Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes
Charles de Vergennes, by Antoine-François Callet.
Charles Gravier, Count of Vergennes born in 1719 in Dijon. His family were members of the Second Estate. He would receive his education from the Jesuits. Thanks to family connections he was able to able to gain diplomatic experience with his uncle in Portugal and Bavaria acting for the French King. He would later become ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He would also oversee the negotiations which saw France lose much of her overseas territory to Britain at the end of the Seven Years War.
When Louis XVI became King in 1774 he made Vergennes his foreign minister. Vergennes saw an opportunity for France to avenge her loses in the Seven Years War when the American colonies rose in revolt against King George III. He supported the providing of covert financial aid to the Americans and was more than happy to see Frenchmen volunteer to fight in the New World. In 1777 he went further and said he would formally recognise America. Vergennes pressed the Louis XVI for a formal alliance between the two countries which the King would eventually grant. Through his negotiations he was able to bring the Spanish and Dutch onto the American and French side and commit the Russians to neutrality. Vergennes belief that the war would prove a swift victory for the French and Americans proved illusionary and the war dragged on costing the French exchequer money it could hardly spare.
American success at Yorktown which was greatly helped by the assistance of French troops and navy saw the war decisively swing in favour of the colonials. This success was not mirrored in other theatres of the war as the French fleet was roundly beaten at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782 forcing them to abandon a planned invasion of the British colony of Jamaica. The French and Spanish could also not wrest control of Gibraltar from the British. So in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed bring an end to hostilities France gained very little.
With France’s economic situation now perilous she was unable to intervene in the Dutch crisis of 1787 when Prussia put down a revolt of pro French Patriots. Vergennes also struggled on the domestic front against what he saw as the dangerous view of Necker the finance minister. Vergennes would die in 1787 before the Assembly of Notables (which he had apparently suggested calling) and the onset of the French Revolution.
The Marquis de Bouille on Louis XVI’s foreign minister Comte de Vergennes. Taken from Memoirs Relating to the French Revolution by the Marquis de Bouille, Cadell and Davies, London (1797) p46
On the death of M. de Maurepas, the king transferred his confidence to M. de Vergennes, who rather influenced than directed his conduct. This person, by nature timid, was fearful of giving offence to the court and great men: he wanted vigour and genius, but was in other respects a man of good sense and an enlightened understanding.
Alarmed at the critical situation in which the kingdom flood, he explained its condition to his majesty: he observed that in the present state of affairs, it was absolutely necessary to have recourse to some extraordinary means, and to establish a new plan of administration to avoid a violent catastrophe.