WEDDING IN MONACO
PRINCESS CAROLINE AND ERNST OF HANNOVER

The gloom that has recently enveloped Monaco's House of Grimaldi evaporated with the wedding as the 700-year-old Riviera principality celebrated the marriage of Prince Rainier's elder daughter, Princess Caroline, to Prince Ernst August of Hanover. Caroline, dressed in a light grey suit, was married for the third time at a civil ceremony on a balmy morning. It was also her 42nd birthday. The private ceremony was attended by family and friends. Divorced from Philippe Junot, a French playboy, in 1980, the princess lost her second husband, Stefano Casiraghi, in a powerboat accident off Cap Ferrat nine years ago. The marriage followed a long courtship, meticulously charted by gossip columnists, and an official blessing from the Queen. Her permission was formally required under a 1772 treaty concerning the House of Hanover, of which she is a member. For a family that has often complained bitterly of media intrusion, the wedding was something of a triumph. News leaked out only on Friday afternoon, after Rainier informed President Jacques Chirac of France as a courtesy. Monaco residents had been expecting an announcement, however, following the couple's first public appearance with the five children from their previous marriages - and reports that Caroline is pregnant. Hordes of paparazzi descended on Monte Carlo last week after the prince and his two sons joined Caroline and her three children in Rainier's box for the royal premiere of the Monaco circus festival. They were photographed laughing uproariously at the clowns and exchanging tender glances. "He is at last the right man for her," said one shopkeeper in the palace square. Ernst, the great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, left school at 15 to work on a farm after a row over smoking and the length of his hair and is now a wealthy businessman and landowner. He was divorced from his first wife, Chantal Hochuli, in October 1997. Not much has gone right for Monaco since the death in a car crash in 1982 of Rainier's wife, Grace Kelly, the former Hollywood actress. After Casiraghi was killed, Caroline's younger sister, Stephanie, endured a short-lived marriage that ended in humiliation when her husband was photographed naked with with a topless model. Prince Albert, Rainier's oldest child and heir, remains unmarried. The couple seem to have asked Queen Elizabeth II's permission, as Ernst August has to do being a descendant of Sophie of Hanover (1631-1714). By marrying a Catholic Ernst August forsakes his position in the line of succession to the English throne, yet retains his hereditary rights to the throne of Hanover. Ernst August and Caroline seem to be expecting a child in Summer. It would be Caroline's fourth child as she has three little Casiraghis fathered by her late husband, the handsome thrill-seeking Andrea Casiraghi. Ernst August has two sons from his previous marriage to chocolate-heiress Chantal Hochuli. In recent months the principality has been dragged into a series of embarrassing legal and political disputes with France, amid allegations of fraud and tax evasion. With Rainier preparing to mark his golden jubilee at the head of a royal house that was founded in 1297, there had been little to celebrate - until the wedding.