Except as being involved in the wars of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, little is heard of the Grimaldis for two or three hundred years. They were known as seigneurs or counts, holding some local sway, but always under the protection of superior neighbours, to whom they stood in the relation of vassals. Any one curiously disposed regarding their intermarriages and ongoings, will get full particulars in the recent work of Mr Pemberton (_History of Monaco, Past and Present_), also in the French work of M. Abel Rendu (_Menton et Monaco_); but it is not easy to burden the memory with the annals of this noble and not always well-behaved family. But for their instinctively clinging to France, they would long since have disappeared. By Louis XIII., the family were raised to the rank of Princes of Monaco, and they were likewise invested with the Dukedom of Valentenois in the peerage of France. From this time, they fought in the French wars, and were occasionally employed in diplomatic missions. At the middle of the seventeenth century, the principality had the honour of supporting the extravagances of Lewis I., a prince who, in his ardent desire to shew off with becoming splendour as an ambassador, accepted a mission to Rome from the court of France. We are told that his prodigal outlays led to a system of taxation of hitherto unexampled severity. The most idiotic of his acts consisted in causing his carriage-horses to be shod with silver, each shoe fastened only by a single nail, in order that it might be easily lost, and ostentatiously replaced. In Anthony, the son of this madcap, the male line of the Grimaldis terminated. With only daughters to succeed, there arose a grand family consultation how Louise Hyppolyte, the eldest of these female heirs, should marry some distinguished personage, sufficiently rich to discharge certain heavy debts and obligations. If we could extract any drollery from the history of the Grimaldis, it would be in the straits to which they were put at this memorable juncture. In a sense, the girl was put up to auction. It was made generally known that the highest bidder, with the longest purse and pedigree, might have her; one thing, however, being stipulated, that he should sink his own identity, and assume the name and arms of Grimaldi. After a good deal of looking about and chaffering, Louise Hyppolyte was assigned to Count de Matignon, whose wealth was pronounced adequate, and his ancestral rank in no respect impeachable. The marriage took place in 1715, and from it sprung the present family. [Illustration: The old town of Mentone with Quai Bonaparte, as seen from Eastern Bay.]