Maria de las Mercedes of Orléans (24 June 1860 – 26 June 1878) was Queen of Spain as the first wife of King Alfonso XII. She was born in Madrid, the daughter of Antoine of Orléans, Duke of Montpensier and of Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain.

She was born at the Palacio Real in Madrid, the sixth of her parents' nine children, none of whom died in infancy but only four of whom would live to the age of 20. Her mother's elder sister, Queen Isabella II, and brother-in-law, King Francis, served as Mercedes' godparents at her christening, when she was given the names: María de las Mercedes Isabel Francisca de Asís Antonia Luisa Fernanda Felipa Amalia Cristina Francisca de Paula Ramona Rita Cayetana Manuela Juana Josefa Joaquina Ana Rafaela Filomena Teresa Santísima Trinidad Gaspara Melchora Baltasara et omni sancti.

Although Mercedes was patrilineally a French princess, she was also a Spanish infanta and spent the first eight years of her life in Spain. Her childhood was spent at the palace of San Telmo in Andalusia, her father's rumoured aspirations to obtain his sister-in-law's crown periodically rendering him unwelcome at the royal court in Madrid.

When Queen Isabella II was deposed in 1868, Mercedes' family left Spain for exile. It was reportedly during that banishment, in 1872, that she met her first cousin, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, also living in exile.

Upon restoration, King Alphonso married Maria de la Mercedes at the church of , in Madrid on 23 January 1878, following a huge ball in December 1877. Allegedly the king's choice dashed the hopes of his still-exiled mother, Queen Isabella, for Alfonso's marriage to the Blanca de Borbón, daughter of his Carlist rival, Carlos, Duke of Madrid.

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