Louis II, Prince of Monaco
On 26 June 1922, Prince Albert I died in Paris. Louis Grimaldi ascended to the throne as Louis II, Prince of Monaco. While his reign never achieved the grandeur of his father, Louis II left an indelible imprint on the tiny principality. In 1924 the Monaco Football Club was formed and in 1929, the first Grand Prix of Monaco automobile race was held, won by Charles Grover (aka "Williams") driving a Bugatti painted in what would become the famous British racing green color. He collected artefacts belonging to Napoleon I which are now assembled and displayed in the Napoleon Museum attached to the Royal Palace in Monte Carlo.
Prince's Palace of Monaco
By the time of Charles III's death in 1889, Monaco and Monte Carlo were synonymous as one and the same place, and had acquired, through gambling, a reputation as a louche and decadent playground of the rich. It attracted everyone from Russian grand dukes and railway magnates, often with their mistresses, to adventurers, causing the small country to be derided by many including Queen Victoria. In fact so decadent was Monaco considered that from 1882, when she first began visiting the French Riviera, Queen Victoria refused to make a courtesy social call at the palace. The contemporary writer Sabine Baring-Gould described the habituées of Monaco as "the moral cesspool of Europe."