Leopold, Duke of Lorraine

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See Leopold Joseph for similarly named royalty

Leopold Joseph called le bon (the good) , (Innsbruck, September 11, 1679 – Lunéville , March 27, 1729), was Duke of Lorraine from 1690 to his death.

Before 1697 and from 1702 to 1714, his duchy was occupied by France. He was the son of duke Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, exiled in the Austrian court, and archduchess Eleanor Maria Josepha of Austria (1653-1697), daughter of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor.

Upon the death of his father in 1690, he is sent to Vienna for a military education . He is engaged in the siege of Temesvar and is involved on the Rhine in the finishing stages of the War of the Grand Alliance.

Leopold recovered Lorraine in 1697, lost by his father to Louis XIV of France, under the dispositions of the Treaty of Ryswick, which returned Lorraine and the Duchy of Bar to the ducal family.

He entered Nancy on August 17, 1698 and married a niece of Louis XIV on October 13. His whole reign was focused on neutrality and on not enraging his powerful neighbour. He reconstructed and repopulated his war-stricken duchy, encouraging immigration . At the end of his reign the duchy was safe and prosperous.

Under his reign, the castle of Lunéville was built. It was called the Lorraine Versailles .

[edit] Marriage and children

On October 13, 1698 at Fontainebleau he married Elisabeth Charlotte d'Orleans (1676 - 1744), daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, and of Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine.

They had 13 children :

Léopold (1699 - 1700)
Elisabeth Charlotte (1700 - 1711)
Louise Christine (1701 - 1701)
Marie Gabrièle Charlotte (1702 - 1711)
Louis (1704 - 1781)
Josèphe Gabrièle (1705 - 1708)
Gabrièle Louise (1706 - 1709)
Léopold Clement Charles (1707 - 1723)
Francis Stephen (1708-1765), his successor, married Maria Theresa of Austria and became Holy Roman Emperor.
Eléonore (1710 - 1710)
Elisabeth Therese (1711 - 1741), married in 1737 Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia.
Charles Alexander Emmanuel (1712 - 1780), governor of the Austrian Netherlands and army commander.
Anne Charlotte (1714 - 1773), abbesse at Essen.

[edit] Expansion

In 1708, his cousin Charles IV, Duke of Mantua, was deposed by the emperor, and later died without legitimate heirs, and the House of Gonzaga went extinct in male line. The Lorraines represented an opinion that the Duchy of Montferrat, which was inheritable by females, belonged to them as Charles' next heir. The emperor, who had used Montferrat as a reward in his arrangements and ceded it to the Dukes of Savoy, finally compensated it to the Lorraines by allotting the Silesian duchy of Teschen.