The Spanish branch of the Orléans family

[Eurohistory]

Not that much really...there are worst cases of consanguinity.  Alfonso was a wonderfully dutiful son lived into his late 80's...he died in 1975, just months before Franco.  Luis was a mess...drug addict, alcoholic, party boy!

Arturo Beéche

[Eric_Lowe]

Eulalia was the royal rebel who got into trouble with Alfonso XIII and  his mother Queen Regent Maria Cristina. She didn't seem to get along with her dutiful sister Infanta Isabel ("La Chata"), but okay with Infanta Paz.  

[Luke]

Karl Girardet painted a wonderful canvas of the joint wedding of Isabel II to the Duke of Cadiz, and her sister to the Duke of Montpensier.  It is touching, if somewhat somber.  

Perhaps someone with better search skills than I can see if it is somewhere on the net.  

[Eric_Lowe]

Wonder if Luisa and Montpensier had a happy marriage ?  

[umigon]

The marriage was quite happy, at least for the standards of the time. After some infidelities of the Duke, he finally chose to remain faithful to his pious wife. The loss of so many children made them very close and they grew to be a very united couple.

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes...it was tragic that they lose those children.  

[umigon]

In fact they survived 8 of their 10 children!

[Eric_Lowe]

Really ? I thought one three got married and only two has decendents. The eldest daughter and Antonio who married Infanta Eulalia. Poor Mercedes died young.  

[umigon]

Yes, only Isabel and Antonio left issue. And, apart from them, Mercedes was the only one to get married. Sadly, she had no children.

[YaBB_Jose]

It seems that Don Antonio's wife (Doña Eulalia) was said to have refused to marry him at first, because...there was a chance of marrying the Duke of Bragança, future King Dom Carlos I of Portugal...He liked the idea, but his parents didn´t want this Spanish connection...

Nonetheless Psse Marie Amélie d'Orléans also had Spanish ancestry...so it seems they didn't like Eulalia actually...How was Eulalia?

I once read that an ambassador was sent to Madrid to fix the arrangements for the marriage of D. Carlos and Infanta Eulalia.
But the Infanta made "such advances"   on the handsome ambassador that he advised against the marriage   .
I think we were better served with Queen D. Amélia !

[Eric_Lowe]

Like mother like daughter. As Isabel II said "What can I do ? She (Eulalia) is so like me ! "

[frimousse]

i'd like to know more about Eulalia ' sons:

- Alfonso (1886-1975) who married princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Great-Britain.

-and the other one Luis (1888-1945) who seems to have had a strange life...He married in 1930 the widow of prince de Broglie, Marie-Charlotte Say, daughter of immensely rich French king of sugar. So at the time of the wedding he was 42, and the bride was  73 y o !!!! Strange isn'it ? He was said to be a gambler in Monte Carlo,etc... is that true ?  

[umigon]

He was not only a gambler, but his marriage to Princess Marie was due to his continuous shortness of money! He led a strange life indeed, and, with one of his many male lovers, a Portuguese noble, he was engaged in a strange affair with a sailor after which the sailor appeared dead! Alfonso XIII would retire him the title of infante and the revenues that the title implied!

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes...Luis was bought over to his father's side after he bribed him with part of his inheritance against the interests of his brother Alfonso ("Ali").  

[YaBB_Jose]

He was not only a gambler, but his marriage to Princess Marie was due to his continuous shortness of money! ...Alfonso XIII would retire him the title of infante and the revenues that the title implied!

Marie Say was the heiress of a sugar tycoon.
Extremely rich she married/”bought” her 1st husband, a Prince de Broglie.
She bought the lovely Chateau de Chaumont on the Loire banks.
A castle full of history from ancient times to the Renaissance and until our days that the couple restore at Marie's expenses.
I visited it a few years ago.
Don’t miss Catherine de Médici’s panelled bedroom where each panel hid a secret compartment for her poisons and papers  .
Catherine also hosted Nostradamus   at Chaumont.

http://www.azureva.com/gb/loire/magazine/chateau/chateaux-chaumont.php3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_Chaumont
http://www.chaumont-jardin.com/site/page/chateau/galerie_photo.php
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Say

Then appeared Luis Fernando de Borbon, a notorious gay, who seduced her in order to have access to her fortune  .
Which, of course, he “burnt” with his eccentricities and lovers, in a very short time.
Marie died in completely poverty, ignored by her husband and all her "friends" she used to host at Chaumont and at her Paris Palace  .