King Leopold I of Spain

so I was reading up on La Gloriosa in Spain, in 1868 the country was looking for a New Monarch, the name batted about were, Crown Prince Alfonso, King Ferdinand II of Portugal, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and Prince Amedeo of Savoy(who they picked as King Amadeo I of Spain). So what if they'd picked different, and picked Prince Leopold?
 

Germaniac

Donor
Great TL called "A Prussian on the Spanish Throne" was about this... pretty good. Too bad it never finished.
 
Anyway, based on a very quick skimming of Prince Leopold's Wikipedia article, it looks like his installation in Spain would basically make France a very large grumpypants. And by grumpypants I mean very possibly hostile.
 

Germaniac

Donor
Well one of the key reasons for the Franco-Prussian war was Leopold being brought up as a candidate and Napoleon III not wanting a Prussian ally on Frances southern border.
 
And I wonder, since Prussia (okay the North German Confederation in general) won the war, what prevents them from saying, "Okay, we won, so just to spite you and shove some salt into the wound, we're going to set up Leopold anyway". Although I guess there's the matter of Spain already having another king by that point, but maybe the Germans claim that Leopold is legitimate?
 
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