This has puzzled me too. So I sat and made a timeline.
It looks like Prince Henrik's mother made a first civil marriage but didn't marry that husband in a religious ceremony (this situation is rather similar to the Princess of the Asturias' but Letizia did divorce her first husband before marrying Felipe). So technically in the eyes of the Catholic Church Renee wasn't married when she married Andre in 1934. The marriage between Renee and Andre was a religious marriage, but they didn't marry civilly until 1948.
The civil marriage between Renee and the first husband ended in 1940, oddly enough in a court in Saigon, Vietnam. Renee, Andre and Henrik apparently lived in Vietnam from 1934 to 1940 and must have returned to France shortly after the outbreak of World War II.
It's conjecture on my part but it's possible that there was some difficulty tracking down the first husband during the war years and that's why civil proceedings weren't undertaken for part of that time. But that doesn't explain 1934-1940 or 1945-1948.
So was the Monpezat marriage considered valid before 1948 since the civil portion hadn't taken place?
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