In 1737, after the War of the Polish Succession, an agreement between France, the Habsburgs and the Lorraine House of Vaudémont assigned the Duchy to Stanisław Leszczyński, former king of Poland. He was also father-in-law to King Louis XV of France, and had recently lost out to a candidate backed by Russia and Austria in the War of the Polish Succession. The duke of Lorraine, Francis Stephen, betrothed to the Emperor's daughter Archduchess Maria Theresa, was compensated with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the last Medici ruler had recently died without issue. France also promised to support Maria Theresa as heir to the Habsburg possessions under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. Leszczyński received Lorraine with the understanding that it would fall to the French crown on his death. The title of Duke of Lorraine was given to Stanisław, but also retained by Francis Stephen, and it figures prominently in the titles of his successors (as a non-claimant family name), the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. When Stanisław died on 23 February 1766, Lorraine was annexed by France and reorganized as a province by the French government.
In 1737, after the War of the Polish Succession, an agreement between France, the Habsburgs and the Lorraine House of Vaudémont assigned the Duchy to Stanisław Leszczyński, former king of Poland. He was also father-in-law to King Louis XV of France, and had recently lost out to a candidate backed by Russia and Austria in the War of the Polish Succession. The duke of Lorraine, Francis Stephen, betrothed to the Emperor's daughter Archduchess Maria Theresa, was compensated with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where the last Medici ruler had recently died without issue. France also promised to support Maria Theresa as heir to the Habsburg possessions under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. Leszczyński received Lorraine with the understanding that it would fall to the French crown on his death. The title of Duke of Lorraine was given to Stanisław, but also retained by Francis Stephen, and it figures prominently in the titles of his successors (as a non-claimant family name), the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. When Stanisław died on 23 February 1766, Lorraine was annexed by France and reorganized as a province by the French government.