Marriage was the most urgent necessity of the Grand Duke for the procreation of legitimate heirs.

It is difficult to believe that a man who draws in such noble outlines the dignity of the daily life of humanity regards as evil that divine act of procreation by which that dignity is renewed from age to age.

man devotes himself more seriously to the business of procreation than to any other; in the achievement of nothing else does he condense and concentrate the intensity of his will in so remarkable a manner as in the act of generation."