Alice Heine

Alice Heine (February 10, 1857 – December 22, 1925) was an American-born Princess consort of Monaco, by marriage to Prince Albert I of Monaco. Marcel Proust used her as a model for the Princesse de Luxembourg in his novel, In Search of Lost Time. Her first husband was the Duke of Richelieu, and one of the titles of her second husband was Duke of Mazarin; she was thus unique in bearing the titles of both Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin. Early life Heine was born Marie Alice Heine at 900 Rue Royale, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Her French father, Michel Heine, was a scion of a prominent German-rooted Berlin and Paris banking Jewish family. His brother was Armand Heine, and both were cousins of poet Heinrich Heine and of journalist and press publisher Gustav Heine, later Baron Heine von Geldern. Michel was born in Bordeaux, France, and moved to New Orleans in 1843, and become a successful financier and real-estate developer. Heine's mother was Marie Amélie Céleste Miltenberger, daughter of Joseph Alphonse Miltenberger, an architect and cast-iron importer by trade of French Alsatian descent, and his Creole wife, Marie Céleste Dorfeuille. Her family built three interconnected Miltenberger mansions on Rue Royale. She had two younger brothers, Paul Henri and Isaac Georges. The American Civil War sent the family back to France, where the teenaged Alice's youth and beauty, and her family's wealth, made a great impression in Parisian society. A & M Heine, her father's firm, helped finance Napoleon III's war with Prussia. Michel and Amélie became regulars in the court of Napoleon III, who, along with the Empress Eugénie, became godparents to the New Orleans-born Heine.