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  Today’s paparazzi, however, are a different breed. The term was invented by the great Italian moviemaker Frederico Fellini, who showed a pack of journalists following around Anita Ekberg in 8. “The top paparazzi,” St.Bris told me, “are only half a dozen. They have no fear and are completely immoral, like mercenaries or cold-blooded contract killers.” One good indiscretion, one peak behind the curtain, one sensational scoop can be worth a hundred thousand dollars, many times more than a prize-winning combat picture. The magazines calculate whether it will still be profitable, after the anticipated lawsuit, to publish the picture. 

 It was Paris Match, St. Bris reminded me, that brought Rainier and Grace together in the first place. “The dynasty was started by a photojournalist, which is why they feel they own the story [of the Grimaldis],” he explained. “It was idea of Pierre Galante, who was married to Olivia deHaviland, to have Grace, who was at Cannes for the film festival, do a shoot at the Palace with Rainier. We will take Grace to Rainier to make une belle photo.”
 But all the bad press doesn’t seem to cause any resentment in Monaco; The Monégasques, as far as I could tell, seem still to love their princely family. The present fascination with the Grimaldis, St. Bris theorized, has to do with “the transplantation of daily unhappiness to big people. Le malheur of people at the top brings people closer to them. Monaco, au fond, is a l9th century novel of Balzac or Dickens. But when the royals have more problems than we do, it becomes a problem.” 

  Monaco and Prince Rainier have survived far worse crises than bad press. In the late fifties Aristotle Onassis arrived on the scene and before anyone realized what was happening, he had become the majority shareholder of the Société des bains et mer. “Onassis was interested in profit, and the S.B.M. is an old lady,” the prince recalled. “He said we must do away with the Salle Garnier [Charles Garnier’s opera house, finished in l875, a masterpiece of deuxième empire neo-baroque excess, with bronze angels and nude limestone voluptuaries; operas, concerts, and ballets are performed in it but there are only three hundred seats] and put in a big modern opera house. He already had some architects up his sleeve. But I was dead against it.” It ended with Rainier in l964 nationalizing the S.B.M. by creating out of the blue 600,000 new shares, which were to be held by the state. A simple move but a very effective one: Onassis was no longer the majority shareholder, and he sold his shares and steamed out of Monte Carlo in his yacht the Christina shortly thereafter. “But with all the trouble,” Rainier continued, “we remained on good terms. He was a pleasant man.” 

 A more nerve-wracking crisis “when General De Gaulle got angry with us” had come to a head four years earlier. Many of France’s wealthiest citizens had established residency in Monaco to avoid paying French taxes and the government was losing millions of dollars, so De Gaulle threatened to terminate the l863 treaty recognizing Monaco’s sovereignty. To avoid being “asphyxiated,” as Ranier put it, he agreed that French residents would no longer be tax-exempt. “And there again it passed over,” he reminisced. “I was young and maybe got angry. A few years later De Gaulle came for an official visit, and he insisted on seeing the children. Grace charmed him. In Paris he often invited us to dinner.

 “Now there is a new possible crisis,” he told me : “the European Union and la monnaie unique. The union could require all residents, being members of the union, to pay taxes like the French. That’s why we’re staying out of it. But how are our treaties with France, which are all in francs, going to be affected ? What will become of the compte de partage [at present 95% of the principality’s revenues come from its share of this French value-added tax on any business transacted within its borders], which recession-plagued France is threatening to reduce. If our customs disappear, what are we going to do? France can’t stay out of the EU, but we can’t be asphyxiated or drowned. This is a problem for all small countries with no resources. There have to be a few small exceptions. It is important that we represent certain securities for our investors. Last year we had 80 billion francs [$32 billion] in our banks. A third of the investors were in France. If we can’t give the advantages we now offer, attractive interest rates and a certain confidentiality-not the complete secrecy the Swiss used to offer, but the certainty your money is not going to be investigated for no reason at all—I don’t know how we will survive.” Even more ominously the SBM lost $30 million last year and looks as if it will be in the red again this year.

 Yet Rainer is optimistic a way will be found. “My ancestors were very inventive. Each time they found the right way, and they were helped by important women who came into the family.” Even Ranier, it seems, is putting his chips on Albert finding a stunning new princess, a successor to Grace, for the next chapter in the Grimaldi’s 700-year-long old fairy tale.
 
 
 
 
 

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