Albert of Monaco getting Married.
FOR four years, Charlene Wittstock lived mostly in the shadows, waiting for Prince Albert II of Monaco to propose.
With no job, no college degree and no knowledge of French, she was installed by him in a small apartment in the center of the tiny Mediterranean principality, far away from home in South Africa. With no official status, she appeared at the side of the prince when summoned, to smile a lot but to say little.
She endured the nastiness of the locals, who gossiped about Prince Albert’s love affairs and predicted that he would never marry her. She stayed silent as stories were embellished about his siring of two children, one with an airline hostess from Togo, the other with an American tourist from California. She bided her time by swimming, gardening, lunching, playing golf and reading in a cafe.
But Ms. Wittstock, a South African national swimming champion who competed in the 2000 Summer Olympics, applied to her love life the same determination, perseverance and stamina that had inspired her backstroke.
“There was meanness, there were jealousies,” said Stéphane Bern, a celebrity French journalist who has known her for four years. “There was the indecision of the prince. Her every move was watched and judged. But she is very strong, very natural and very direct. And it worked.”
The payoff comes July 2 with this summer’s “other” royal wedding. This time, Ms. Wittstock will be the princess stepping down the aisle (in a dress designed by Giorgio Armani). Though the event won’t come close to inspiring the global fascination of William and Kate’s nuptials almost two months ago (or even that of Albert’s own parents, Prince Ranier III and the American movie star Grace Kelly, in 1956), the three-day celebration will nonetheless be quite a party. The event will include an open-air Mass on the Place du Palais; oceans of Perrier-Jouët Champagne; a multicourse dinner by the three-star French chef Alain Ducasse; a concert by the Eagles; a sound-and-light show and fireworks. When it is over, Ms. Wittstock, the daughter of a salesman father and a swim coach mother, will become Her Serene Highness, Princess Charlene of Monaco.
There are familiar elements of Ms. Wittstock’s experience in the story not only of Kate Middleton (pretty and patient commoner who endured snippy tabloid gossip and in the end got her prince), but also in the sadder tale of another princess: Like Diana Spencer three decades ago, she is a much younger bride of a prince with other love interests, who has been painstakingly choreographed by a palace apparatus intent on managing her image. A new episode of the soap opera will begin after the wedding. Will her royal marriage end up being a happy union based on mutual love and respect, as Kate’s seems to be so far, or a melancholy charade like Diana’s?
As with many princesses, Ms. Wittstock’s main responsibility from the outset will be to produce an heir. Although she is only 33, Prince Albert is 53, and his subjects do not want him to die before a successor is old enough to reign. (Because Prince Albert’s two children were born out of wedlock, they are barred by the Constitution from acceding to the throne.)
Ms. Wittstock has been reluctant to talk about the baby issue. Asked during an interview by the veteran French television journalist Patrick Poivre d’Arvor whether she wanted to have children who will one day succeed Prince Albert, she broke with protocol and said to the prince, “Hey, won’t he just give us a break!”
The savvy prince smoothed things over, saying, “We have the intention to start a family.”
Asked in the same interview whether she was afraid of protocol and the relentless glare of the press, she choked. “No, I am not nervous, or ... I’m quite excited actually, so ...” she said. She then turned to Prince Albert, asking, “What do you want me to say?”
“No, it’s fine!” he assured her.
Stumbles not withstanding, ever since their engagement last year, Ms. Wittstock has been preparing feverishly for her new role, with intensive lessons in French and palace protocol. Tutored, watched and corrected by an unforgiving palace guard, she has said little during her public appearances. She has granted few interviews. In at least some cases, journalists have been required to submit both written questions in advance and then the text of the interview before publication. The palace declined a request to interview her for this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/fashion/charlene-wittstock-and-monaco-prepare-for-royal-wedding.html
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