Scout’s Honor

Last weekend, on Saturday, 25 September, the Association Scouts de Monaco marked their centennial and Princess Caroline was there to congratulate them. Monegasque Scouting dates back to 1910, and its patronage under French Scouting began in 1918. In 1990, the Monegasque Scouts became fully independent of their French brethren under the World Organization of the Scout Movement. The Association is actually the Association des Guides et Scouts, the Guides of Monaco having been formed in 1929, and the two branches being united in a single association in 1992.

Princess Caroline has been the Honorary President of the Guides de Monaco since April 1983. When the Guides merged with the Scouts in 1992, she assumed the honorary presidency of the new association. As a girl herself, Princess Caroline was active in the Guide movement, of which her mother, Princess Grace, was an enthusiastic supporter. Perhaps Princess Caroline intended to invoke the spirit of her mother because she carried a Hermes Kelly handbag on her left shoulder. Wearing a taupe grey jacket and red and white necktie (part of the official uniform of the Scouts and Guides) as well as a pair of white slacks, she beamed down at the children from behind glasses, alternating between a pair of sunglasses and a pair of eyeglasses. She wore the latter when viewing the items the Scouts and Guides had on display for the special centennial exposition.

The headquarters of the Association des Guides et Scouts are in the parish church of the Sacred Heart in Monaco’s Moneghetti district. They go outside Monaco to camps in Le Castellard-Melan, France, situated in the Alps about three hours northwest of Monaco.

Filed under Germany, Monaco
Tagged House of Hanover, Patronage, Princess Caroline of Hanover, Scouting.