He served as high commissioner of the Cretan State during its transition towards independence from Ottoman rule and union with Greece, under the title the Prince of Candia.

Feeling abandoned by his father on this occasion, George would later describe to his fiancée the profound attachment he developed for his uncle from that day forward.

[1] In 1891, George accompanied his cousin the Tsesarevich Nicholas on his voyage to Asia, and saved him from an assassination attempt in Japan, in what became known as the Ōtsu Incident by parrying a blow from the assasin's sabre with his cane.

Finally, British diplomats brokered a settlement and in September 1906 George was replaced by former Greek prime minister Alexandros Zaimis, and left the island.

He confided to her that he had experienced major disappointments when his roles in the Otsu incident and the Cretan governorship were misconstrued and under-appreciated by both individuals and governments who he felt should have known better.

[9] He also admitted that, contrary to what he knew were her hopes, he could not commit to living in France permanently since he had to remain prepared to undertake royal duties in Greece or Crete if summoned to do so.

Once his proposal of marriage was tentatively accepted, the bride's father was astonished when George waived any contractual clause guaranteeing an allowance or inheritance from Marie; she would retain and manage her own fortune (a trust yielding 800,000 francs per annum) and only their future children would receive legacies.

When George brought his bride to Bernstorff for the first family visit, Valdemar's wife Marie d'Orléans was at pains to explain to Marie Bonaparte the intimacy which united uncle and nephew, so deep that at the end of each of George's several yearly visits to Bernstorff, he would weep, Valdemar would take sick, and the women learned the patience not to intrude upon their husbands' private moments.

[11] During the first of these visits, Marie Bonaparte and Valdemar found themselves engaging in the kind of passionate intimacies she had looked forward to with her husband who, however, only seemed to enjoy them vicariously, sitting or lying beside his wife and uncle.

[14] When the prince and princess returned in July 1915 to France following a visit to the ailing King Constantine I in Greece, her affair with Briand had become notorious and George expressed a restrained jealousy.

[15] Although he was on friendly terms with his wife's mentor, Sigmund Freud, in 1925 George asked Marie to give up her work as a psychoanalyst to devote herself to their family life, but she declined.