Funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco

The funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco took place at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate in Monaco-Ville on 18 September 1982 following her death after a car crash a few days previously. An estimated 26,000 people viewed her body at the Palatine Chapel at the Prince's Palace of Monaco as it lay in state before the ceremony, a requiem mass.[1][2]

Grave

Funeral events

Princess Grace's body was taken by a funeral cortege led by her husband, Prince Rainer, and her children, Prince Albert and Princess Caroline though the streets of Monaco-Ville from the palace to the cathedral. Her other daughter, Princess Princess Stéphanie, was unable to attend as she had been a passenger in the car with her mother and was still recovering from her injuries.[3]

The homily was delivered by Charles Amarin Brand, the Archbishop of Monaco. Brand said in his homily that people were "united in pain" and emphasised the "senselessness and inexplicable nature" of "the rupture of the destiny of this humanly exceptional, religiously exceptional person". Brand said Grace's Roman Catholic faith "modeled, indeed sculpted, not only the public person, but the deep personality of her being" and that her accident "results in stupefaction, and provides no answers to the questions of life, suffering, separation and death".[3] The gospel reading was "In my Father's house are many mansions...I go to prepare a place for you" from John 14.[3]

The music that accompanied the mass included an excerpt from Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 4, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and four pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach.[3]

Grace's coffin was draped in the Monégasque flag and lay in the cathedral's Chapel of the Princes during the ceremony.[4][5] A second mass was offered after the ceremony for Monégasque citizens. Interment of the coffin in the Grimaldi family vault in the apse of the cathedral was scheduled for the following week as the funeral service overran.[3]

Prince Rainier sat between Princess Caroline and Prince Albert at the ceremony. Grace's siblings; her brother John B. 'Kell' Kelly Jr., and her sisters Lizannae and Peggy, sat behind the Monégasque royal family. Four of Grace's bridesmaids were in attendance as were her former agent Jay Kanter and her former co-star Cary Grant.[6] The representatives of several reigning and non-reigning royal families and governments were in attendance at the funeral. Nancy Reagan, the First Lady of the United States was seated between Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of French President François Mitterrand, and Diana, Princess of Wales, wife of Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.[7]

The American delegation to the funeral was led by Reagan who was a friend of Princess Grace. The rest of the American delegation comprised the United States Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr., and Dick Thornburgh, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Evan G. Galbraith, the United States Ambassador to France, the Pennsylvanian Congressman Thomas M. Foglietta and Jacklyn Anne Cahill, the State Department Officer in charge of French and Monacan Affairs.[8]

Diana, Princess of Wales represented the British monarch Queen Elizabeth II at the ceremony. This was the first occasion at which Diana was the sole representative of the British royal family. Diana had previously met Princess Grace at a music recital at Goldsmith's Hall in the City of London.[9] Queen Elizabeth had originally deputized Charles, Prince of Wales to attend but he was reluctant to do so, and Diana was allowed to attend instead.[1]

Other notable attendees included singer Eddie Fisher, Barbara Sinatra, the wife of the singer Frank Sinatra, and Jackie Stewart, the racing driver.[10][11]

Attendees

Foreign royalty

Members of reigning royal families

[6]

Members of non-reigning royal families

[6]

Non-royal dignitaries

References
  1. Tina Brown (31 May 2011). The Diana Chronicles. Random House. pp. 190–. ISBN 978-1-4464-7411-2.
  2. John Moody (15 September 1982). "The body of Princess Grace was put on view..." UPI. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  3. John Vinocur (18 September 1982). "The World Mourns". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  4. Lonely Planet; Hugh McNaughtan; Oliver Berry; Gregor Clark (1 January 2019). Lonely Planet Provence & the Cote d'Azur. Lonely Planet Global Limited. pp. 219–. ISBN 978-1-78868-173-5.
  5. Yann-Brice Dherbier; Pierre-Henri Verlhac (2007). Grace Kelly: A Life in Pictures. Pavilion. ISBN 978-1-86205-776-0.
  6. Anne Edwards (1 September 2017). The Grimaldis of Monaco: Centuries of Scandal, Years of Grace. Lyons Press. p. 302. ISBN 978-1-4930-2922-8.
  7. James P. MacGuire (15 March 2017). Real Lace Revisited: Inside the Hidden World of America's Irish Aristocracy. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 62–. ISBN 978-1-4930-2492-6.
  8. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration. 1982. pp. 1145–.
  9. Craig Brown (20 August 2013). Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings. Simon and Schuster. pp. 249–. ISBN 978-1-4516-8451-3.
  10. Adele Brown (February 2002). What a Way to Go: Fabulous Funerals of the Famous and Infamous. Chronicle Books.
  11. Carrie Fisher (2 February 2012). Wishful Drinking. Simon and Schuster. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-4711-0109-0.
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