It was on this day in 1697 that HSH Princess Louise-Hippolyte of Monaco was born and it was today in 1785 that HSH Prince Florestan I of Monaco was born. It was Princess Louise-Hippolyte who was mother of the subsequent Mantignon-Grimaldi branch after her marriage to HSH Prince Jacques I who succeeded her on the throne after her death from smallpox in 1731. Her line would continue all the way to HSH Prince Louis II after whom, by the marriage of his daughter Princess Charlotte to Prince Pierre, we came to have the Polignac-Grimaldi line which continues to this day.
Prince Florestan, as all will remember, was that artistic, dramatic Grimaldi who had little interest in being a monarch but who inherited the job from his brother Prince Honore V. Prior to that he had served in the French army during the Napoleonic Wars, at the insistence of his mother, and was taken prisoner during the invasion of Russia. Probably his greatest contribution to Monegasque history was his marriage to the energetic and formidable Princess Maria Caroline who did much to put Monaco on a solid foundation for the future.
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