20, 1677. His father, Raphael Leszczynski, was a Polish nobleman, distinguished by his rank and the important offices which he held, but still more by his personal qualities. Stanislaus, after visiting the courts of Vienna, Paris, and Rome, was raised to the dignity of voivode of Posen, and in 1704 was sent as ambassador by the assembly of Warsaw to Charles XII. of Sweden, who had just declared the deposition of the recently elected Augustus II. The king was so greatly taken with the ambassador that he recommended him to the diet as a suitable candidate for the vacant throne; the election accordingly followed on 12th July 1704, but the coronation of Stanislaus and his wife Catharina Opalinska did not take place until 4th October of the following year (compare Poland, vol. xix. p. 297). After the reverse of Poltava in 1709 Augustus returned to Poland, and, assisted by the Russians, compelled Stanislaus to leave the country. The next five years saw him leading a wandering and somewhat adventurous life in Europe, one of his objects being to procure a favourable peace for Charles (compare Charles XII.). He then settled on Charles’s estate at Zweibrücken, and after Charles’s death in 1718 had a residence assigned to him by the French court at Weissenburg in Alsace. In 1725 his daughter Maria became the wife of Louis XV. of France. On the death of Augustus in 1733 Stanislaus once more returned to Poland, where a majority declared for him, but his competitor, the young elector of Saxony, had the advantage of the support of the emperor Charles VI., and also of the empress of Russia. Dantzic, to which Stanislaus had retired, was quickly taken by the Russians and the Saxons, and with great difficulty the unfortunate prince succeeded in making good his escape in disguise, after hearing that the Russians had set a price on his head. In 1736, when peace was concluded between the emperor and France, it was agreed that Stanislaus should abdicate the throne, but that he should be acknowledged king of Poland and grand-duke of Lithuania, and continue to bear these titles during life, and further, that he should be put in peaceable possession of the duchies of Lorraine and Bar, but that immediately after his death those duchies should be united for ever to the crown of France. The remaining years of his life were prosperous and happy. He died at Lunéville on February 23, 1766, in consequence of injuries received from his nightdress accidentally taking fire.

Stanislaus, who was a patron of the arts and sciences, wrote several works in politics and philosophy, which were collected and published at Paris in 1763, in 2 vols. 8vo, under the title Oeuvres du Philosophe Bienfaisant. The Oeuvres Choisies de Stanislas, Roi de Pologne, Duc de Lorraine et de Bar, with an historical notice by Madame de Saint-Ouen, were published in an 8vo volume at Paris in 1825.