PRINCE RAINIER of Monaco made his final journey across the tiny Mediterranean country that he transformed into a centre of wealth and glamour yesterday as he was laid to rest in the cathedral where his wife, Princess Grace, had been buried 23 years earlier.

Nine days after the Prince’s death at the age of 81, a strange silence had settled upon the normally bustling principality as royalty, politicians and jet-setters gathered for his funeral.

With shops shut, roads closed and a majority of the country’s 32,000 residents staying indoors behind fastened shutters, the only sounds were a fanfare and the 36-gun salute that echoed across the harbour at regular intervals.

Prince Rainier’s coffin — draped in the flag of the Grimaldi dynasty that has ruled the country for 700 years — was followed by his three children out of the palace and through the winding streets of Monte Carlo.

Prince Albert, 47, his son and successor as head of state, was upright and impassive; his two daughters, Princess Caroline, 48, and Princess Stéphanie, 40, choked back tears. In front of them, walking to heel between soldiers and officials, was Odin, the Prince’s Irish wolf hound.

Members of his staff, dressed in black and carrying red and white roses, stood beneath the palace arcades, their heads bowed in honour of the man known as le patron (the boss).

Outside, in a salmon- coloured square bathed by a Mediterranean sun, were piles of wreaths laid during a week in which 10,000 people are estimated to have paid their last respects to their late sovereign.

An unprecedented security operation had been organised to protect personalities attending the funeral, including the Duke of York, who was representing the Queen; President Chirac of France and his wife, Bernadette; King Albert II of Belgium; John Lehman, the former US Navy Secretary and cousin of the actress Grace Kelly, who became Princess Grace when she married Prince Rainier in 1956; and the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.

France had sent an Awacs surveillance aircraft, along with 1,800 police officers and gendarmes to support Monaco’s 500-strong security force. Officials had been expecting a crowd of 3,000 to line the 300-yard between the palace and cathedral.

But in the end, only a few hundred were in attendence, depriving the funeral of any sense of popular fervour.

Some Monégasques said they had been deterred by an overwhelming police presence that resulted in officers on almost every street corner.

“The atmosphere is bizarre,” a middle-aged woman walking her dog in a deserted pedestrian street in the centre of Monaco said. “I can’t even find a baker’s open to get my breakfast. It all feels very, very, very solemn.”

Few were in a mood for criticism, with most saying that they had particular reason to be grateful to Prince Rainier, whose body was buried in the cathedral in a private ceremony last night.

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