Duchy of Lorraine

The Duchy of Lorraine was the border duchy between France and Germany from 959 to 1766, too French for the Empire and too German for France. When Lotharingia split in 959, the upper half along the Moselle became a duchy that outlived its lower twin by centuries. Its dukes married into every throne and fought every neighbour: René II destroyed Charles the Bold before Nancy's walls in January 1477, the battle that ended Burgundy, and Lorraine tasted greatness as kingmaker. The Thirty Years' War trampled it flat, French armies coming and going for a decade; the dukes returned to rebuild Nancy in baroque stone. In 1737 Europe traded the duchy away like a chip: France gave it for life to Stanislas Leszczyński, the twice dethroned king of Poland, to keep him from the Polish throne, with reversion to France on his death. Stanislas, philosopher and father-in-law to Louis XV, made Nancy lovely and Lunéville gay for twenty nine years. When he died in February 1766 the bargain matured: Lorraine became a French province, its eight centuries as a German fief and French prey ending in fireworks and a funeral, and its duke's son Franz Stephan, compensated with Tuscany, went on to found the Habsburg Lorraine line of emperors.