#albert de andressy

[quillheart-blog]

This week in Micronations:

I was looking up Monaco history to learn more about their foundation as a pirate nation and instead I found out something else wonderful. So we all know about Grace Kelly and how she was married in to the monarchy in the ‘50s. But before that, there was a succession crisis!

(And yes, this post has something to do with Lupin III. Read on...)

Apparently Prince Albert I (1880s Arctic Explorer) had a son, Prince Louis II (reigned during WWII and retired a Brigadier General in France's army), but Louis was an only child himself and didn't have any children by the time he was almost 50 and was unmarried as well.

It's amazing that he managed to pull off being unmarried that long at all but I'm sure he and his father sailing around the world for years at a time helped. Still, after a while, people pressured him, and he ended up having a kid with the Parisian-nightclub-hostess-daughter of his ship's laundry lady. That child, Charlotte, then became the 'adopted princess', adopted pretty close after WWI, and is the matriarch from which the modern rulers hail.

As the heir-apparent princess, she had two children, one boy and one girl, but then divorced her husband for "his homosexuality". The day her son, Prince Ranier III, came of age, she renounced her claim to the throne, passing it to him, and then later left Monaco entirely with an "Italian doctor" lover. Her dad, Prince Louis II, officiated over the marriage and divorce and the title passing, because he was the sovereign still. AWKWARD. He'd also picked her husband, so I have to wonder if his gaydar was going off and he liked the guy or something.

But then, it gets even better: she moves to Paris, and eventually ends up running a rehibilitation home for ex-cons out of her mansion, despite the wishes of her family, and lives with her lover, "a noted French former jewel thief.*"

(*Named Rene the Cane of all goddamned things.)

Meanwhile, Prince Louis's cousin, a Duke from Germany, was first in line to Monaco before all this, and also Lithuania and Alsace-Lorraine, wherever the hell that is/was. He was a prince of Wuttenberg (some place in Germany) but couldn't inherit that because of the left-hand marriage of his parents. So after WWI, dude didn't get ANY of those titles because of political drama and restructuring and ever since his heirs (not him) have been suing Monaco and France for damages. And the only reason Charlotte ever came into being at all, presumably, was because France threw a fit about "a German" coming to rule Monaco and switching its allegiance.

This place and its family drama just keep getting better. It's like a freaking tellanovella and I love it. Also of note: Rainier had three children who had three children who had three children (and are still going), more or less, so the gayness got bred out of the family I’m thinking. They learned their lesson, it seems, or at the very least are making up for lost time. So how does this fit into our tiny fandom? Well in the end I came to this conclusion: Campaign for Rene the Cane to be Grandpa Lupin and for Albert d’ Andressy to be related somehow to Duke Wutta-Dick of Germany. Please. It would make Lupin’s French-Italian flare make soooooo much sense, Albert Andressy would be a much more interesting and dangerous character IMO, Great-Great Grandpa Prince Albert I + Rene is basically everything Lupin is, and suddenly everyone would be a Disney prince(ss). The end.