Monaco ? Prince Rainier III was reunited in death with his beloved Princess Grace on Friday in Monaco’s cathedral, with an emotional and pomp-filled funeral at the site where the two began their fairy-tale marriage nearly half a century ago.

Their children — heir Prince Albert II and Princesses Caroline and Stephanie — followed the funeral cortege with faces frozen in grief from Monaco’s royal palace to the Romanesque-style cathedral.

The only sound across the tiny, sun-splashed principality was the slow tolling of bells for Europe’s longest-serving monarch, who died April 6 at the age of 81.

The fabled Monte Carlo casino was closed, as were other businesses, and security was tight as the funeral attracted more than half a dozen heads of state and dignitaries from some 60 countries. They included French President Jacques Chirac, Irish President Mary McAleese, Belgium’s King Albert II, Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia and royalty from Sweden, Luxembourg and elsewhere.

They gathered at the same site where Rainier and the former Grace Kelly were married in 1956 — and where she was buried in 1982 following a car crash.

They were an “an exceptional couple, united by the heart and spirit” and Rainier bore “with dignity the terrible ordeal of the brutal death of his wife,” Archbishop Bernard Barsi said in his eulogy.

Rainier, who never remarried, often cut a lonely figure in his later years. It was said he never recovered from a broken heart.

“We are convinced that those who were united here below by the fidelity of their conjugal love are forever united in the fullness of God’s love,” Barsi said.

The royals, nobles and other VIPs who flew in for the funeral underscored how he helped overcome Monaco’s reputation as a “sunny place for shady people” and a haven for tax evasion, money-laundering and gambling, and oversaw its modernization.

After the funeral ceremony for their father, Prince Rainier III, from left, Princess Caroline, Prince Albert and Princess Stephanie leave the cathedral. Prince Rainier III, who died April 6 at the age of 81, was celebrated at a funeral ceremony Friday.

Barsi said Rainier was affectionately known as the “builder prince” who oversaw Monaco’s transformation.

“For all of us, the prince was, of course, the sovereign, but he was also a friend, a member of the family,” Barsi said. “His family cries for him.”

Tears were shed across Monaco, where many of Rainier’s subjects looked to him as a father figure.

“I’m so sad,” sobbed Christine Rousguisto, 79, one of thousands who watched the funeral on large video screens set up in Monaco’s churches. Gripping a handkerchief in trembling fingers, she knelt in prayer, softly repeating: “It hurts. It hurts so much.”

This Riviera enclave best known as a playground of high-end happiness was transformed by its grief Friday. All shops were shuttered and parked cars were removed from streets, which were closed to traffic and populated only by black-suited mourners, white-gloved police and some 700 journalists.

Prince Albert and his sisters blinked back tears as Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” mournfully echoed through the white-stone cathedral. The same dramatic passage had been played at their mother’s funeral.

Princess Stephanie sat slumped in grief, clutching a handkerchief in her black-gloved hands. At times she turned toward her siblings, who sat next to her beside the altar, their eyes lowered or gazing into the distance.