Francisco d’Assiz van Bourbon, hertog van Cadiz, echtgenoot van koningin Isabella II van Spanje.
“On September 8th 1845 … Guizot and Aberdeen took the opportunity [of the visit of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to the Chateau d’Eu] to discuss the still unsolved affair of the Spanish marriage. Guizot made it clear that France favoured the candidature of either a Neapolitan Bourbon or one of Isabella’s cousins, the Duke of Cadiz or the Duke of Seville. But for some time now, the Tuileries had entertained the idea that Louis-Philippe’s youngest son, [Antoine Duke de] Montpensier, should marry Isabella’s sister, the Infanta Luisa. This idea was not popular in London, but the two statesmen appeared to have settled the problem amicably … [There would be no marriage between Luisa and a French prince until Queen Isabella was married and had children. Aberdeen on his part assured the French that there would be no candidature of Victoria’s kinsman Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, supported by the British.] … by the end of June the Tories were out of office and the Whig Foreign Secretary was Lord Palmerston. … Within a fortnight of assuming office, Palmerston sent instructions to Bulwer [the British ambassador in Spain] commenting critically on Conservative rule in Spain and setting out a short list of three candidates, at the top of which appeared the name of Prince Leopold of Coburg. [The other two were the Dukes of Cadiz and Seville.]; and then coolly showed it to Jarnac, the French ambassador to London. …[The regent of Spain,]Queen Cristina was prepared to accept rather unwillingly the Duke of Cadiz as bridegroom [for her daughter] Isabella, provided Luisa was also married to Montpensier, since Bulwer’s alternative candidate, the Duke of Seville, was too closely associated with her Liberal opponents. … It had been strongly rumoured that the Duke of Cadiz was impotent. Had this been the case, a French succesion in the Peninsula might have been probable [after a double marriage, with Cadiz marrying Isabella and Montpensier marrying Luisa], but it seems highly doubtful if this entered into the French calculations in view of the following uncompromising statement of Louis-Philippe’s to [his daughter Louise, wife Leopold I, King of the Belgians]: “It seemed to me certain from the information,of a very detailed character, which was collected in Madrid on Don Francisco d’Assiz that he was in a good condition of virility.” [Louis-Philippe was anxious to adhere to the Eu compact, but after Palmerston handed his dispatch to Jarnac both the King and Guizot] boiled over and consented to the double marriage which took place on October 8th. The first entente cordiale was irretrievably shattered.” (T.E.B. Howarth,Citizen-King. The life of Louis-Philippe, King of the French [London 1961], p. 298-301)