Inspiration?

Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries has said that Mia's story was based on her own diaries, and that she stuck a princess in for kicks.  She also said that Genovia (a fictional country) was based on the real-life principality Monaco.  I was reading through some of my old royal articles and found one rather interesting tidbit:

Charles' son, Prince Albert, explored the sea, erecting the colossal
Oceanographic Museum that still attracts visitors in Monaco today.
Albert's heir, Prince Louis, joined the French military. While
stationed in Algeria, he had an affair with a laundress, who gave
birth to an illegitimate daughter named Louise-Juliette. Two decades
later, when Louis had produced no other children, the servant girl
Louise-Juliette was brought to Monaco and transformed into the
Princess Charlotte virtually overnight. An arranged marriage with a
French count named Pierre de Polignac, who agreed to change his name
to Grimaldi, guaranteed the survival of the family line.

Though fatuously unhappy, Charlotte and Pierre managed to produce two
heirs, Prince Rainier III, the current sovereign, and his sister,
Tiny, before they separated. Rainier grew up surrounded by bitter
family fighting and in 1935, at age 12, he was shipped off to boarding
school in England while his parents waged a very public battle over
his custody.

 

This is an excerpt of an article called "The Messy Monarchy" written by Dorothy Rompalske.  It was published in Biography magazine, December 1997 Volume 1 Issue 12.  You can read the whole article at my MSN group.  It is under 'articles' and entitled 'messymonarchy.txt'.  Oh, and Tiny's full name is Antoinette.

Anyway, I just thought this was really cool.  I don't know if Meg knew about this specific story, but she did base the country of Genovia on Monaco.  The 'grown-up' princess Meg may have been referring to in her FAQ was Princess Caroline, Grace's eldest child, who is certainly grown up with children of her own.

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