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Born in 1923 to Prince Pierre and Princess Charlotte, Rainier was six years old when his parents divorced, and he and his sister Antoinette spent most of the early part of their lives in boarding schools.
His father, Prince Pierre, assumed responsibility for his son’s education, sending him to Summerfield English preparatory school in the French town of Saint-Leonard-sur-Mer, and later enrolling him at prestigious British public school Stowe College. Like King Baudouin of the Belgians and the Aga Khan, Rainier completed his sixth-form studies in the Swiss finishing school of Le Rosey. This was followed by stints at university – first at Montpellier, then Paris, where he studied Political Science.
In 1944, he joined the French army as a foreign serviceman. That same year, his mother renounced the throne, leaving Rainier to succeed his grandfather, Prince Louis II, in 1949. The 26-year-old royal then set about modernising the tiny (less than one square mile) kingdom sandwiched between the South of France and the Mediterranean.
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