Maria Caroline Gibert de Lametz

Who was Maria Caroline Gibert de Lametz?

Marie Caroline Gibert de Lametz, was a French stage actress and later Princess Consort and regent de facto of Monaco, the spouse of Florestan I, Prince of Monaco. She was the daughter of Charles-Thomas Gibert and his wife, Marie-Françoise Le Gras de Vaubercey, and the adopted stepdaughter of Antoine Rouyer de Lametz, Chevalier d'Empire and Knight of the Legion of Honour. She is the paternal granddaughter of Thomas Gibert and his wife, Françoise Moret, and the maternal granddaughter of François Louis Michel Le Gras de Vaubercey and his wife, Gabrielle Françoise des Courtils. Marie Caroline was originally a stage actress. The marriage of her parents ended in divorce.

Maria Caroline Gibert de Lametz and Prince Florestan of Monaco married in Commercy on 27 November 1816 and had two children: Prince Charles, born in 1818 later Prince Charles III, and Princess Florestine, born in 1833.

Florestan ascended to the throne in Monaco in 1841, but her spouse was never prepared to assume the role of prince — he had been an actor in the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique — and the real power during his reign lay in the hands of his wife.