
Louis of Etruria
'Louis I of Etruria', also known as 'Louis Francis Philibert of Bourbon',
Duke of Parma (
5 July 1773–
27 May 1803) was the first of only two
Kings of Etruria.
Louis was the son of
Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and
Maria Amalia of Austria, the second surviving daughter of
Maria Theresa of Austria and
Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1795, Louis came to the Spanish court to finish his education and also to marry one of the daughters of King
Charles IV of Spain. On
25 August 1795, he married his first cousin
Maria Louisa of Spain at
Madrid and was made an
Infante of
Spain.
The marriage between the two different personalities turned out to be happy, though it was clouded by Louis's ill health: He was frail, suffering chest problems, and since a childhood accident when he hit his head on a marble table, suffered from symptoms that have been identified as epileptic fits. As the years went on, his health deteriorated, and he grew to be increasingly dependent on his wife. The young couple remained in Spain during the early years of their marriage, which were to be the happiest period of their lives.
The couple had two children:
★
Charles Louis Ferdinand (1799–1883)
★ Marie Louise Charlotte (1802–1857), married to
Prince Maximilian of Saxony, widower of her aunt Caroline, as his second wife and remained childless. She was stepmother of Maximilian and Caroline's children, including the Saxon Kings
Frederick Augustus II and
John I.
While Louis was staying in Spain, the
Duchy of Parma had been occupied by French troops in 1796.
Napoleon Bonaparte, who had conquered most of Italy and wanted to gain Spain as an ally against England, proposed to compensate the
House of Bourbon for their loss of the Duchy of Parma with
Kingdom of Etruria, a new state that he created from the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany. This was agreed upon in the
Treaty of Aranjuez.
Louis had to receive his investiture from Napoleon in Paris, before taking possession of Etruria. Louis, his wife and his son travelled incognito through France under the name of the Count of Livorno. Having been invested as King in Paris, Louis and his family arrived at his new capital Florence in August 1801.
In 1802, both Louis and his pregnant wife travelled to Spain to attend the double-wedding of Maria Luisa's brother
Ferdinand and her youngest sister Maria Isabel. Offshore at Barcelona, Maria Louisa gave birth to her daughter Marie Louise Charlotte. The couple returned in December of that year, after having been notified of the death of Louis's father.
Back in Etruria, Louis's health worsened, and in May 1803, he died at the age of thirty, possibly due to an epileptic crisis.
He was succeeded by his son,
Charles Louis as King Louis II of Etruria, under the regency of his mother Maria Louisa.