Louis Alphonse de Bourbon

On 30 January 1989, his father died in a skiing accident near Vail, Colorado. Later, in 1994 Louis Alphonse would receive 150 million pesetas following a lawsuit against Vail Associated, which owned the ski resort where the accident occurred.[9] Louis Alphonse was recognised by some members of the Capetian dynasty as Chef de la Maison de Bourbon (Head of the House of Bourbon)[9][10] and took the title Duke of Anjou, but not his father's Spanish dukedom. He is considered the rightful pretender to the French throne by adherents of the Legitimist movement.[9]

Louis' father was elected by the French Society of the Cincinnati to be the representative of Louis XVI (leading to the resignation of the Count of Paris, who had represented the Admiral d'Orléans). On 16 June 1994, Louis Alphonse was elected to succeed his father as the representative of Louis XVI,[11] whose military aid was instrumental to the independence of the United States of America.

In addition to his Spanish citizenship, Louis Alphonse acquired French nationality through his paternal grandmother, Emmanuelle de Dampierre, also a French citizen.[9] He attended the Lycée Français de Madrid, obtaining his COU in June 1992.[9] He studied economics at the IESE Business School. He worked several years for BNP Paribas, a French bank in Madrid. Although he regularly visited France, where his mother lived for several years, he continued to live in Spain.

In June 2006, Louis Alphonse did not attend his mother's third wedding, because he disapproved of her separation from his stepfather, whom he greatly respected, and disagreed with her "celebrity" lifestyle.[12]

Anjou drew media attention when he expressed public support for the Yellow vests movement in France.[13] He also attracted controversy for his leadership of supporters of the late Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, who oppose the Spanish socialist government's plan to remove the dictator's remains from an elaborate memorial tomb near Madrid.[14]

Louis Alphonse's engagement to marry Venezuelan María Margarita Vargas Santaella, the daughter of the businessman Victor Vargas, was announced in November 2003. They were married civilly in Caracas on 5 November 2004 and religiously on 6 November 2004 in La Romana, Dominican Republic. None of the members of the Spanish royal family attended the wedding. Although no official reason was given, it was no secret that the then king, Juan Carlos I, did not approve his cousin's claim to the French throne, nor the fact that Louis Alphonse issued the wedding invitations styled as "Duke of Anjou".[15] From 2005, the couple resided in Venezuela, where he worked at Banco Occidental de Descuento, before moving to the United States. Subsequently, they took up residence in Madrid.

Louis Alphonse and María Margarita had their first child, Eugénie, on 5 March 2007, at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami. She was baptised at the papal nunciature in Paris in June 2007. Her godparents are Prince Charles-Emmanuel of Bourbon-Parma and his wife Constance. Legitimists recognize her as Princess Eugénie (Eugenia de Borbón Vargas in Spain) and also as the current Madame Royale, the French name commonly given to the eldest unmarried daughter of a King of France.

The couple had twin sons, Louis and Alphonse, on 28 May 2010 in New York City.[16] Their father has conferred upon them the historic French titles of, respectively, Duke of Burgundy (duc de Bourgogne), and Duke of Berry (duc de Berry). (In Spain, the twins are Don Luis and Don Alfonso de Borbón Vargas). Prince Louis, as Legitimist Dauphin of France, is expected to succeed his father as head of the French royal house, the senior Bourbon/Capetian line, in Legitimist reckoning. Louis and Alphonse were baptised on 5 September 2010 at St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City by Cardinal Angelo Comastri. Louis' godparents were Arancha Martínez-Bordíu (his father's maternal aunt) and Francisco D'Agostino (his mother's brother-in-law). Alphonse's godparents were Amparo Corell de Trenor, Baroness de Alacuás and Lorenzo Perales.

Their fourth child, Henri, was born on 1 February 2019 in New York and was granted the title Duke of Touraine (duc de Touraine).[17]

• Thierry Ardisson. Louis XX. Contre-enquête sur la monarchie., Olivier Orban, 1986, ISBN 2-85565-334-7
• Jean Foyer, Titre et armes du prince Louis de Bourbon, Diffusion-Université-Culture, 1990.
• Apezarena, José. Luis Alfonso de Borbón: Un príncipe a la espera, Random House Mondadori, 2007, ISBN 978-84-01-30552-8.
• Cassani Pironti, Fabio. "Bref crayon généalogique de S.A.R. la Princesse Marie-Marguerite, Duchesse d'Anjou, née Vargas Santaella", Le Lien Légitimiste, n. 16, 2007.
• Opfell, Olga S. H.R.H. Louis-Alphonse, Prince of Bourbon, Duke of Anjou: Royal House of France (House of Bourbon), Royalty Who Wait: The 21 Heads of Formerly Regnant Houses of Europe. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2001. 11-32.