The circus has come to town – with Monte Carlo celebrating its famed International Circus Festival. And when the big top is pitched in the Espace Fontvieille in the tiny Mediterranean principality, fans of the spectacle come flocking.
At the top of the list are the festival’s organisers, the Grimaldi family who have ruled Monaco for almost 700 years. Prince Rainier and his son and heir Albert were both on hand to see a selection of some of the world’s best travelling performers. The septuagenarian Prince’s youngest daughter Princess Stephanie, who has inherited her father’s love for the circus, appeared on her father’s arm and waved a warm hello to the clown who welcomed the royal family into the big top.
Since the Monegasque festival is the place for any circus worth its salt, it was not surprising to see Stephanie’s paramour, the Swiss ringmaster Franco Knie. Looking every inch the showman in a midnight blue jacket with gold frogging down the front, he passed close to where his royal girlfriend and her father, who has known the Knie family for years, were seated.
Perhaps this can only mean one thing: that if the House of Grimaldi has not finally accepted Stephanie’s latest affair of the heart, then there has at least been a thawing in its attitudes to the royal rebel and her multi-millionaire boyfriend. The mother-of-three, who will be 37 on February 1, has moved from her house in France to the Swiss village of Rapperswill, about 30 miles from Zurich, where the animals and performers of Circus Knie spend the winter, so she can be close to the man who has tamed her heart.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
