Today King Charles III begins. his first state trip as monarch to Paris, a city full of memories and significance for his biography. Not only did the tragic death of Princess Diana take place there, and the then Prince of Wales was responsible for bringing her body back to the United Kingdom. Paris was also the place where his great-uncle, who was King as Edward VIII and later Duke of Windsor, signed the document of his abdication in favor of George VI, father of Elizabeth II and grandfather of Charles III. A historical fact that he could now remember on site.
Charles III visited it for the last time during a state trip to France for his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1972. At that time, the visit to the mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was not yet included in the castle’s official program But everyone understood the interest of Queen Elizabeth II to visit her uncle, who was suffering from cancer at the time and was in the final days of his life.
A year earlier, in 1971, Carlos had already visited the same place to satisfy his curiosity about his great-uncle. The then-heir told years later how surprised he was to see that his uncle lived in a kind of parallel kingdom, served by footmen in the same livery as Buckingham’s servants and with the famous red box in which British monarchs put their gifts received. official government documents displayed at the villa. “Everything had a tragic atmosphere, both the people and the atmosphere, and I was very relieved when I was able to escape from there after 45 minutes and return to Paris,” said King Charles III. years ago became his official biographer.
After the death of the Duke of Windsor in 1972, a new family episode in the mansion suggests that King Charles III for the preservation of the Mansart heritage site would undoubtedly be very beneficial, as they recently announced that the mansion will open as a house museum next year becomes. At the end of August 1997, Princess Diana also visited the Villa Windsor with Dodi Al Fayed, whose father Mohamed Al Fayed had bought it a few years earlier with the intention of getting closer to the British royal family.
Hours after the visit, Diana and Dodi left the Ritz Hotel for good.
