After Henry II and Catherine de' Medici were married, several years passed without the birth of any children.

There are reports that Henry II and Catherine planned for Louis to one day become the Duke of Urbino, a title which belonged exclusively to the Medici family.

However, a few days after the ceremony, Louis died from the effects of a chill caught while being handed from one state functionary to another.

[2] Other accounts dismiss Freer's, stating that Louis died in 1550, one even giving a date for his baptism, 19 May 1549 and listing his godparents as John III of Portugal, Mary of Guise and Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.

[citation needed] He is briefly mentioned in the novels Madame Serpent and The Captive Queen, both by Jean Plaidy.