Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes (20 December 1717 – 13 February 1787) was a French statesman and diplomat. He served as Foreign Minister from 1774 during the reign of Louis XVI, notably during the American War of Independence.
Vergennes rose through the ranks of the diplomatic service during postings in Portugal and Germany before receiving the important post of Envoy to the Ottoman Empire in 1755. While there he oversaw complex negotiations that resulted from the Diplomatic Revolution before being recalled in 1768. After assisting a pro-French faction to take power in Sweden, he returned home and was promoted to foreign minister.
Vergennes hoped that by giving French aid to the American rebels, he would be able to weaken Britain's dominance of the international stage in the wake of their victory in the Seven Years War. This produced mixed results as in spite of securing American independence France was able to extract little material gain from the war, while the costs of fighting damaged French national finances in the run up to the Revolution. He went on to be a dominant figure in French politics during the 1780s.
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Charles Gravier was born in Dijon, France in 1719. His family were members of the country aristocracy.[1] He spent his youth in a townhouse at Dijon and on the family's country estates. He had an elder brother Jean Gravier, marquis de Vergennes, born in 1718, who eventually inherited the family estates. His mother died when he was three, and his father subsequently remarried. Vergennes received his education from Jesuits in Dijon.[2] In 1739, at the age of twenty, he accepted an offer to go to Lisbon as an assistant to Théodore Chevignard de Chavigny who was mutually referred to as his "uncle", but was in fact a more distant relative. Chavigny was an experienced diplomat and secret agent who had been made ambassador to Portugal.[3]
The objective of Chavigny and Vergennes in Lisbon was to keep Portugal from entering the War of the Austrian Succession on the side of Britain, a task that proved relatively easy as the Portuguese had little interest in joining the war.[4] In 1743 Vergennes accompanied his uncle to the court of Charves VII who was the ruler of Bavaria and also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Charles VII was a key ally of the French in the ongoing war against Austria, and they were charged with keeping him in the war by assauging his concerns which they accomplished successfully.[5] They next were instrumental in the agreement of the Union of Frankfurt, a pact involving several German rulers to uphold Charles VII's interests. after Charles VII's sudden death in 1745, they strove to help his successor Maxamilian III but were unable to prevent him from losing his capital at Munich and making peace with the Austrians at the Treaty of Füssen.[6] In November 1745 Chavigny was relieved of his post, and returned to France accompanied by Vergennes. The following year they returned to Portugal to take up their previous posts there where they remained until 1749, unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a commercial treaty.[7]
After their return home, Vergennes and his uncle were now in favour with the French Foreign Minister Puiseulx. When Chavigny met Louis XV at Versailles, he lobbied for Vergennes to be given an appointment. In 1750 Vergennes was appointed as Ambassador to the Electorate of Trier, one of the smaller German electorates.[8] Vergennes faced an immediate challenge, as the British were planning to have an Austrian candidate Archduke Joseph elected as King of the Romans, a position that designated the next Holy Roman Emperor. The Austrians had supplied the Emperor's for centuries until 1740, when Charles VII of Bavaria had been elected triggering the War of the Austrian Succession. The title eventually came back under Austrian control, and in 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was agreed bringing peace.
The British strategy was directed by the Duke of Newcastle, the Northern Secretary and brother of the Prime Minister. Newcastle hoped the election would prevent a recurrence of the recent war, by guaranteeing continued Austrian dominance in Germany. The French saw the proposal as part of a scheme by the British to boost their own power in Germany. Vergennes appointment was designed to frustrate the British plan, and Trier was considered a good strategic spot for this mission. He worked at getting the ruler of Trier to withhold his vote from Joseph, while mobilising wider resistance.[9]
In 1752 an attempt to settle the matter, Newcastle travelled to Hanover where a special Congress was convened. In April 1752 Vergennes was appointed as envoy to George II of Great Britain in his separate role as Elector of Hanover. His task was to uphold French interests at the Congress, either by delaying the election or preventing it entirely. To enable this, France championed the claims of the French-allied Palatine for payment of money they claimed against Austria and Britain insisting it be settled before the election took place. The British eventually agreed to a settlement, but Austria refused to accept this, creating a rift between the two countries which endangered the Anglo-Austrian Alliance. Newcastle was ultimately forced to dissolve the Congress and abandon the election.[10]
The Congress was regarded as a diplomatic triumph for Vergennes and he received praise from Newcastle for his skills. To counter a last attempt by Austria to get an agreement, Vergennes was sent to the Palatine in January 1753 where he secured confirmation that they would stick to France's strategy. He then returned to Trier where he spent fourteen quiet months before he was given his next posting.[11] His time in Germany shaped his views on diplomacy. He was critical of the British tendency of bowing to public opinion because of their democracy, and he was concerned by the rising power of Russia.[12]
His successful advocacy of French interests in Germany led him to believe his next posting would be as Ambassador to Bavaria.[13] Instead he was sent to the Ottoman Empire in 1755, first as minister plenipotentiary, then as full ambassador. The reason for Vergennes' original lesser rank was because sending a new ambassador was a time-consuming elaborate ceremony and there was a sense of urgency because of the death of the previous ambassador.[14] Before he left France he was inducted into the Secret du Roi.
Vergennes arrived in Constantinople as the Seven Years War was brewing and a new monarch Osman III had recently come to the throne. The Ottomans were traditional allies of the French and were a major trading partner, but the weakening of Ottoman power and the growth of Russia threatened the old system. Despite their close ties the two states had no formal alliance. In his official orders Vergennes was ordered not to agree any treaty, but he received secret instructions from the King to agree a treaty if it supported the King's schemes in Eastern Europe.[15] His task was to try to persuade the Ottomans to counter the Russian threat to Poland, working in conjunction with Prussia. The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, turned this scheme upside down as France became friendly to and then allied to Austria and Russia and an enemy of Prussia. This forced Vergennes to reverse his anti-Russian rhetoric. The Ottoman leadership were angered by the new Franco-Austrian Alliance which they saw as hostile towards them.[16] Vergennes spent the next few years trying to repair relations and persuade the Turks not to attack either Austria or Russia, as they were being urged to do by Prussian envoys.[17]
Towards the end of the Seven Years War, Vergennes tackled several new problems. A dramatic reversal of Russian policies following the succession of Peter III forced Vergennes to return to his previous policy of encouraging anti-Russian sentiment, only to change again when Peter was overthrown by his wife Catherine. Vergennes also had to deal with the consequences of the theft of the Sultan's flagship by Christian prisoners, who took it to Malta. The Sultant threatened to build up a large fleet and invade the island, potentially provoking a major war in the Meditarranean in which France would have to defend Malta in spite of the global war it was already fighting. Eventually a compromise was agreed in which the French negotiated the return of the ship, but not the prisoners, to the Sultan.[18]
The Treaty of Paris in 1763, brought an end to the war but France was forced to cede significant territory to the British easing some of the strains on Vergennes. However, he was left personally disappointed by the decline in French prestige. He was also alarmed by the weakening of French influence in Poland which in 1764 elected Stanislas Poniatowski, a Russian-backed candidate, as its King after it became apparent that France was powerless to prevent it. Vergennes' efforts to convince the Ottomans to intervene in the election were undermined by a failure to settle on a single French candidate for the throne and both France and the Turks were eventually forced to acknowledge Stanislas as King. As he was a lover of Catherine the Great, it was believed that Poland would become a satellite of Russia, or the two states might even be merged together.[19]
In 1768, he was recalled, ostensibly because he married the widow Anne Duvivier,[20] (1730–1798), but more probably because the Duc de Choiseul thought him not competent to provoke a war between Imperial Russia and the Ottomans which Choiseul hoped for. Choiseul wanted to weaken the power of Russia as he believed they were becoming too strong in the Baltic Sea. Choiseul regarded the best way of doing that as provoking a costly war between them and the Ottomans. Although he thought the strategy unwise, Vergennes continuously advocated war in Constantinople by trying to convince that Ottomans that war was the only way to check Russia's rising power.
Vergennes's marriage had taken place without the King's consent which was a requirement for French ambassadors. In France Vergennes encountered strong disapproval for his marriage and was aware that he returned home in disgrace. In spite of his doubts, Vergennes was successful in persuading the Ottomans to declare war against Russia, and in 1768 the Russo-Turkish War broke out. It eventually ended in a decisive victory for the Russians, who gained new territory, and further eroded Ottoman power. Despite his opposition to the policy, Vergennes still took credit in France for having fulfilled his orders to provoke a war. During this period Vergennes and Choiseul developed a mutual dislike of each other.[21]
After Choiseul's dismissal in 1770, Vergennes was sent to Sweden with instructions to help the pro-French party of The Hats with advice and money. The coup by which King Gustav III secured power (19 August 1772) was a major diplomatic triumph for France and brought to an end the Swedish Age of Liberty.
With the accession of King Louis XVI in 1774, Vergennes became foreign minister. His policy was guided by the conviction that the power of the states on the periphery of Europe, namely Great Britain and Russia, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. When he was appointed to the job, he had spent almost the entirety of the previous thirty five years abroad in diplomatic service.[22] He readily admitted that he had lost touch with developments in France, and was mocked by some political opponents as a "foreigner". Despite this he was able to view France's foreign affairs with a more abstract nature, taking in the wider European context.[23]
Vergennes' rivalry with the British, and his desire to avenge the disasters of the Seven Years' War, led to his support of the Thirteen Colonies in the American War of Independence, a step which would help, ultimately, bring about the French Revolution of 1789. As early as 1765 he had predicted that the loss of the French threat in North America would lead ultimately to the Americans "striking off their chains".[24] In 1775 the first fighting had broken out and in July 1776 the colonists declared independence.
Long before France's open entry into the war Vergennes approved of the Pierre Beaumarchais's plan for secret French assistance. Supplies, arms, ammunition and volunteers were given to the American rebels from early 1776. The weakness of the British naval blockade off the American coast allowed large amounts to be smuggled through. In 1777, he informed the Thirteen Colonies' commissioners that France acknowledged the United States, and was willing to form an offensive and defensive alliance with the new state. His haste to agree an alliance with the Americans was driven by his fear that the British and the colonists were about to reconcile in the wake of the Battle of Saratoga, possibly followed by a joint attack on France.
Vergennes had long-planned to enter the war jointly with Spain, but Charles III of Spain was more interested in mediating the dispute and was concerned about encouraging colonial revolts. In spite of this Vergennes pressed ahead with his alliance, in agreement with the American envoy Benjamin Franklin, which would almost certainly lead to war with Britain. In the wake of the Franco-American agreement, the Americans rejected British peace offers made by the Carlisle Peace Commission.
Despite the optimism that had surrounded France's entry into the war, France failed to make an immediate impact to the ongoing war in America. A fleet under Admiral d'Estaing sailed to assist the rebels, but was involved in failed attacks in Rhode Island and Savannah. This, amongst other things, placed significant strains on Franco-American relations. In spite of this, Vergennes continued to send large amounts of money to keep the war effort afloat. Meanwhile the British regained the initiative with their Southern Strategy.
Spain's entry into the war in 1779 gave the Allies a considerably larger joint fleet than the British Royal Navy, but in spite of this an attempted invasion of Britain miscarried. This seriously undermined Vergennes' plans as he had anticipated a swift and simple war, which now promised to be considerably more difficult and expensive than he had hoped.
Vergennes sought by a series of negotiations to secure the armed neutrality of the Northern European states, eventually carried out by Catherine II of Russia. A direct result of this was Britain's declaration of war against the Dutch Republic in an attempt to keep the Dutch from joining the League. This was frustrating to Vergennes as he saw the Dutch as being more valuable as neutrals, as they could supply France through the British blockade, than as allies. He briefly entertained the hope that the British war against the Dutch would provoke the Russians to enter the war against them, but Catherine declined to act.[25] The Dutch entry into the war placed further strains on the French treasury, as they searched for finances to support the Dutch war effort.
He acted as an intermediary in the War of the Bavarian Succession between Austria and Prussia, which he feared could trigger a major European war, wrecking his strategy of sending French and Spanish forces to the Americas to fight the British there by draggomg resources and troops to Central Europe. The conflict was ended relatively peacefully by the Treaty of Teschen, of which France was a guarantor. Vergennes's strategy of trying to prevent Britain from gaining allies from the European great powers was a success, and the British were forced to fight the entire war without a significant ally, in sharp contrast to previous wars.
The first French expedition to America under d'Estaing returned to France in 1780. The following year another fleet was despatched under Admiral de Grasse while the Expédition Particulière, a sizable force of French soldiers under the comte de Rochambeau, arrived in America in July 1780. In October 1781 the French force played a key role in the surrender of a British army at Yorktown. In spite of the large British military presence in America and continued possession of several major cities, the British parliament passed a resolution in early 1782 suspending further offensives against the Americans, although this did not apply to their other enemies in other theatres.
After the success at Yorktown, the French fleet had gone to the West Indies as part of a plan to invade Britain's colony of Jamaica. In April 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes, the French fleet suffered a major defeat and de Grasse was captured by the British. In both France and Britain this was seen as restoring British control of the seas.[26] Since 1779, Allied forces had laid siege to the British base at Gibraltar. In 1782, a major Franco-Spanish attack on Gibraltar failed and it was relieved shortly afterwards. This presented a major problem to Vergennes as the treaty of alliance with the Spanish had committed the French to keep fighting until Gibraltar was under Spanish control and could potentially extend the war indefinitely.
These two defeats undermined the French confidence that had greeted Yorktown, and Vergennes was increasingly pessimistic about allied prospects during the coming year. By this stage, peace negotiations were well underway.
During 1782, Vergennes also committed French troops to put down a democratic revolution in the Republic of Geneva that had broken out the previous year.[27]
During the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Paris, Vergennes tried to balance the conflicting interests of France, Spain and the United States. He was largely unsympathetic to the Dutch, believing that their disappointing effort in the war did not justify him championing their aims at the peace table.[28] He also played a major role in persuading Spain to accept a peace agreement which did not give them Gibraltar, without which it was likely the war would have been prolonged at least a further year: something French national finances could not afford.[29]
By 1782 Vergennes was growing increasingly frustrated by what he regarded as the inability of the United States to justify the large sums of money that France had given to them, remarking to the Marquis de Lafayette, who had recently returned from America, "I am not marvelously pleased with the country that you have just left. I find it barely active and very demanding".[30] Although he continued to enjoy a warm relationship with Benjamin Franklin, the American peace commissioners John Jay and John Adams distrusted the motives of Vergennes and France and began their own separate peace talks with British envoys.
When Vergennes discovered in November 1782 that the Americans had concluded a separate peace with the British, he felt betrayed, as its had previously been agreed that a joint peace would be negotiated between them.[31] In light of the generous terms that Britain had granted to the United States, although they had refused to cede Canada, Vergennes remarked "The English buy peace rather than make it."[32]
France's own peace terms with Britain were finalised in January 1783. Worried that another year of war would result in further British victories, Vergennes was keen to reach an agreement. France received Tobago, several trading posts in Africa and the end of restrictions on Dunkirk. Vergennes claimed that France's limited gains justified his position that their participation had been disinterested. He was criticised for this by Marquis de Castries, who believed that most of the war's burdens had been on France while most of the benefits were for her allies.[33]
Despite claiming victory from the American War of Independence, France's foreign situation began to decline rapidly in the years after 1783. French resources were increasingly strained and unable to support Versailles' traditional role in Europe. This was heightened during the Dutch Crisis of 1787 when France was unable to prevent the intervention of Prussian troops to crush the French-allied Patriots in the Dutch Republic.[34] This diplomatic retreat was a contributing factor to the French Revolution.[35]
Vergennes encouraged King Louis to sponsor expeditions to Indochina, which laid the building blocks of the French conquest during the next century that created French Indochina.
In domestic affairs, Vergennes remained a conservative, carrying out intrigues to have Jacques Necker removed. He regarded Necker, a foreign Protestant, as a dangerous innovator, and secret republican and was wary of his Anglophile views. In 1781, Vergennes became chief of the council of finance, and, in 1783, he supported the nomination of Charles Alexandre de Calonne as Controller-General.
Vergennes died just before the meeting of the Assembly of Notables which he is said to have suggested to Louis XVI. The opening of the Assembly was delayed several times in order for him to be able to attend after he had grown ill from overwork, but on 13 February 1787 he died. When Louis XVI was told the news he broke down in tears and described Vergennes as "the only friend I could count on, the one minister who never deceived me".[36]
After his death in 1787, the situation deteriorated leading to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. In January 1793 the King was executed and France was soon at war with many of its neighbours. In The Terror that followed many of Vergennes' contemporaries were imprisoned and killed.
He has often been portrayed by Americans as a visionary, because of his support for American independence. However this support for a republican insurrection, and the enormous cost France incurred in the war, are generally considered the cause of the French Revolution, which brought down the French monarchy, and the system he served.[37]
He was played by Guillaume Gallienne in the 2006 film Marie Antoinette.
The city of Vergennes, Vermont was named after him as suggested by Ethan Allen.[38]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Roland Puchot |
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1755–1768 |
Succeeded by François Emmanuel Guignard |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Bertin |
Minister of Foreign Affairs 1774–1787 |
Succeeded by Montmorin |
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