Two Queens —a confrontation with a sad outcome...

Abstract

The young beauty Marie Louise of Orleans, niece of Louis XIV, at the age of 16 became the wife of Charles II, king of Spain at the behest of her uncle and the top of the Spanish kingdom. Marriage to a young man who was the exact opposite of her bride — an intellectually delayed, ugly, physically handicapped groom with different genetic diseases — proved a crucible for the tender lily growing up in a French royal household, where subjects enjoyed all the pleasures of life. Losing out in silent opposition to her mother-in-law, Queen Mother Marianne of Austria, the young queen was forced to submit to the prim atmosphere of the Spanish court, to lead a sedentary lifestyle and carefully mask the progressive depression by a gluttony. Heavy fatty meals and gluttony, sugary drinks and morbid obesity probably caused the queen's death from biliary colic and acute pancreatitis.