The ten-year marriage of Marie Louise of…

The ten-year marriage of Marie Louise of Orléans to the physically, intellectually, and emotionally challenged Charles II of Spain has resulted in no children.

After horseback riding on February 11, 1689, she feels a severe pain in the abdomen which forces her to lie down the rest of the evening.

She dies the following night.

According to a witness, on her deathbed Marie Louise said farewell to her husband: Your Majesty might have other wives, but no one will ever love you as I do.

The Spanish architect José Churriguera, known for his exuberant and fantastic Baroque style, establishes his reputation overnight in 1689 by his design for the catafalque for the queen’s lying in state.

The death of Marie Louise leaves her husband heartbroken.

At the time, there are rumors that she had been poisoned by the notorious intrigante Olympia Mancini, Countess of Soissons, at the behest of the dowager queen, Mariana of Austria, her mother-in-law, because Marie Louise had not given birth to any children.

This is questionable since Mariana and Marie Louise were close and the dowager queen was also devastated at the young queen's death.

It seems likely that the real cause of Marie Louise's death was appendicitis.

She died in her twenty-sixth year like her mother, and her niece, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy.

Shortly after the Queen's death, the Spanish ministers begin to look for a second wife for the King.

The main candidates are the Italian princess Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and the German princess Maria Anna of Neuburg.

Upon showing the portraits of the princesses to Charles, the King observes: The lady from Tuscany is pretty and the lady from Neuburg seems not to be ugly either.

But then Charles turns towards a portrait of the deceased Marie Louise and, sighing, says: This lady was most beautiful.