Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou

Louis Alphonse is a banker by profession, and worked at the Venezuelan bank Banco Occidental de Descuento in 2005. He has also worked for several years at BNP Paribas, a French bank in Madrid.

In November 2003, his engagement to Venezuelan María Margarita Vargas Santaella, the daughter of Victor Vargas, was announced officially. The next year, they married civilly in Caracas on November 5, 2004 and had the religious ceremony in La Romana, Dominican Republic the following day.

He regularly visited his mother in France and had also acquired French citizenship through his paternal grandmother, Emmanuelle de Dampierre, a French national. He lived in Venezuela for some before shifting to the United States, but later settled in Madrid.

Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou was born on April 25, 1974 in Madrid, Spain into the Royal House of Bourbon. He is the second son of Alfonso de Borbón, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz, and his wife Doña María del Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco, the granddaughter of Francisco Franco.

He had an elder brother, François de Bourbon, who died in a car accident on February 7, 1984 in Pamplona while returning from a ski trip in the Pyrenees. His father, who was driving the car, had to go through six operations, while he himself was in the hospital for a month to recover from injuries.

His parents, Alfonso and Carmen, separated in 1979, received a civil divorce 1982, and their Catholic marriage was finally annulled in 1986. His father obtained custody of his two sons, but after the car accident, a Spanish court had granted Carmen temporary custody of him, but restored custody to his father six months later.

His mother lived with Jean-Marie Rossi, a Frenchman of Italian descent 20 years her senior, and married him civilly on December 11, 1984. From this marriage, he had a stepsister named Cynthia Rossi, as well as three step siblings ¬— Mathilda, Marella and Frederick — from Jean-Marie Rossi’s previous marriage.

He attended the Lycée Français de Madrid, and in June 1992, got his COU, an academic level in Spain that was equivalent to 12th grade in the United States. He completed his graduate level study in economics from the IESE Business School.

At the time of his birth, Louis Alphonse’s father Alfonso de Borbón was the ‘Dauphin of France’ due to his father’s claim to the French throne, and used ‘Duke of Bourbon’ as title of pretence. Alfonso’s father, Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia, later renounced the throne and died in St. Gall Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland on 20 March 1975.

After the death of his father, Alfonso asserted his claim to be both the ‘Head of the House of Bourbon’ and the Legitimist claimant to the throne of France. He subsequently took the title of ‘Duke of Anjou’ and conferred upon Louis Alphonse the title ‘Duke of Touraine’ on September 19, 1981.

When Louis Alphonse’s elder brother François died in the car accident, Louis Alphonse was recognized by the Legitimists as the heir apparent to his father. On September 27, 1984 his father gave him the additional title of ‘Duke of Bourbon’.

In 1987, the Spanish government declared that titles that are traditionally attached to the dynasty will be borne by the title holders on a lifetime basis and would not be transferred. As a result, Louis Alphonse did not inherit the Dukedom of Cádiz after the death of his father.

After his father, Alfonso de Borbón, died in a skiing accident near Vail, Colorado on January 30, 1989, he succeeded him as the Legitimist pretender to the French throne as Louis XX. A lawsuit was filed against Vail Associated, the company that owned the ski resort where the accident happened, for which he was awarded 150 million pesetas in 1994.

He has previously held the titles 'Prince Louis Alphonse de Bourbon', the 'Duke of Touraine' and the 'Duke of Bourbon', and currently holds the Legitimist style courtesy title, the 'Duke of Anjou'. He received the honors 'Sovereign Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Royal Order of the Holy Spirit' from House of Bourbon-France and 'Bailiff Knights Grand Cross in Obedience' from Sovereign Military Order of Malta.