 9 May 1949

Successor: Rainier III

Other Monarch Deaths:

Hugh V, duke of Burgundy (1315)