The princess who gave her name to Avenue Louise in Brussels was born in 1858. Her father King Leopold II was disappointed that she was a girl. He wanted a boy as heir (Belgian law at the time didn’t allow female monarchs).
At the age of 16, Louise was married off to a German prince, but it was not a happy union. On the wedding night, Louise hid in the royal greenhouses to avoid sex with her new husband.
Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved to Vienna, where Louise’s mother had grown up. Here the Belgian princess caused a scandal in 1897 by leaving her husband for an army officer.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
