(Maurice count de), natural Son of Frederic Augustus II. king of Poland, by Aurora countess of Konigsmarck, was born at Dresden in 1696. He discovered an early genius for warlike exercises, neglecting every study but that of war. He cultivated no foreign language but French, as if he had foreseen that France would one day become his country, in which he would rise to the highest military honours. He accompanied the king his father in all his Polish campaigns, and began to serve in the allied army in the Netherlands in 1708, when he was no more than twelve years old, and gave pregnant proofs of an enterprising genius. He afterwards served in the war against the Swedes in Pomerania, and was made colonel of a regiment of horse. He entered into the imperial service in 1717, and made several campaigns in Hungary against the Turks; in which he behaved with the greatest bravery, and thereby attracted the regard of prince Eugene of Savoy, the most illustrious captain of his time. In 1720, he visited the court of France, where he obtained a brevet of camp-marshal from the duke of Orleans, then regent of that kingdom. Two years after, he purchased the colonelcy of the regiment of Spar; and gradually rose in military honours, from the rank of colonel to that of marshal-general.

While the count was residing in France, the states of Courland, foreseeing that their duchy would one day be without a head, duke Ferdinand, the last male of the family of Ketler, being valetudinary, and likely to die without issue, were prevailed on, by foreign influence, to choose the count to be their sovereign. The minute of election was signed by the states of Mittaw, the capital of Courland, on the 5th of July 1726. But this election having been vigorously opposed by the court of Russia, and also by the republic of Poland, upon both of which the duchy was dependent, he could never make good his pretensions; so that, upon the death of duke Ferdinand in 1736, count Biron, a gentleman of Danish extraction, in the service of Russia, was preferred before him. When a war broke out in Germany, upon the death of the late king of Poland, our count's father, he attended the duke of Berwick commander in chief of the French army sent into that country, and behaved with unparalleled bravery. When troubles broke out in the same quarter upon the death of the late emperor Charles VI. he was employed in the French army sent into the empire to support the pretensions of the elector of Bavaria; and had no inconsiderable hand in storming Prague: by means of which he acquired the confidence and esteem of that unfortunate prince. When an invasion of Great Britain was projected by the court of France in the beginning of 1744, in favour of Charles-Edward the pretender's eldest son, he was appointed to command the French troops to be employed on that occasion. Both the young pretender and the count had come to Dunkirk in order to proceed upon the intended expedition; but the design was frustrated by a furious storm and the vigilance of the British fleet. France having, soon after that event, declared war against Great Britain, he was appointed commander in chief of the French army in the Netherlands, and promoted to the rank of a marshal of France. In this high station he had full room to display his great abilities. Success crowned all his enterprises; and every town he invested was obliged to submit to his victorious arms. During the course of the war, he beat the allies in several battles, and made himself master of the whole Austrian Netherlands, with a good part of Dutch Brabant. Such eminent services procured him an act of naturalization by the king of France, in April 1746; in January following, he was raised to the rank of marshal-general, an office which had been vacant for many years; and in January 1748, he was constituted governor-general of the Netherlands, with a large revenue annexed.

After the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, marshal Saxe, covered with glory and loaded with the king's bounties, retired to Chambord in France, where he spent his time in various employments and amusements. But being seized with a fever on the 21st of November 1750, he died on the 30th of that month. His corpse was interred on the 8th of February following, with great funeral pomp, in the church of St Thomas's at Strasburg. All France lamented his death. The king was at the charge of his funeral, and expressed the greatest concern for the loss of a man who had raised the glory of his arms to the highest pitch. By his will, which is dated at Paris, March 1, 1748, he directed that "his body should be buried in lime, if that could be done; that in a short time nothing more of him might remain in the world, but his memory among his friends." This direction, however, was not complied with: for his corpse was embalmed, and put into a leaden coffin, which was inclosed in another of copper, and this covered with one of wood bound about with iron. His heart was put into a silver-gilt box; and his entrails into another coffin. He was bred a Protestant of the Lutheran persuasion, under the eye of the countess his mother; and no worldly consideration could ever induce him to change his religion. He had unhappily, like his royal father, early engaged in a series of amorous adventures; and several natural children were the fruits of his vagrant amours. Though he had been prevailed on by his mother, to marry Victoria countess of Lobin, a lady of distinguished birth and beauty, by whom he had a child or two, who died in their infancy; yet, a coldness having intervened between them, the marriage was dissolved, on account of adultery committed by the count, with a design to procure a divorce; and he never afterwards married. The marshal was a man of middling stature, but of a robust constitution and extraordinary strength. To an aspect noble, sweet, and martial, he joined the interior qualities of a most excellent heart. Affable, and affected with the misfortunes of others, he was great and generous, even more than his fortune would