Louise was born at the
Hôtel de Soissons in
Paris. The Hôtel was the birthplace of her mother, a granddaughter of
Louis de Bourbon, an uncle of
Henry IV of France. Her father was
Prince Thomas Francis of Savoy, the younger son of the
Duke of Savoy and his
Spanish wife,
Infanta Catalina Micaela. She married Margrave
Ferdinand Maximilian of Baden-Baden (1625–1669) on 15 March 1653 at the
Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris, France. The church was near the Hôtel de Soissons. The marriage contract was signed on the same day and is today preserved in the Parisian
Institut de France. This marriage was negotiated by none other than the famous
Cardinal Mazarin and the Ambassador of the Margrave of Baden-Baden one Monsieur
Krebs. Her husband was the Hereditary Prince of Baden-Baden, this meant that he was the
Heir apparent of his father
Wilhelm, Margrave of Baden-Baden. Marriages between German and Savoyard nobles were common in an era when many Savoyard nobles lived in German states notably
Baden itself, due to official charges in the country. The marriage was not successful. Louise Christine of Savoy refused to leave the refined French court and follow her husband to Baden-Baden. Louise Christine gave birth to a son on April 8, 1655, named
Louis William of Baden-Baden. He was named after the French King
Louis XIV, who was his godfather. Ferdinand Maximilian then abducted his son from Paris and brought him to Baden-Baden. Ferdinand ordered a Savoyard man named Charles Maurice de Lassolaye, who had access to the Hôtel de Soissons, to smuggle his three-month-old son out of Paris and take him to be raised in Baden-Baden. As a consequence Louis William was not raised by his mother, but by his grandfather's second wife Maria Magdalena of Oettingen-Baldern. When it was clear that Louise Christine would not leave Paris, some said due to the influence of her mother, Louise Christine and her husband decided to separate and let her son be raised in Baden-Baden. She died in Paris aged 61. Her descendants included the present
Henri d'Orléans, French pretender; the
Prince Napoléon;
Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza and his distant cousin Prince
Luiz of Orléans-Braganza. She is also an ancestor of the ruling
Felipe VI of Spain,
Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg and
Albert II of Belgium. ==Ancestors==