Charles Gravier comte de Vergennes

Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French foreign minister from 1774 to his death in 1787, is the subject of this painting held in the collections of the Château de Versailles. Vergennes did not want France to openly ally themselves with the United States during the American Revolution and risk becoming embroiled in a hopeless and expensive war when they had not yet recovered from the Seven Years’ War. He agreed to provide secret financial and military aid to the Americans but resisted forming an official alliance, a fact which the American ministers in France found frustrating. Benjamin Franklin maintained a strong working relationship with Vergennes and eventually secured the Franco-American alliance of 1778.