MONACO - Monaco's Prince Rainier is showing no signs of improvement on his third day on artificial respiration with lung, heart and kidney problems, a source close to the ruler told AFP Wednesday.
"Right now, there is no improvement" from Tuesday, when the 81-year-old monarch was rushed into intensive care, the source said.
The palace said in a statement late Wednesday that Prince Rainier, who had been receiving treatment for a recurrent breathing problem since March 7, was in a "stable" condition but breathing only with assistance from machines.
"A heightened broncho-pulmonary infection with heart and kidney failures required the transfer of the sovereign to the intensive care service of the cardio-thoracic centre" where he was being treated, it said.
Prince Rainier's three children by his late wife, the US actress Grace Kelly -- heir Prince Albert, 47, Princess Caroline, 48, and Princess Stephanie, 40 -- have been at his bedside, and Monaco's archbishop and parish priest have also visited.
The prince is the world's second-longest reigning monarch, after Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He ascended to power in the tiny Mediterranean territory in 1949, three years before Queen Elizabeth II took the throne of England.
After years as a jet-setting playboy, he boosted the glamour quotient of his little state when he married Grace Kelly in 1956. She died in a car crash in the principality in 1982.
Monaco was founded when Rainier's Grimaldi dynasty took control of the principality in 1297. The family was deposed after the French Revolution when Monaco was united with France, but restored under the Franco-Monegasque treaty of 1861.
The principality has a population of around 32,000, many of them ultra-rich residents enjoying its tax haven status.
03/24/2005 11:27 GMT