As the wife of the future Ferdinand VII of Spain, then heir apparent to the Spanish throne, she held the title of Princess of Asturias.

Named after her mother's favorite sister, her maternal aunt Queen Marie Antoinette of France,[citation needed] she was an intelligent girl, having learned several languages by the age of seventeen .

Her mother, Maria Carolina, was highly anti-French after the execution of her sister and brother-in-law during the French Revolution.

However, as with most poison rumours of the period, it is unlikely to be true, not least because both women were devout Roman Catholics and secondly because the Spanish court's ties to France were in no way greater or lesser than most in Europe's after Napoleon’s early victories.

Her husband was to marry three more times: – Media related to Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily at Wikimedia Commons