After eleven years of marriage, Luisa and her husband, Ferdinand, were unwillingly forced into exile upon the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1801. The couple soon fled to Vienna, Austria, where they would stay for nearly a year until Ferdinand compensated with the Electorate of Salzburg, giving him titles and land. Luisa, however, died aged 29, before her husband re-ascended the throne.
In 1790 prominent French painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was commissioned to paint portraits of Maria Carolina’s four eldest children—one of them being Maria Luisa. Though, whilst painting Luisa, Le Brun was reluctant to finish it due to Luisa’s features. Le Brun detailed the encounter in her memoirs, recalling:
". . . [Luisa] was extremely ugly and pulled such faces that I was most reluctant to finish her portrait."
Her mother, Queen Maria Carolina, had a bad opinion of Luisa, whom she described as imprudent and gossipy.
The couple both went into exile and lived in Vienna, the capital of the Austrian Empire, which was ruled by Archduke Ferdinand's elder brother, Emperor Francis II. Soon, Ferdinand was compensated by being given the secularized lands of the Archbishop of Salzburg as Grand-Duke of Salzburg.
Death
On 19 September 1802, upon a somewhat complicated childbirth, Maria Luisa died giving birth to a stillborn son at the Hofburg, in Vienna. She is currently buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna with her stillborn son.
Aftermath
Her husband outlived her by 23 years, he himself dying in 1824. Before his death, however, he had his Tuscan title reassumed—in 1814—after the title was held by Elisa Bonaparte. Ferdinand also remarried in 1821 to Princess Maria Ferdinanda of Saxony, though this marriage remained childless.
Children
Luisa and Ferdinand had six children:
Archduchess Carolina Ferdinanda Teresa (2 August 1793 – 5 January 1802); died in childhood.
Archduke Francesco Leopoldo (15 December 1794 – 18 May 1800); died in childhood.
Archduchess Maria Luisa Giuseppa (30 August 1799 – 15 June 1857); was born disabled and had a severe deformity.[citation needed] Due to this, she was affectionately called "the little hunchback" by the people of Florence. Never married, nor had issue.
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