Luis Fernando was born in Madrid, the younger son of Infante Antonio, Duke of Galliera and of his wife, Infanta Eulalia of Spain.

In 1899 Luis Fernando and his older brother Alfonso were sent to England to be educated by the Jesuits at Beaumont College.

Elisabeth de Gramont, Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre, who chronicled various aspects of Parisian life in her four-volume memoirs, wrote about him: "The Infante was certainly the most divertingly cynical little creature who ever amused Paris.

Slim, pallid, round- and restless-eyed like a bird, sullen looking, with lovely hands like those of a Coëllo Infanta, he promenaded his lubricious little royal person from drawing-room to awful bouges and then, ingratiatingly and affectionately, he would sink like an abandoned child at the feet of some 'Good Dame' and lament his lot.

In July 1930 an engagement was announced between Luis Fernando and Marie Constance Charlotte Say (25 August 1857, Verrières-le-Buisson - 15 July 1943, Paris), granddaughter of Louis Auguste Say and widow of Prince Henri Amédée de Broglie and the owner of the Château de Chaumont.

On 19 September 1930 Luis Fernando and Marie married in a civil ceremony in a London registry office.

[citation needed] Another related book, Los fantasmas de Eulalia by José Infante, reviews his mother's feelings toward her youngest son's sexuality.