Leon was born and educated in
Warsaw, and studied law and economics in
Paris and
Edinburgh from 1820 to 1824. He began to work in the administration in the
Polish (Congress) Kingdom. After the outbreak of the
November Uprising in 1830, he left
Russian Empire and took part in diplomatic missions of the
Polish National Government in France and Great Britain. After that, he returned and participated in the Uprising in the rank of an Artillery Captain, among others in the defence of
Warsaw on 6 and 7 September. He was awarded for that the
Virtuti Militari Order. After the collapse of the Uprising he settled in
Galicia, then part of the
Austrian Empire. In 1835 Russian authorities confiscated his estates in
Congress Poland as punishment for his participation in the failed Uprising. Leon Sapieha was one of the leaders of the
Ruthenian sobor. He was a member of "National movement" circles and held contacts with the "
Hotel Lambert". He became a member of the National
Sejm (
Diet of Galicia) in the Austro-Hungarian province of
Galicia, member of the Austrian Council of the State and member of the imperial
Herrenhaus in 1861. In 1863 he didn't participate in the
January Uprising in Russian-occupied Poland, but contributed towards it financially. From 1861 until 1875 he served as
Sejm Marshal. In 1875, he retired from political life. During his career he devoted much energy to agitating for the development of railways in
Galicia, believing this to be central to the development of the region and the lives of its mostly Polish inhabitants. In 1858 after years of struggling to secure support in
Vienna for his plans he was able to initiate the construction of the
Carl Ludwig railway line connecting the railhead at
Kraków with
Lviv and
Brody and linking Galicia with the rest of
Europe. ==Legacy==