Monegasque royalty, the daughter of Louis II, Prince of Monaco, and the mother of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. From 1922 until 1944, she was the Hereditary Princess of Monaco, heir presumptive to the throne.
Born Charlotte Louise Juliette de Monaco in Constantine, French Algeria, she was the illegitimate daughter of Marie Juliette Louvet, a cabaret singer, and Louis, Hereditary Prince of Monaco and Duke of Valentinois, son and heir of Monaco’s reigning monarch, Prince Albert I.
On 15 May 1911 a law was passed recognising Charlotte as Louis’s daughter, and declaring her to be a dynastic member of the sovereign family. Though this act was later held to be invalid under the 1882 statutes, an Ordinance of 30 October 1918 was passed to allow her to be adopted into the dynasty instead. Louis adopted Charlotte in Paris on 16 May 1919, thereby entitling her to the surname Grimaldi, while her grandfather bestowed upon her the traditional title of the Principality’s heir, Duchess of Valentinois, for life. Charlotte became heir presumptive to the throne as Hereditary Princess when her grandfather died and her father inherited the princely crown in 1922.
In Monaco civilly on 18 March and religiously on 19 March 1920, Louis arranged Charlotte’s marriage to the then Count Pierre de Polignac of Hennebont, Morbihan, Brittany, France, who, by the Prince’s ordinance, took the surname Grimaldi and became a Prince of the Monegasque Royal Family. The couple had two children, Princess Antoinette Louise Alberte Suzanne (28 December 1920 – 18 March 2011) and Rainier III, Prince of Monaco (31 May 1923 – 6 April 2005).
Their marriage was not, however, a happy one; they separated on 20 March 1930 due to his homosexuality, and Charlotte left him to live with her doctor and Italian lover, Dalmazzo. The couple were divorced on 18 February 1933 by ordinance of Prince Louis II.
On 30 May 1944, the day before her son’s 21st birthday and in full agreement with her father, Charlotte renounced and ceded her rights to the throne to her son Rainier, subject to the stipulation that he did not predecease her. From this date she was no longer Hereditary Princess of Monaco, though she retained the title Princess Charlotte of Monaco.
Late in life she went to college, obtaining a degree in social work. After her son assumed the throne (in 1949), Princess Charlotte moved to live at Château de Marchais, the Grimaldi estate outside Paris. Despite the objections of her children who feared for her safety, she turned the estate into a rehabilitation centre for ex-convicts. She lived at the estate with her lover, a noted French former jewel thief named René Girier and nicknamed “René la Canne” (René the Cane).
Princess Charlotte died in Paris on 15 November 1977 at age 79.
Link to Wikipedia biography