| François Marie | |
| Full Name: | François Marie de Lorraine |
| Prince of Lillebonne | |
| Issue: | Charles, Prince of Commercy Béatrice Hiéronyme, Abbess of Remiremont Élisabeth Thérèse, Princess of Epinoy |
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| Spouse: | Christine d'Estrées Anne de Lorraine |
| House: | Lorraine |
| Father: | Charles II, Duke of Elbeuf |
| Mother: | Catherine Henriette de Bourbon |
| Birth Date: | 4 April 1624 |
| Birth Place: | Hôtel d'Elbeuf, Paris, France |
| Death Place: | Paris, France |
François Marie de Lorraine (4 Apr 1624 – 19 January 1694) was a French nobleman and member of the House of Lorraine. He was known as the prince de Lillebonne. He was also the Duke of Joyeuse.
François Marie was born to Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Elbeuf, and his wife Catherine Henriette de Bourbon, Légitimée de France, legitimised daughter of Henry IV of France and Gabrielle d'Estrées. He was the couple's fourth and youngest son. In his youth, he was styled as the Count of Lillebonne, later styling himself as Prince. He was only sold the County of Lillebonne in 1692 by his nephew Henri, Duke of Elbeuf, who had recently lost his father Charles III, Duke of Elbeuf.
A member of the House of Guise founded by Claude, Duke of Guise,[1] he was a Prince of Lorraine as a male line descendant of René II, Duke of Lorraine. At court, he, like members of his Lorraine family, held the rank of Foreign Prince, a rank which was below that of the immediate Royal Family and Princes of the Blood.
His paternal first cousins included the Chevalier de Lorraine (lover of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans) and the Count of Armagnac; his maternal cousins included Louis XIV of France and the above-mentioned Duke of Orléans.
He was a captain of cavalry in a regiment of Cardinal Mazarin. He served in the Thirty Years War taking part in the Siege of Lleida in 1644 and, the following year in the Battle of Nördlingen in which he was injured (his brother Charles III, Duke of Elbeuf, also served in this battle). A good military man, he later fought against Spain prior to the marriage between Louis XIV and Maria Teresa of Austria, which cemented peace between the two nations.
He married twice, first on 3 September 1658 to Christine d'Estrées (d. 1658), daughter of François Annibal d'Estrées. The couple had no issue. Christine died in December 1658 having had no children. He married again on 7 October 1660, this time his cousin Anne of Lorraine (1639-1720), daughter of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine. As a wedding gift, the Duke of Lorraine gave his daughter the Hôtel de Beauvau later renamed the Hôtel de Lillebonne, in Nancy. They were married at the Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. His brother in law was Charles Henri de Lorraine, prince de Vaudémont, son of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine, and his secret spouse, Béatrix de Cusance.
His eldest son, the Prince of Commercy, died in battle in 1702; his eldest daughter, Béatrice Hiéronyme, was the Abbess of the prestigious abbey at Remiremont Abbey. His other surviving daughter, Élisabeth,[2] married the Prince of Epinoy; Élisabeth was the mother of Anne Julie Adélaïde de Melun, mother of Charles de Rohan. Charles de Rohan was the father of princesse de Condé, grandmother of duc d'Enghien, who was executed in the moat of the Château de Vincennes in March 1804.
François Marie de Lorraine died in Paris at the age of sixty-nine, his wife outliving him by twenty-six years.