The Royal House of Monaco

Dynasty of Glamour, Tragedy and Scandal

by John Glatt

St. Martin’s, 320 pp., $7.99 (paper)

More aptly titled The Fall of the Royal House of Monaco, this book is about the people for whom the term “Euro-trash” was coined. No, I don’t mean our beloved Princess Grace but her children Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie. If that’s too many princes and princesses for you in one sentence, then Monaco is definitely not your kind of place. More than any other ruler in Europe, the elderly Prince Rainier has watched his children behave badly in public — especially his daughters. Caroline has always courted controversy, with decades of torrid affairs and three marriages. But with the realization that she has as much a shot at ruling Monaco as her brother, Caroline has become one of Europe’s leading society matrons. Middle child Albert, plunging into his 40s, has presumably been deemed ill-suited for the position of ruler, preferring his playboy lifestyle. The youngest and wildest of them, Stephanie, picked up the torch dropped by her sister, and blazed a new trail through the jet set nightlife, dating the likes of Rob Lowe and Dodi Fayed. Glatt works hard to prove that his subjects are “the tackiest royal (sic) family in Europe,” as W magazine dubbed them in 1994.

This article appears in July 14 • 2000.

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