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Stanislaus Leszczynski

STAN- ISLAUS I., King of Poland, afterward Duke of Lorraine and Bar; born in Lemberg, Galicia, Oct. 20, 1677. His father was grand treasurer to the Polish crown, and he himself was voivode of Posen, when he was recommended to the Warsaw assembly by Charles XII. of Sweden as a candidate for the vacant throne of Poland. He was accordingly elected and crowned (1705), but after the disastrous battle of Poltava (1709), when his patron Charles XII. was defeated, he had to flee from Poland. He found refuge in France ultimately, where his daughter Maria became wife to Louis XV. Assisted by the French king he sought to establish his claim to the throne of Poland in 1733, but, opposed by by the united powers of Saxony and Russia, he had again to retire into France, where he held possession of the duchies of Lorraine and Bar until his death. His writings were published under the title of "Works of the Beneficent Philosopher" (1765). He died Feb. 23, 1766.