As Louis IX stayed almost exclusively in Pirmasens, she felt obliged, after the death of his wife in 1774, to represent the territory in the capital Darmstadt.

His father visited his two sons frequently and moved to Hildburghausen with his oldest daughter in 1787, after he became president of the local imperial debit commission.

Thus, Maria Luise cared primarily for Louise and her sisters Therese and Friederike for whom she provided a secure and largely informal home in the "Old Palace" at the market square in Darmstadt.

On the return trip to Darmstadt, she traveled via Frankfurt, where a meeting between Louise and her future husband Frederick William III of Prussia had been arranged.

Maria Louise was described as a magnificent person, warm hearted, cheerful all the time and usually speaking the Palatinate dialect.