Francis was the oldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and the French princess Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans. Duke Leopold died in 1729 and was succeeded by his son. In 1736, Francis married Maria Theresa. In 1738, he left the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar for the deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, as one of the terms ending the War of the Polish Succession. Following the death of his father-in-law, Charles VI, in 1740, Francis and Maria Theresa became the rulers of the Habsburg domains. Maria Theresa gave her husband responsibility for the empire's financial affairs, which he handled well. Francis died in 1765 and was succeeded by their son, Joseph II, who co-ruled Austria alongside Maria Theresa.
Emperor Charles VI favoured the family, who, besides being his cousins, had served the house of Habsburg with distinction. He had designed to marry his daughter Maria Theresa to Francis' older brother Leopold Clement. On Leopold Clement's death, Charles adopted the younger brother as his future son-in-law. Francis was brought up in Vienna with Maria Theresa with the understanding that they were to be married, and a real affection arose between them.[2]
Maria Theresa arranged for Francis to become "Lord Lieutenant" (locumtenens) of Hungary in 1732. He was not excited about this position, but Maria Theresa wanted him closer to her. In June 1732 he agreed to go to the Hungarian capital, Pressburg (today's Bratislava).
When the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, France used it as an opportunity to seize Lorraine, since France's chief minister, Cardinal Fleury, was concerned that, as a Habsburg possession, it would bring Austrian power too close to France.
A preliminary peace was concluded in October 1735 and ratified in the Treaty of Vienna in November 1738. Under its terms, Stanisław I, the father-in-law of King Louis XV and the losing claimant to the Polish throne, received Lorraine, while Francis, in compensation for his loss, was made heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which he would inherit in 1737.
In March 1736, the Emperor persuaded Francis, his future son-in-law, to secretly exchange Lorraine for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. France had demanded that Maria Theresa's fiancé surrender his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine to accommodate the deposed King of Poland. The Emperor considered other possibilities (such as marrying her to the future Charles III of Spain) before announcing the engagement of the couple. If something were to go wrong, Francis would become governor of the Austrian Netherlands.
Although fighting stopped after the preliminary peace, the final peace settlement had to wait until the death of Gian Gastone in 1737, to allow the territorial exchanges provided for by the peace settlement to go into effect.
On 31 January 1736, Francis agreed to marry Maria Theresa. He hesitated three times (and laid down the feather before signing). Especially his mother Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans and his brother Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine were against the loss of Lorraine. On 1 February, Maria Theresa sent Francis a letter: she would withdraw from her future reign, when a male successor for her father appeared.
Francis and Maria Theresa married on 12 February 1736 in the Augustinian Church, Vienna. The wedding was held on 14 February 1736. The (secret) treaty between the Emperor and Francis was signed on 4 May 1736. On 5 January 1737, instruments of cession were signed at Pontremoli between Spain and the Empire, with Spain ceding Parma, Piacenza and Tuscany to the Holy Roman Empire and the Empire recognizing Don Carlos of Spain as King of Naples and Sicily.[5] On 10 January, the Spanish troops began their withdrawal from Tuscany, and were replaced by 6,000 Austrians.[6] On 24 January 1737 Francis received Tuscany from his father-in-law.[7] Until then, Maria Theresa was Duchess of Lorraine.
Gian Gastone de' Medici, who died on 9 July 1737, was the second cousin of Francis (Gian Gastone and Francis' father Leopold were both great-grandchildren of Francis II, Duke of Lorraine), who also had Medici blood through his maternal great-great-grandmother Marie de' Medici, Queen consort of France and Navarre. In June 1737 Francis went to Hungary again to fight against the Turks. In October 1738 he was back in Vienna. On 17 December 1738 the couple travelled south, accompanied by his brother Charles to visit Florence for three months. They arrived on 20 January 1739.
In 1744 Francis' brother Charles married a younger sister of Maria Theresa, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria. In 1744 Charles became governor of the Austrian Netherlands, a post he held until his death in 1780.
Reign
The emperor with his natural science advisors. From left to right: Gerard van Swieten, Johann Ritter von Baillou, Valentin Jamerai Duval (numismatist) and Abbé Johann Marcy
Francis was well content to leave the wielding of power to his able wife. He had a natural fund of good sense and brilliant business capacity and was a useful assistant to Maria Theresa in the laborious task of governing the complicated Austrian dominions, but he was not active in politics or diplomacy.[2] However, his wife left him in charge of the financial affairs, which he managed well until his death.[8] Heavily indebted and on the verge of bankruptcy at the end of the Seven Years' War, the Habsburg monarchy was in a better financial condition than France or Great Britain in the 1780s.[citation needed] He also took a great interest in the natural sciences.
Francis was a serial adulterer; many of his affairs well-known and indiscreet, notably one with Princess Maria Wilhelmina of Auersperg, who was thirty years his junior. This particular affair was remarked upon in the letters and journals of visitors to the court and in those of his children.[9]
He died suddenly in his carriage while returning from the opera at Innsbruck on 18 August 1765.[2] He is buried in tomb number 55 in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.
Maria Theresa and Francis I had sixteen children, amongst them the last pre-revolutionary queen consort of France, their youngest daughter, Marie Antoinette (1755–1793). Francis was succeeded as Emperor by his eldest son, Joseph II, and as Grand Duke of Tuscany by his younger son, Peter Leopold (later Emperor Leopold II). Maria Theresa retained the government of her dominions until her own death in 1780.
married 1) Princess Isabella Maria of Parma (1741–1763), married 2) Princess Marie Josephe of Bavaria (1739–1767) – second cousin, had issue from his first marriage (two daughters, who died young).
^Audrey Carpenter, John Theophilus Desaguliers: A Natural Philosopher, Engineer and Freemason in Newtonian England, (London : Continuum, 2011), ISBN978-1-4411-2778-5, p. 47
^Malcolm Davies, The masonic muse : songs, music, and musicians associated with Dutch freemasonry, 1730–1806. (Utrecht : Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1995), ISBN90-6375-199-0, pp. 22–23
^Hargreaves-Mawdsley, W. N., Eighteenth-Century Spain 1700–1788: A Political, Diplomatic and Institutional History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. London, 1979. ISBN978-1-349-01805-5
^Hale, Florence and the Medici, Orion books, p 192. London, 1977, ISBN1-84212-456-0.
^Maria Theresia und ihre Zeit. Exhibition from 13 May till October 1980 in Vienna, Schloss Schönbrunn, p. 28, see also pp. 37, 38, 41, 47, 52, 53 for the other details described here.
