Prince Louis Thomas of Savoy (Italian: Luigi Tommaso di Savoia; 15 December 1657 – 14 August 1702) was a Count of Soissons and Prince of Savoy. He was killed as Feldzeugmeister of the Imperial Army at the Siege of Landau at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Biography

Louis Thomas was the eldest son of Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons and Olympia Mancini, as well as the oldest brother of Prince Eugene of Savoy. He married Uranie de La Cropte de Beauvais, whom Saint-Simon had once described as "radiant as the glorious morn". His daughter Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Savoy eventually inherited Eugene's estate. His maternal cousins included the Duke of Vendôme as well as the Duke of Bouillon and Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne. His paternal cousins included Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignano, Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, son of his aunt Louise of Savoy, and Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, son of another Savoy Princess and thus just a third cousin of his. After the premature death of his father in 1673 and the flight of his mother to Brussels due to her involvement in the notorious Poison affair, Louis Thomas and his siblings remained in Paris and were entrusted to the care of their grim grandmother Marie de Bourbon and their aunt Princess Louise of Savoy, Margravine of Baden Baden. Since the family had fallen out of favour with the king because of Olympia Mancini's behaviour, Louis-Thomas inherited the titles of his fathers, but not his offices and thus his income. His sisters and his daughters remained unmarried, his brothers Louis-Jules (1660–1683) and Emanuel-Philibert (1662-1676), and his son Thomas Emmanuel, pursued their military careers outside France, as did his other two brothers that had initially been directed to ecclesiastical careers, Philip (1659–1693), who died fighting for the Venetians against the Turks, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, who became one of the most famous generals in the service of the House of Habsburg. Louis Thomas obtained a commission as an officer in the French Army, but Louis XIV had amorous designs on his wife. Urania, however, spurned the king's romantic advances. Angered, Louis dismissed Louis Thomas from the army, and, when Louis Thomas sought a position abroad, terminated his pension and dues. In 1699, all but bankrupt, Louis Thomas sought the aid of Prince Eugene, in Vienna. With Eugene's help, he obtained a commission in the Austrian Imperial Army. On 18 August Louis was killed by a French bomb at the Siege of Landau at the onset of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Issue

Ancestry