Saxe, MAURICE, Marshal, a celebrated soldier of the 18th century, was the natural son of Augustus II. (q.v.), Elector of Saxony and king of Poland, and the Countess Aurora von Königsmark, and was born at Goslar, 28th October 1696. When only twelve years of age he ran off from home, made his way to Flanders, joined the army of Marlborough, and took part in the capture of Lille and the siege of Tournay. With a boyish love of change he joined the Russo-Polish army before Stralsund (1711), and distinguished himself under his father's own eyes. Then, returning to Dresden, he was induced by his mother to marry the young Countess Löben; but the union did not last long, being dissolved in 1721. In the meantime Maurice had fought against the Turks in Hungary under Prince Engene, and studied the art of war in France. In 1726 he was elected Duke of Courland, and for a time maintained himself in his new possession against both Russians and Poles, but was compelled to retire to France in 1729. Joining the army on the Rhine, under the Duke of Berwick, he signalised himself at the siege of Philippsburg (1734), and decided the battle of Ettingen by a desperate charge; for these services he was made a lieutenant-general in 1736. On the breaking out of the war of the Austrian succession he was given command of the army which was appointed to invade Bohemia, and took the strongly-fortified city of Prague by storm. The capture of Eger was effected a few days afterwards, and the rest of the campaign showed that his abilities in the field were not inferior to his skill against fortifications. Heretofore known as the Comte de Saxe, he was in 1744 made a marshal of France, and appointed to command the French army in Flanders; and on this occasion he gave decisive proofs of the superiority of his system of tactics by reducing to inaction an enemy much superior in number, and taking from him, almost before his face, various important fortresses. The following year was for him more glorious still: he defeated the Duke of Cumberland in the battle of Fontenoy. In 1746 Maurice by a series of able manoeuvres threw back the allies on the right bank of the Meuse, and gained (11th October) the brilliant victory of Rancoux, for which he was rewarded with the title of marshal-general, an honour which had been conferred upon none but Turenne. For the third time, at Laufeldt (2d July 1747), the victor of Culloden suffered complete defeat at the hands of Maurice, and the brilliant capture of Bergen-op-zoom brought the allies to peace. The Dutch, however, were still disposed to hold out, till the capture of Maestricht (1748) destroyed their hopes, and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle followed. Saxe had previously carried on a correspondence with Frederick the Great of Prussia; he now took occasion to visit him at Berlin, and met with a brilliant reception. He then retired to his estate of Chambord, and died there of dropsy, 30th November 1750. His work on the art of war, entitled Mes Rêveries, was published at Paris in 1751. Saxe was a gallant soldier, but no scholar. When the French Academy wanted to make him a member he declined the proffered honour in a sentence whose extraordinary orthography accidentally rebuked, more than the most cutting sarcasm could have done, the sycophancy of the Academy: 'Il veule me fere de la cademie; sela m'iert come une bage a un chas.' His love for the actress Adrienne Lecouvreur forms the subject of one of Scribe's best-known plays; and from an illegitimate daughter of his George Sand (q.v.) was descended.
His character and genius are well, though not flatteringly, portrayed in Carlyle's Frederick the Great; and see also Lives by Karl von Weber (German, 2d ed. 1870); Saint-René Taillandier (French, 1865); and Vitzthum von Eckstädt (French, 1867), with the Duc de Broglie's Maurice de Saxe et le Marquis d'Argenson (2 vols. 1891).