The 2nd Duke, a descendant through a morganatic marriage of the royal family of Württemberg, was the elder son of Albert's aunt, Princess Florestine of Monaco. Although he was ineligible to inherit the crown of his patrilineal ancestors in Germany, given the line of succession to the Monegasque throne at that time, there was every likelihood that the principality would pass by lawful inheritance into Wilhelm's "German hands" upon the death of Prince Louis. However, given the bitter relations between France and Germany at that time – a socio-political legacy of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and then of World War I – France deemed it unacceptable for a country over which it had exercised "de facto" or "de jure" hegemony, intermittently since the 17th century and consistently for half a century, to fall into the hands of a German aristocrat.