Template:Wp-Franciszek Ksawery Branicki

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Franciszek Ksawery Branicki (1730–1819) was a Polish nobleman, magnate, French count, diplomat, politician, military commander, one of the leaders of the Targowica Confederation and a grand traitor who participated with the Russians in the dismemberment of his nation.

He was appointed Great Crown Podstoli in 1764, Ambassador to Berlin in 1765, Master of the Hunt of the Crown in 1766–1773, Artillery General of Lithuania in 1768–1773, Ambassador to Moscow in 1771, Crown Hetman in 1773 and was Great Crown Hetman of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1774 and 1794. In 1774 Stanisław August Poniatowski ceded to him, as mark of his confidence and esteem, the immense estate of Bila Tserkva in the Kiev Voivodeship. He opposed the reforms of the Great Sejm (1788–1792), and supported the Hetman Party instead.

During the Kościuszko Uprising (1794) he was sentenced by the Supreme Criminal Court, in absentia, to hang for treason, witness his decades long pro-Russian stance and anti-patriotic politics and plotting against the state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, he escaped the death penalty.

Branicki was awarded the Order of the White Eagle in December 1764. He married Aleksandra von Engelhardt, a supposed niece of Prince Potemkin, in 1781 making him the putative son-in-law of Empress Catherine of Russia.^[1]