Charles Gravier de Vergennes

French diplomat

• Born: December 28, 1719
• Birthplace: Dijon, France
• Died: February 13, 1787
• Place of death: Versailles, France

Charles Gravier de Vergennes, named minister for foreign affairs by Louis XVI, sought to prevent war in Europe by creating an equilibrium among major political powers and small states. He is also remembered for his role in bringing vital French aid to the American Revolution.

Early Life

Charles Gravier de Vergennes (shahrl grahv-yay duh vehr-zhehn) was born into a noble family, steeped in a tradition of civil service. Both his father and grandfather were magistrates, and his uncle, Théodore Chevignard de Chavigny, was a diplomat. Little is known about Vergennes’s childhood; his mother, Marie Françoise Chevignard de Charodon, died when he was a year old. His early education took place in Jesuit schools, where he learned to value geometry and mathematics for their rigorous order, and geography, history, languages (particularly Latin and Greek), spelling, penmanship, and literature for their social and moral values.

When he was still quite young, in 1740, he accompanied his uncle de Chavigny, to Lisbon, Portugal. There, his uncle taught him the profession of diplomacy, and his apprenticeship there became his first diplomatic service to France. In 1741, he participated in the negotiations that ultimately transformed the elector of Bavaria into Charles VII, emperor of Germany. Inspired by the potential of diplomacy, Vergennes returned to Lisbon in 1745, where he learned to speak Portuguese and Spanish, adding them to the Latin, Italian, English, and, of course, French, in which he was already fluent. Far from being satisfied with his immense linguistic ability, he always regretted never learning the German that would have completed his ability to converse in every court in Europe.

Life’s Work

Vergennes’s independent career as a French diplomat began in 1750, when he was appointed to be the ambassador to the court of the elector of Trier (Trèves, Germany). His growing reputation for diligence served him well; as a career diplomat, he took his work seriously, beginning his work day at 4:00 a.m., working until 1:00 p.m., and then, after a break for the midday meal, returning to his labors for another four hours.

After Trier, Vergennes was sent to Hannover (1752) and Mannheim (1753) in Germany and to Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey, in 1754. While on post in Constantinople, Vergennes met Anne de Viviers, the widow of a surgeon. Though she was from a very modest family and could not aspire to the position that Vergennes held in the aristocratic social structure of France, she and Vergennes fell in love, ultimately producing two children, Constantin and Louis-Charles Joseph. Because of the pressure exerted by his peers in the French government, who disdained alliances with inferior families, Vergennes hesitated to marry the woman who was already the mother of his first son. Finally, much to the shock of his fellow aristocrats, he and Anna were married on March 9, 1767.

Vergennes’s apostasy did not go unnoticed; in the following year, when he refused to provoke a quarrel between Russia and Turkey as his superior, Étienne François de Choiseul, had requested, he was recalled to France. There he retired with his wife and children to Toulongeon, his family’s castle in Burgundy, near Autun. A few years of quiet life allowed his unfortunate independence to fade from the minds of the government; in 1772, Vergennes returned to service, as the French ambassador in Stockholm, where his services were favorably reviewed.

After Louis XV’s death in 1774, young Louis XVI’s regent requested that Vergennes accept the post of secretary of state for foreign affairs. Vergennes had spent thirty-five years in the diplomatic service of France, but much of this time was spent in foreign countries, prompting his political enemy, journalist and advocate Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet, to comment that “rather than a Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Vergennes is a foreigner become Minister.” However, Vergennes was an inspired choice for the post: Widely experienced, he was very knowledgeable concerning the political conditions of Europe. Even better for a nation with an underage king, Vergennes had always shown a desire to avoid military conflicts by keeping a balance of power, preferring to achieve his goals through diplomacy.

When the British colonies in America revolted, and Benjamin Franklin appealed to the French court for recognition, Vergennes sought to avoid outright war with England, while at the same time providing the logistical support that would allow the fledgling nation in America to draw English attention and resources away from projects in Europe. Enlisting the aid of his friend Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (who prudently took the alias of Rodrigue Hortalez for the operation), Vergennes arranged for a fleet of forty vessels that brought the Americans desperately needed weapons, food, and money. As the American cause advanced, France advanced cautiously with it. Only after the American victory at Saratoga on September 19, 1777, was an alliance considered; on February 6, 1778, a treaty was was signed between the Americans and King Louis XVI, which provided military assistance, and loans of at least 750,000 livres, to the fledgling nation every three months beginning February 28, 1778.

In 1781, Vergennes became chief of the council of finance. By the middle of the next year he was France’s secretary of state. Negotiating with Franklin, he helped forge a generous policy by which the king forgave the 5 percent interest accruing on the 18 million livres loaned to the United States during the war, and established a repayment schedule that accepted twelve installments over time rather than the lump sum payment due on January 1, 1788.

Vergennes died on February 13, 1787, just before the Assembly of Notables and the onslaught of the French Revolution that would, beginning in 1789, destroy the society and government he had served.

Significance

Vergennes was an important part of the bureaucracy that functioned to maintain the social and political structure of eighteenth century Europe, as well as a rationalist who displayed the new social convictions of the Enlightenment. Treading between two worlds, he served the Old World while rejecting many of its pretensions, marrying a woman for love rather than family connections, and refusing to engage in the Machiavellian schemes that had embroiled Europe in endless petty wars the century before. His covert—and later overt—aid to the cause of the American Revolution was instrumental in the success of the war and the survival of the new nation in its infancy. It is perhaps fortunate for him that he did not survive to see the French Revolution, in which the rationalist republicans that he admired guillotined his brother, partially destroyed his ancestral home, and violently ended the aristocratic traditions that he had tried to preserve into a new and more democratic age.

Bibliography

Brecher, Frank W. Securing American Independence: John Jay and the French Alliance. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. This book examines the work of John Jay and Vergennes as peace negotiators after the War of Independence.

Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. This book is a description of the diplomatic efforts that led to the American Revolution.

Hardman, John, and Price Munro. Louis XVI and the Comte de Vergennes: Correspondence, 1774-1787. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. This book is a compilation of the letters Louis XVI and Vergennes exchanged. In French and English.

Labourdette, Jean-François. Vergennes, ministre principal de Louis XVI. Paris: Desjonquères, 1990. This book in French gives a detailed bibliography on work related to Vergennes and his life.

Munro, Price. Preserving the Monarchy: The Comte de Vergennes, 1774-1787. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. An examination of Vergennes’s relationship both to the office of the king and to the man holding that office.