Aux Armes, Citoyens!

In the same room where Errol Flynn was married to one of his three wives eight years ago. a mayor of Monte Carlo was last week about to perform another, humbler, wedding. Suddenly a liveried bailiff burst in, crying: "Monsieur Boisson! You're not mayor any more!"

Boisson was not the only civil functionary to get the boot last week. In a surprise morning broadcast to his people, sandwiched in between the commercials and the canned music on Radio Monte Carlo, Prince Rainier III "temporarily" suspended Monaco's constitution and fired both the 18-man National Council and the Municipal Council. The 3,000 citizens and 18,000 foreign residents of the park-sized, 370-acre principality were warned that "public meetings of a political character" were banned.

What had gone wrong in the sun-drenched paradise (no income taxes, no military service) ruled by Rainier and his beautiful Princess Grace, nee Kelly? The majority of the National Council wanted constitutional reforms and limits placed on the Prince's power--he is the only absolutist monarch left in Europe. The Prince, "thinking of my son" (Prince Albert, aged eleven months), and invoking the memory of his Grimaldi great-grandfather, Prince Albert I, was determined not to lose a single prerogative. When the council, which has only advisory powers, put pressure on the Prince by refusing to approve his $6,000,000 1959 budget, Rainier acted.

Though the president of the deposed council protested, "This is a veritable coup d'etat" and there were rumors that the councilmen might meet in secret on French soil, Monegasques were neither rushing to the barricades nor fleeing to the border--a ten-minute walk from almost anywhere in Monaco. The 58-man army did not spring to arms, and Prince Rainier soothed his subjects by promising women the vote in national elections, a project dear to the heart of his U.S.-born wife.

The sun still shone in Monte Carlo, sailboats skittered about the bay, the gambling casino still earned enough francs to pay its share of the costs of government. To show their unconcern with events and their trust in their subjects, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace left their pink palazzo to attend a gala Monte Carlo performance of La Bonne Soupe, the touring Parisian comedy hit about prostitutes. Both their Serene Highnesses found it "very amusing."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.