Prince Louis, Count of Trani


Prince Louis Maria of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Trani was the eldest son of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and his second wife Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria.
His maternal grandparents were Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen and Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg, Duchess of Teschen. The Duke of Teschen was a son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. The Duchess of Teschen was a great-granddaughter of Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, herself a daughter of George II of the United Kingdom.

Heir to the throne

Louis was a younger half-brother of Francis II of the Two Sicilies. He was second-in-line to the throne of the Two Sicilies since the time of his birth.
Their father died on 22 May 1859. Francis became King but had no children yet from his wife Maria Sophie of Bavaria. Louis became his heir presumptive. However the Two Sicilies were conquered by the Expedition of the Thousand under Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1861. Garibaldi served the Kingdom of Sardinia which was in the process of Italian unification.
Louis was still the heir of Francis as head of a deposed Royal House. He retained this position for the rest of his life but predeceased Francis. Francis was eventually succeeded by their younger brother Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta.

Marriage

On 5 June 1861, Louis married Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria, the fourth daughter of Maximilian, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. Two of Mathilde's sisters were Elisabeth of Bavaria, married to the Emperor of Austria, and Marie Sophie of Bavaria, wife of Louis's older half-brother Francis II of the Two Sicilies. The marriage was unsuccessful almost from the start, and while Louis took refuge in alcohol, Mathilde spent most of her life traveling from place to place, often accompanied by her sisters.
Louis and Mathilde had a single daughter:
Louis had one illegitimate son, Charles of Duzzio.
Princess Maria Teresa married Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen on 27 June 1889 and later became the Princess of Hohenzollern when her father-in-law died in 1905. She had two sons and a daughter.

Death

Louis died of heart disease in Paris on 8 June 1886.
Some sources claim that Louis had in fact died in 1878: his mind clouded by alcohol and tortured by the knowledge that his life was ruined, he threw himself into Lake Zug, near Zürich. These sources claim that it would have been scandalous if it had been revealed that the brother-in-law of the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria had committed suicide.

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