Prince Louis Thomas of Savoy-Carignano (German: Ludwig Thomas von Savoyen-Carignan, Graf von Soissons; Italian: Luigi Tommaso di Savoia-Carignano, conte di Soissons; 15 December 1657 – 14 August 1702) was a Count of Soissons, bearing from birth an honorary princely title in the cadet line of the House of Savoy. He was killed as Feldzeugmeister of the Imperial Army at the Siege of Landau at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession.
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Biography
Louis Thomas was the eldest son of Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons, and his wife, Olympia Mancini, as well as the oldest brother of Prince Eugene of Savoy. He married Uranie de La Cropte de Beauvais (1655–1717), whom Saint-Simon had once described as "radiant as the glorious morn". His daughter Princess Maria Anna Victoria of Savoy eventually inherited Prince Eugene's huge estate. His maternal cousins included the Duke of Vendôme as well as the Duke of Bouillon and Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne. His paternal cousins included Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignano, Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, son of his aunt Louise of Savoy, and Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, son of another Savoy Princess and thus just a third cousin of his.
After the premature death of his father in 1673 and the flight of his mother to Brussels due to her involvement in the notorious Poison affair, Louis Thomas and his siblings remained in Paris and were entrusted to the care of their grim grandmother Marie de Bourbon and their aunt Princess Louise of Savoy, Margravine of Baden Baden. Since the family had fallen out of favour with the king because of Olympia Mancini's behaviour, Louis-Thomas inherited the titles of his fathers, but not his offices and thus his income. His sisters and daughters remained unmarried, his brothers Louis-Jules (1660–1683) and Emanuel-Philibert (1662–1676) and his son Thomas Emmanuel pursued their military careers outside France, as did his other two brothers that had initially been directed to ecclesiastical careers, Philip (1659–1693), who died fighting for the Venetians against the Turks, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, who became one of the most famous generals in the service of the House of Habsburg.



