Talk:Rainier III, Prince of Monaco

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I am confused by the statements about Ranier's World War II involvement. Which French Army did he serve in? Vichy or Free French? Had he fled the continent or was he in occupied territory? S-Slater ___________________________________________________________

Isn't it standard to use a photo of the deceased monarch at the beginning of their reign to illustrate the article? Because the more recent photo is still there. DRave _____________________________________________________________

An event mentioned in this article is a May 9 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment)

Answer: The French Army, most notably fighting German troops in Alsace in 1944-45. He joined the French Army in September 1944, at age 21. De Gaulle and the Free French having taken power in Paris in August 1944, there was neither Vichy, nor Vichy army at that time anyway.

I have deliberately italicised Rainier's personal name in the opening paragraph. It is not generally the style right now but please do not change it. We are trying to work out a new more visually-friendly way of stating a monarch's reign name and personal name. This is one style being proposed. It is here as a test so that people can see how this method might work. If it is decided not to use this as the template the layout can be changed back later. So please leave this test layout in this format so people can judge how it works. FearÉIREANN 01:22 29 May 2003 (UTC)

The debate on what template to use is on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles).

Whoever wrote this page, probably does not know French. Rainier's father was not "née" Comte de Polignac, but "né" Comte de Polignac, as he is male. Unless, of course, the usage of "née" in English is difference, in which case I apologise. I've changed it anyway. Erwin 14:47, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Prince Rainier III: Intensive Care

Prince Rainier III, Monaco's ruler since 1949, is in intensive care, and his health, according to CNN, has "taken a turn for the worst."

[edit] Principality vs. Kingdom

Since Monaco is considered a "Principality", does this mean that Prince Ranier's royal line (including himself) will never attain the title of "King", or if female, "Queen"? -- Thanks

Principalities have in the past been upgraded (so to speak) to kingdoms. But as long as it is a principality, the hereditary prince of Monaco will always be that, a prince, and his wife a princess. FearÉIREANN 21:52, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but in Monaco they make a distinction between Sovereign Prince, which is the Prince that rules the Principality; Hereditary Prince, which is the heir apparent to the throne; and "just" prince(ss), which are those who bear the title but are not in direct line to the throne. As of Prince Rainier III's death, Prince Albert "jumped" from the second condition to the first, and at the moment there's no Hereditary Prince (Andrea is not a prince, and he isn't heir apparent or even presumptive to the throne, at least not yet). Regards, Redux 12:20, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your assertion, re "just" prince(ess), is incorrect. Princess Stephanie is in direct line to the throne, directly behind Princess Caroline's children, according to the succession. And Princess Caroline, by Monaco's 2002 revise of the laws of succession, immediately and automatically becomes Hereditary Princess of Monaco as next in line to the throne as well as heiress-presumptive. Mowens35 10:12, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So women are no longer barred from the throne? That's a big change. If so, I really wasn't aware of that. As far as I knew, what had changed is that Monaco would no longer turn to French sovereignty should Prince Albert die without issue, but (AFAIK) he would have to adopt one of his nephews in order to bestow upon them the right to succeed him (and neither Princess Caroline nor Princess Stephanie were in line to succeed as "Sovereign Princess" of Monaco). Are you positive about that? Not that it would make much practical difference though, since Caroline would be unlikely to outlive her younger brother, and her son, Andrea, would be next in line to succeed just the same (even though he doesn't even bear the title of Prince of Monaco). But the condition of "just" Prince(ss) still exists, since the only distinctions attached to the title are "Sovereign" and "Hereditary". So, if women are now included in the line of succession, as of Rainier III's death, Albert is the Sovereing Prince and Princess Caroline is the "Hereditary Princess", which makes princess Stephanie "just" a princess (and her children and Caroline's don't even bear said title). Regards, Redux 22:16, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Please see relevant information re regarding the 2002 change in the laws of succession to the throne in (a) Rainier's obituaries, (b) the websites of leading newspapers, such as the New York Times, and (c) any other place you like. It is well and thoroughly documented and needs no explanation. The Princess of Hanover is now Heiress Presumptive and Hereditary Princess of Monaco; her presently non-royal children are next in line; then Stephanie and her equally non-royal children. Mowens35 22:17, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Succession

Re the discussion about who will become prince if Albert has no children, I was under the impression that if the male Grimaldi line fails, Monaco will revert to France under the terms of whatever treaty it is that regulates relations between France and Monaco. Is this not so? Adam 01:28, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No a new treaty was made in the 1990s - even if there are no male heirs Monaco will not revert to the French. PMA 02:23, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

PMA is correct. Previously the Grimaldis had to resort to legitimising illegitimate children etc to continue but now legally they don't have to play such games. The treaty was negotiated in part because of the (shall we say expectation) that Prince Albert was unlikely to get any woman in the motherly way and because of the fact that the Catholic Church never accepted the validity of Princess Caroline's second marriage, meaning that her children were in the Catholic Church's eyes illigitimate - a bit of a problem is a supposedly Catholic principality. So they could hardly be acceptable to become future Princes of Monaco. France in turn reckoned that taken on Monaco would be more of a burden than a help; it could hardly keep Monaco's low tax rates without rows in the rest of France, and if it raised them it would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. France benefits by having a rich Monaco nearby, without the hassle of running the damn thing. So both sides were happy to bin the old treaty. FearEIREANN 03:21, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Pope John Paul II recognized Princess Caroline's marriage to Stefano Casiraghi. That happened either in the late 80's or early 90's, in fact I remember it was sad because the decision came through only months after Casiraghi's death in a speedboat accident (I guess that would make it 1990, but I'd have to double check this date). The Pope granted her canonic divorce from her first husband (I believe it had something to do with his physical violence towards her). In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Princess Caroline's children are legitimate, which means that Andrea, her elder son, is eligible to become prince of Monaco in the event of prince Albert II dying without issue. Regards, Redux 12:13, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Our story now says that Rainier is both conscious and clinically dead. He can't be both. Could someone clarify this? Adam 11:35, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, he's conscious and in stable condition, unless the anon who wrote that he was dead has some information that Google News hasn't learned yet. — Dan | Talk 15:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It was reported that he was clinically dead in some tabloids, with the story being that his death would not be announced for a few days so that the three days of official mourning would take place at the weekend and so not cost business money. (A heap of garbage IMHO, but that's the tabloids for ye. A classic 'made up' story. Legally you can't not report the fact of his death the moment it happens. Constitutionally every head of state must be formally notified (that's why there was a delay in announcing Diana, Princess of Wales's death, BTW. It could not be confirmed until officially every head of state had been notified!) If you kept the death quiet for a few days you'd cause a major diplomatic row, be seen to ride roughshod over the Monaco constitution, be acting unconstitutionally. etc. Only dorks writing for the tabloids don't know that. Most of them couldn't even spell 'constitution' let alone know what one is. Oh I am being bitchy tonight! :-) FearÉIREANN 02:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Constitutionally every head of state must be formally notified (that's why there was a delay in announcing Diana, Princess of Wales's death, BTW. It could not be confirmed until officially every head of state had been notified!)" Whose constitution specifies such a thing? Britain doesn't have a constitution! Where is the British law which says that every head of state must be notified of the death of the Prince of Wales's ex-wife? Adam 02:33, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

'Constitutionally' was the wrong word. All states operate under a set of an agreed rules and procedures in inter-state relations. For example, heads of state flying over another state to go to somewhere else invariably sends a message from the plane to each head of state of every state he or she passes over. It is a form of ritualised courtesy. There are numerous rules and regulations. Constitutionally heads of state only have relationships with other heads of state, and governments with governments. So one of the first acts by Prince Albert will have been the authorisation of a message to be sent to every other head of state of a state Monaco has diplomatic relations with, informing them of Rainier's death and his own accession. The other head of state then informs their country's government. Alternatively the governments are informed by the Monaco government.
The procedures used in all these relationships are highly technical, but are followed and a failure to do them is seen as a diplomatic snub. Another example: heads of state can perform two types of top level visit to another state. A state visit is where one head of state visits another on the invitation of the head of state. An official visit is where the head of state is invited to the other state by that state's government, with the agreement of their own government. The first is a top of the range visit, the second a mid-level visit. State visits are heavy on pomp and ritual (right down to formal dress for state dinners) . Official visits are rather informal and usually a prelude to a later state visit.
Other states would not be notified of the death of an ex-wife of an heir to the throne. But they would be notified if they had had children for then they would receive notification not of the death of an ex-wife but of the death of the mother of a future king or queen. These procedures are all very technical and procedural (for example, everytime Queen Elizabeth writes to another head of state she signs the letter with the formulaic Your good friend, Elizabeth R even if they aren't actually friends at all, because she means her good friend as queen, not personally (though they may be personal friends). For my sins I know quite a lot about these technical procedures. FearÉIREANN 23:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK, maybe I'm just indescribably boring, but this minutiae sounds absolutely fascinating. Any chance you could spin an article or seven out of it? Perhaps references might be hard to come by, though...
James F. (talk) 01:18, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Longest reigning?

When he was alive Rainier was the longest serving monarch in Europe. Now that he's dead, though, how does his reign stack up to other monarchs in history? Queen Victoria's reign lasted 63 years.

The caption on the photo will have to change. JohnnyB 17:11, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Japanese Emperor Hirohito: 63 years. China's Kangxi Emperor: 61 years; Qianlong Emperor: 60 years. -- Toytoy 17:54, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)
The opening paragraph:
Rainier III ruled Monaco from 1949 to 2005. ... he was ... the world's second longest-serving head of state.
Hey, this is not true! -- Toytoy 18:07, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)
I think what was meant was, he was the second longest-serving of all living heads of state... until he died. It should be fairly clear in context. -- Curps 22:00, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "just" prince/ss

The only person covered by this is HSH Princesse Antoinette, who, as of April 6, has been removed from the line of succession.

Jazmin Grimaldi: I have removed Jazmin Grimaldi from the list of his grandchildren. This being not only has she not been recognised, but there was never any proof that she was Albert's daughter. And when her mother brought the paternaty suit to court it was thrown out. It is believed by most that she is not Albert's daughter and that her mother was trying to gain fame and/or money. ((Cooldoug111 05:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)))

The case was not "thrown out"...the US court decided that it could not have juristiction on something that supposedly happened in Monaco.Albert has consistently refused to take a paternity test and her mother Tamara Rotolo is trying to gain recognition for her daughter. Since Albert recognised Alexandre Coste, he has indeed hinted that he may have more illegitimate children.

Congratulations Albert, it's a girl. Jazmin IS Albert's daughter, the sovereign prince has recognized her as his child (June 1, 2006). GoodDay 13:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heir to the throne

I think that as heir to the throne he was succeeded by his sister Antoinette, and not by Albert II. After Antoinette it was caroline and then Albert.Hektor 18:14, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Actually ,when Rainier became ruler of Monaco in 1949. there was no heir-apparent or heir-presumptive until Caroline's birth in 1957. Remember this is before the 2002 Act of Succession. Before that 2002 Act: a Reigning Prince of Monaco couldn't be succeeded by anyone other then a direct descendant (child, grandchild etc). If Rainier III had died before Caroline was conceived, Monaco would have become a part of France (you could say from 1949-57, the then President of France was heir-presumptive to the Monaco Throne). 23 October 2005
Once Caroline was born, she was heir apparent as the only child. Albert became heir apparent upon his birth as the first male and Caroline became heir presumptive, a status she still has for Albert having no legitimate children; she is Albert's heir to the throne. Because of Albert being a male, his Heritary Prince status is superior to Caroline's presumptive Princess and he is the successor to Rainier. _______________Because of the new constitution (2002), any legitimate child is heir, direct descendant or not, which is why Caroline and her children are the first in line. Otherwise, the same situation Rainier faced in 1949 would be happening now. Also, France has agreed Monaco is to always remain an independent state so if every Grimaldi, Casiraghi, Hanover, Ducret and Gottleib and deMassey were to die out without heirs, Monaco will not revert to France. Alphabeter 03:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. Caroline was the Heiress Presumptive, because her position could be displaced by the birth of a brother, such as Albert. Albert was Heir Apparent, because no other birth could displace his position. Charles 14:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coronation?

In Monaco it's an investiture, further more why is Rainier III's investiture (called erroneously coronation in the article), dated before his accession to the throne? GoodDay 14:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I've commented out this error. Clearly he can't have succeeded his grandfather before his grandfather died. If anyone finds the date of his investiture, the correct date can be added back. - Nunh-huh 01:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date formats

I refer to the following, posted by Nunh-huh on my talk page:

There's a longstanding rule that we don't change date formats, which get changed only to achieve uniformity in a single article. If you prefer your dates in a given format, set your preferences accordingly. You especially shouldn't violate this convention while making multiple careless errors.[1]

I asked for more details and when none were forthcoming decided that this "longstanding rule" was a notional one. I certainly couldn't find any reference in a reasonably comprehensive search. Nor were details of my "multiple careless errors" provided. I went back to my edits of this article and found two minor errors, which I fixed, at the same time undoing Nunh-huh's revert of my work.

My reason for rationalising the date format in this article is that its subject is not one relevant to the U.S. and therefore the format of dates such as birthdate, death date, dates of accession, marriage and so on should not be in US format. Most of the world uses dates that are not in U.S. format. This seems eminently sensible to me. As an indication of why I think the policy Nunh-huh refers to is hokum, I note that if I were to create an article on a U.S. subject and use non-U.S. date formats, it would be speedily changed.

There is an argument that date formats are immaterial, because wikilinked dates are formatted according to user preferences, but I make the point that the vast majority of Wikipedia's readers do not have accounts and therefore they do not have preferences to set. Seeing U.S. date formats used in an article such as Queen Beatrix is jarring and out of place. I note that this article uses a mixture of date formats, highlighting the lack of a "longstanding rule".

Current discussion seems to be that we are moving towards a technological solution to the date format problem, but that this has not yet arrived. --Jumbo 05:53, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Further to the above, I note that Monaco uses the Day Month Year date format (as seen here. The Manual of Style gives some guidance on this. --Jumbo 09:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know you want to standardize dates according to your criteria, but the fact is that we don't do that here, because it leads to edit wars. The original author determines the dating style that is used, and subsequent authors respect that. - Nunh-huh 17:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
In this article the date formats were all over the place. Some parts used international dating (dd/mm/yyyy) and some used US dating (mm/dd/yyyy). Consistency makes sense. Rather than change those in the format used in Monaco to the US format, it makes sense to convert them all to the one local format. The article also used other errors in date styling. Had there been accurate and consistent usage of dates on the page an argument could be made of using the one format (though if, correctly we place articles in the UK and Ireland in the format they use, it makes logical sense to place Monaco in the format it uses also) and not changing it, even to the one correct for Monaco. However the version Nunh was reverting to was littered with errors and inconsistencies. As a result IMHO in this case SuperJumbo was correct to move the article to an internal consistency based on Monaco's usage, rather than on American usage. IMHO we need to revisit the dating issue. It is jarring, to put it mildly, to find articles about countries that never ever use US dating written that format, and to find users from those countries being forced to use a dating format they never write. If we Irish, and well as English and American people, are allowed to follow local usage in articles, we should apply that rule generally and only follow the rule about using the format used in the original for countries where both formats are equally used. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 17:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
No, dates were not all over the place. It was uniformly Month Date Year, except for two instances in a recently added infobox. This is an inappropriate change according to present rules, and it was inappropriate of you to try to enforce it by reversion. If you want to revisit the rules, do it. Don't just make up your own. SuperJumbo needs to stop converting articles to fit his rules, until and unless those rules become official. - Nunh-huh 18:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
In this case there were errors in the format used so the issue had to be revisited and WP does allow a judgment call based on usage. In other pages where there are no errors in the dating then a wholesale change should not be made. I do however think that the compromise we used to solve the war is increasingly illogical. Why should Irish articles be allowed to use international dating but other European articles be required on occasion to use a dating system those countries don't use, simply because way back years ago the article was started by an American who used American dating instead of the correct local usage. Maybe we should establish a wikiproject to assess the dating formats used predominantly in each country, and then list the formats used on a page, with a recommendation that those countries which use mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy should have all their articles written in that format, but with the proviso that topics who cannot clearly be defined (ie, where both formats are used) the first one used be the standard. Wholesale changes should not be taken place. This case however is more complex because there were issues with the format used where some fix had to be done. (For example, the dates used commas in this article, meaning that all the dates had to be fixed anyway. So the format used was wrong. In the circumstances I think it OK where a problem exists with current usage to revisit the issue of which one?. If the usage had been 100% correct it should have remained as written. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 19:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

With all respect, Nunh-huh does not seem to have access to all the facts. I ask him again to provide details of the "longstanding rule" to which he refers, but the current policy is as per the MoS reference I have already given. Let me quote it:

If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Wikipedia account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed. For topics concerning the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, and most international organizations such as the United Nations, the formatting is usually [[17 February]] [[1958]] (no comma and no "th"). In the United States and Canada, it is [[February 17]], [[1958]]. Elsewhere, either format is acceptable. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English for more guidance.

Perhaps Nunh-huh is referring to this section on disputes over styles:

In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to British spelling as opposed to American spelling, it would only be acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling if the article concerned a British topic. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article uses colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles, although editors should ensure that articles are internally consistent. If in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk

The substantial reason for the change in date formats in this article is that Monaco uses the "littleendian" date format of Day Month Year, as may be seen in the prince's official site, already linked above. In addition, the date formats were inconsistent and I rationalised them, as per my edit summary. I thank jtdirl for his contribution in this matter. Looking back over his contributions to Wikipedia it is clear that he is an expert in applying consistent and coherent styles as per the MoS, especially when fine interpretations over hotly contested topics are required, and we may all benefit from his advice. --Jumbo 20:24, 30 July 2006 (UTC)