Marc de Beauvau, 1st Prince of Craon

François Vincent Marc de Beauvau, 1st Prince of Craon (2 April 1676 - 10 March 1754),^[1] was a Lorrainese nobleman who served as the President of the 'Council of Regency' – de facto a viceroy — of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Born in Nancy, the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine, Marc was the son of Louis, Marquis of Beauvau (1638–1703) and his second wife, Anne de Ligny.

On 16 December 1704, the 28-year-old Marc married an 18-year-old girl named Anne Marguerite de Lignéville (1686–1772) at Lunéville. Anne Marguerite was almost always pregnant during their marriage, giving birth to twenty children, eight sons and 12 daughters, in just twenty-five years. All but three of their children survived to adulthood.

Marc's sister, Catharine Diana de Beauveau, married the Irish Jacobite exile Owen O'Rourke.^[2]

He was entrusted with the government of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by the newly established Grand Duke, Francis Stephen of Lorraine (later Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor), who had been declared successor of the last Medici ruler in the Treaty of Vienna, but did not intend to reside in Tuscany. He administered the state as a sort of viceroy, officially with the title of President of the 'Council of Regency', from the latter's establishment in 1737 until 1748,^[3] but was soon sidelined and reduced to more of a representative role by the president of the Council of Finance, Emmanuel de Nay, count of Richecourt - who eventually replaced him in the position.^[4]

Having inherited the marquisate of Beauvau in Lorraine, he was created marquis of Craon on 21 August 1712 by Duke Leopold, who had specifically created a new fiefdom within Lorraine centred in the towns of Houdonville (now Croismare) e di Haroué.

On 13 November 1722 he became an honorary Prince of the Holy Roman Empire under the title "Prince von Craon und Beauvau", and on the same day, Duke Leopold elevated the Marquisate of Craon, which he had established ten years earlier, to a principality, of which Marc de Beauvau thus became the first prince.

On 8 May 1727 he was made a Grandee of Spain of the first class by Philip V, his son, Charles Juste, being admitted to the Honneurs de la Cour in Paris with the princely title in 1755.^[5]

The eight sons and 12 daughters were:

1. Élisabeth Charlotte de Beauvau (1705–1754), married Charles Ferdinand François de La Baume, Marquis of Saint-Martin, no issue.
2. Anne Marguerite Gabrielle de Beauvau (1707–1792),^[6] married Jacques Henri of Lorraine, Prince of Mortagne(-sur-Gironde), no issue; married Gaston Pierre Charles de Lévis, Duke of Mirepoix, no issue.
3. Gabrielle Françoise de Beauvau (1708–1758), married Gabriel Alexandre d'Alsace de Henin-Liétard, Prince of Chimay, no issue.
4. Marie Philippe Tècle de Beauvau (1709–1748), Canoness of Remiremont.
5. Nicolas Simon Jude de Beauvau (1710–1734), Abbé de Craon, never married.
6. Marie Françoise de Beauvau (1711–1787), married Louis François de Boufflers, Marquis of Amestranges and had issue; she was renowned for being the royal mistress of Stanisław Leszczyński;
7. François Vincent Marc de Beauvau (1713–1742), Primat de Lorraine, never married.
8. Léopold Clément de Beauvau (1714–1723), knight of the Order of Malta.
9. Marie Louise Eugénie de Beauvau (1715–1734), Abbess of Epinal.
10. Henriette Augustine de Beauvau (1716-unknown), nun in the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary.
11. Charlotte Nicole de Beauvau (1717–1787), married Léopold Clément de Bassompierre, no issue.
12. Anne Marguerite de Beauvau (1719-unknown), nun in Paris.
13. Charles Juste de Beauvau (1720–1793), married Marie Sophie Charlotte de La Tour d'Auvergne daughter of Emmanuel Theodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, sovereign Duke of Bouillon and Louise Henriette Francoise de Lorraine and had issue; married Marie Charlotte Sylvie de Rohan, no issue.
14. Elisabeth de Beauvau (1722-unknown), Canoness in Poussy, then a nun in Paris.
15. Ferdinand Jerôme de Beauvau, Marquis of Haroué (1723–1790), married Louise Etienne Desmier and had issue.
16. Gabrielle Charlotte de Beauvau (1724–1790), Canoness in Remiremont, nun in Juvigny, last abbess of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs in Paris.
17. Alexandre Louis de Beauvau, Marquis de Craon (1725–1745), killed in action at the Battle of Fontenoy.
18. Béatrix Alexis de Beauvau (1727–1730), died in childhood.
19. Hilarion François Louis de Beauvau (b. and d. 1728), died in infancy.
20. Antoine de Beauvau (1730–1736), died in childhood.