Numéro 47

In 1902, Prince Albert I made the trip from Paris to Villers-sur-Mer (Calvados, Normandy) on a motorcycle, then, what is more, between 1903 and 1905, each year in May, he journeyed from Monaco to Paris on a British Humber Beeston motorcycle, sometimes with great detours by south-western or eastern France, and even by Switzerland. During these rough and perilous journeys, that lasted one to two weeks, he travelled incognito, oftentimes with his mechanic as sole company. In 1905, Charles Sauerwein, his aide-de-camp and scientific collaborator, accompanied him. The prince’s autograph diary gives an invaluable and hitherto unpublished account of the budding and still hazardous Belle Époque motorcycling practices, and wonderfully depicts a little-known side of the ruler, who rode motorcycles until the end of his life, and was one of the pioneers of long-distance motorcycle travels.

This article proposes an approach to Prince Albert I’s passion for hunting, covering both traditional and science-based hunting practices. Numerous documents, including those drawn up by the Prince himself, and particularly his book, La Carrière d’un Navigateur (The Career of a Navigator), his hunting logs and his handwritten journal, show that he pursued this passion using a reasoned practice for which he never stopped advocating. In this field, as in many others, he was therefore a pioneer, who foresaw with clarity the current debates on this controversial subject.

On 2 June 1885, Prince Albert, then aged 36, sent his father, the reigning Prince Charles III of Monaco, a letter in which he described the funeral of Victor Hugo, which he had attended the day before, anonymously, amid the biggest crowds that Paris had ever seen. Here, he demonstrated an enormous independence of mind: far from the distorting caricatures peddles by the clerical newspapers, his admiring, respectful account was close in spirit to the reports in the moderate press, with a clear refusal to give into sensational pronouncements, figures and anecdotes, focusing instead on the essentials. If it was indeed ‘to the love and worship of science’ that he owed his ‘habit of impartial analysis which saves one from becoming carried away and leads to the truth’, as he would later write at the end of a conference on oceanography, this letter is a fine example applied to the history of his era.

The personal writings of Prince Albert I contain frequent condemnations of colonisation, as illustrated in his journal: “I think that everything that [we] are seeing happening today under the guise of colonial expansion hides behind misleading names every injustice imaginable that is used to appropriate assets belonging to others, while appearing to be working to promote civilisation” (Albert I’s journal, 2 August 1896). This deep personal conviction was made public in La Carrière d’un Navigateur [The Career of a Navigator] (1901): “Slavery has been abolished, but people born on primitive soil civilised by whites are despoiled of their heritage by force when trickery does not succeed.”
It is worth considering the practical significance of these condemnations. The Monegasque Sovereign did not hesitate to invest large sums of money in a colonial undertaking in Mozambique (the Madal company); acting as a mediator between France and Germany during the First Moroccan Crisis, he saw colonial arrangements between the powers as a key means of maintaining peace. These contrasting positions may, to some extent, be explained by the Prince’s adherence to the stereotypes of his era regarding the native ‘races’ of colonised countries. While Albert I absolutely and clearly rejected violent, conquering colonialism, the possible temptation of ‘enlightened’ paternalism was very much still within him.

As a result of Prince Albert I’s pacifist beliefs, which led to the foundation of the International Institute of Peace, and his vision of the principality as a cosmopolitan, open and cultured country, from 1910 to 1937 Monaco was home to an Iranian pacifist and diplomat, his country’s first representative to the League of Nations and the First Hague Peace Conference: Prince Mirza Riza Khan Arfa-od-Dowleh. This essay explores his pacifism, juxtaposing an ideal with the tangible peace and security that he sought when he arrived in the Principality in 1910, fleeing the world that was on a path to war. The essay also reveals that while Prince Arfa’s efforts to achieve peace failed, he established a cultural link between East and West in the heart of Monaco, by hosting one of the first private museums of Iranian art in Europe in his Villa Ispahan, thereby inspiring curiosity and sharing knowledge about the East in general and Iran in particular.

The conditions on the frontlines of the Great War – multiple injuries, disease – gave Prince Albert I the opportunity to demonstrate his interest in science (combating tetanus) and his altruism (care for the blind). Two temporary hospitals and a convalescent home were established in the Principality. In August 1914, the requisition of the Riviera Palace in Beausoleil as a hospital – where Princess Charlotte served – was undoubtedly an alternative to the offer of the Prince Albert Hospital, which the French authorities initially declined due to the Principality’s neutrality. Prince Albert visited the Principality’s hospitals at least once a year, during spring. His influence extended to the temporary hospitals bordering the Principality. He contributed to the expanded availability of healthcare on the French Riviera. The Prince drew on scientific, diplomatic and human approaches.

In the field of human sciences, historiography has tended to focus on Prince Albert I’s efforts to further prehistoric studies. The aim of this article is to point out that the Prince was first interested in the anthropology of modern humans, before he began supporting research on fossil humans. By studying his practice of anthropology, we can then focus attention on some methodological aspects and highlight his intellectual references, as well as some of his scientific and philosophical choices.

Common goods emerged as the subject of diplomatic negotiations during the nineteenth century, and historical research is now taking an increasing interest in this issue. Prince Albert I of Monaco’s work in oceanography, and his determination to give this new science legitimacy, led him to focus particularly on issues of safety at sea and the conservation of fishery resources. Imbued with the internationalism of his era, he addressed these issues transnationally, although there were many obstacles to actually taking any action.

Prince Albert I of Monaco contributed to expanding scientific understanding in a number of fields, and notably in the geography of the seas and oceans. A member of the Société de géographie, the oldest geographical society in the world, from December 1885, he visited several times to give presentations or share reports on his discoveries, including on the Gulf Stream, on fishing, on the anatomy and feeding of pilot whales and on his expeditions to the Lofoten Islands and to Spitsbergen.

Jules Massenet’s opera Thérèse was originated at the Monte-Carlo Opera on 7 February 1907. This opera, which, at a little more than an hour, is short, featuring concentrated action, is set in October 1792, close to Versailles, outside (park, steps) the manor belonging to the Marquis de Clerval, who has emigrated, and in Paris, in June 1793, at the home of André Thorel, a Girondist.
This paper proposes to highlight the complexity of the socio-political situation surrounding the creation of Thérèse, both in Paris and in Monaco. In effect, creating such an opera in 1907, in a principality like Monaco, was not politically harmless, not least since Thérèse is a moment in a broader story: the ‘memory’ of the Revolution until 1914. What else does Thérèse ‘tell’ us about the political and artistic sensibilities of Albert I, and the way in which Massenet translates – or not – the politics and his emotions into his musical language?

Alice Heine, the widow of the Duke of Richelieu, would meet Albert I in 1879 and marry him in 1889. She left him in 1901, but remained Princess Alice of Monaco for the rest of her life. Liked, adored, celebrated, envied, sometimes hated, for 15 years she promoted the Principality’s cultural life. An unpredictable Pygmalion, an influential woman, and one who was also influenced herself, her personality is worthy of study and her role deserves to be reassessed, even though she remains an elusive figure.