| Co-Regent of the Electorate of Saxony | |
| Franz Xavier | |
| Full Name: | Franz Xavier Albert August Ludwig Benno |
| Reign-Type: | Regency |
| Reign: | 17 December 1763 – |
| Issue-Link: |
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| House: | Wettin |
| Father: | Augustus III of Poland |
| Mother: | Maria Josepha of Austria |
| Birth Date: | 25 August 1730 |
| Birth Place: | Dresden, Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire |
| Death Place: | Dresden, Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire |
| Burial Place: | Katholische Hofkirche |
Franz Xavier of Saxony (Polish: Ksawery Saski) (25 August 1730 – 21 June 1806) was a Saxon prince and member of the House of Wettin. He was the fourth but second surviving son of Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha of Austria.
His older brother, the Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony, died on 17 December 1763 after a reign of only 74 days. Franz Xavier took over the regency of the electorate together with his sister-in-law, the Dowager Electress Maria Antonia of Bavaria, on behalf of his infant nephew, the new Elector Frederick Augustus III. As co-regent, Franz Xavier continued the rationalistic reforms of his brother.In October 1765, Franz Xavier performed in the name of the young Elector a formal renunciation of the Polish Crown in favor of Stanislaus Poniatowski, as was required by the treaty signed between Prussia and Russia on 11 April 1764. This was done against the wishes of the boy's mother, the Dowager Electress Maria Antonia. During the regency, Franz Xavier attempted to introduce a plan of army reform based upon the Prussian model of Frederick the Great. This brought him into conflict with the estates of the country, who violently refused to implement his proposal because of the high expense associated with his reorganization plan.
According to the regulations imposed by the Golden Bull of 1356, the regency of an underage Elector ended when he reached his eighteenth birthday. As a result, in 1768, the Elector Frederick Augustus III was formally proclaimed an adult, and Franz Xavier ended his functions as the regent of the Electorate of Saxony.
In Dresden on 9 March 1765 Franz Xavier married morganatically an Italian lady-in-waiting to his sister-in-law, the Dowager Electress, the contessa Maria Chiara Spinucci. The union was kept secret until 1777 when it was formally announced and legitimized.
In 1769, Franz Xavier moved his family to France, the home of his younger sister, the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe, who had died two years earlier. He lived in France for almost twenty years under the assumed title of Count of Lusatia (fr: Comte de Lusace, de: Graf von der Lausitz).[1] In 1774, his nephew, Louis XVI, became the king of the country. Franz Xavier and his family chose to flee France at the beginning of the French Revolution.[2] They moved to Rome; while in Rome, the Prince sat for a bust by Domenico Cardelli.[3] [4] His archive was confiscated by the French government in 1793.[5]
After the death of his wife in 1792, he remained in Rome for some years. Eventually, though, he returned to Saxony and settled into Schloss Zabeltitz. Franz Xavier lived there until his death, aged seventy-five.
During their marriage, Franz Xavier and Maria Chiara had ten children — known as counts and countesses of Lusatia (de: Graf/Gräfin von der Lausitz) — but only six survived to adulthood: