Glyn to come to Russia to write a Russian-based story. She told Glyn: "Everyone always writes books about our peasants. Come and write one about how the real people live." Glyn produced a piece of fiction called His Hour, which she dedicated to Marie, saying "her kind appreciation of the finished work is a source of the deepest gratification to me." Glyn modeled one of the characters, Princess Ardacheff, after Marie. Like her husband, Marie loved the arts. After her husband's death, Marie succeeded him as president of the Academy of Fine Arts. Marie was addicted to gambling. The painter Henry Jones Thaddeus attended one of Marie's parties, where she insisted that her guests play roulette. When she and her husband traveled abroad, she liked to frequent the casinos of Monte Carlo. During Nicholas II's reign, she defied a prohibition on the playing on roulette and baccarat in private homes, and she was temporarily banned from Court. Early life Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore was born a duchess of the Grand Ducal House of Mecklenburg to Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin - the then Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and his first wife, Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz (1822–1862) - in the Schloss Ludwigslust. She was eight years old when her mother died in 1862. Her father married twice more. Marriage Marie married Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, the third son of Alexander II of Russia. She was one of the very few Royals with Slavic patriline to ever marry a male dynast of the House of Romanov. Previously, she had been engaged to George Albert I, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, but broke it off as soon as she met Vladimir. Marie and Vladimir married on 28 August 1874. The wedding took place in the chapel of the Winter Palace. It was not as lavish as the wedding of Vladimir's sister Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia to the Duke of Edinburgh. Lord Augustus Loftus noted, "Every thing went off very well; although the marriage was not so resplendent as that of the Duke of Edinburgh. At this season of the year this town is a desert and therefore only those came who were obliged to come." As the Russian Emperor's daughter-in-law, Marie took on a new style Her Imperial Highness. Marie and Vladimir had four sons and one daughter. Upon her marriage she took the Russian name of Maria