Francis I Stephen of Lorraine
Francis I was Holy Roman Emperor for twenty years and did almost none of the ruling. Born in 1708, he was Duke of Lorraine, brought to Vienna at fifteen and raised alongside Maria Theresa, whom he married in 1736 after a long and genuine attachment. The marriage cost him his duchy. France would not accept Lorraine, on its own frontier, in Habsburg hands, and the settlement of the Polish succession war required him to surrender it in exchange for Tuscany — which he did reluctantly and under pressure from his father-in-law. Charles VI died in 1740 leaving no son, and the Pragmatic Sanction he had spent his reign getting the powers to sign was repudiated within weeks. Frederick the Great took Silesia; Bavaria, France, Spain and Saxony joined in; and Maria Theresa, aged twenty-three and pregnant, fought the War of the Austrian Succession for eight years and kept everything but Silesia. Francis was elected emperor in 1745 after the Bavarian claimant died, which restored the title to the family — held through his wife's inheritance and his own election, since a woman could not be emperor. He commanded in the field once, unsuccessfully, and was tactfully removed from military affairs. What he was good at was money. He ran the family's finances and his own manufacturing and trading ventures with real skill, and left the treasury better than he found it — including, notably, by supplying the Austrian army during a war with Prussia. He had sixteen children, of whom Joseph II and Marie Antoinette are the best known. He died in 1765.
- Lived: 1708 CE – 1765 CE
- Nationality: Austrian
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state
