His father was the reigning Duke of Lorraine and his mother a member of the House of Bourbon, then ruling the Kingdom of France.

He became the Hereditary Prince at the death of his older brother Louis in 1711, but died of smallpox in 1723 at the age of sixteen, unmarried and without descendants.

He was born at the Château de Lunéville to Léopold, Duke of Lorraine and his wife Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans.

The smallpox epidemic had killed other royalty such as the Grand Dauphin and the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I at the same time.

His younger brother Francis Stephen became the Hereditary Prince and later married Maria Theresa, Habsburg heiress and future Queen regnant of Hungary and Bohemia.