310 



VERGENNES, COMTE DE. 



VERGILIUS, POLYDORUS. 



320 



pality had contrived to make bis court the centre of the political 

 intrigues of Germany. He held, in addition to the electoral arch- 

 bishopric of Trier, the bishopric of Worms, was co-director of the 

 circle of the Upper Rhine, provost of Ellwangen, and senior of the 

 ecclesiastical bench in the diet of the circle of Suabia. His inter- 

 ference was felt everywhere. The empress-queen was, in 1750, 

 anxiously pressing the election of her son Joseph, still a child, as 

 King of the Romans. The failure of her canvass was attributed to the 

 influence acquired by Vergennes over the Elector of Trier. 



A visit paid by George II. of England to his paternal estates in 

 Germany was seized upon by Maria Theresa to renew her intrigues. 

 The Duke of Newcastle, who wished the imperial dignity to remain 

 in the House of Austria, assembled a congress of the ministers of all 

 the electors at Hanover. The discussions of this assembly ended in 

 nothing ; and Vergennes, who had been sent to it by his court, 

 obtained the credit of having foiled the English minister. Newcastle 

 shifted the scene to Mannheim, and Vergennes (1753) was immediately 

 sent in pursuit of him. He detached the elector-palatine from a con- 

 vention he was about to conclude with the elector of Hanover in sup- 

 port of the projects of Maria Theresa, and Wrede, the minister of the 

 palatinate, was obliged to repair in person to Paris to apologise for his 

 dealings with England and the empress. 



From Germany Vergennes was sent to Constantinople. Count 

 Desalleurs, ambassador to the Porte, died suddenly on the 21st of 

 November 1754. A secret correspondence had been carried on 

 through his instrumentality between the . Ottoman court and Louis 

 XV., unknown to the king's ministers. It was a matter of con- 

 sequence therefore to the king and his favourites that the papers of 

 the deceased ambassador shouM not fall into indiscreet hands. 

 Vergennes was deemed trustworthy, but his birth and his youth 

 were obstacles to his appointment to the charge of ambassador. 

 Chavigny is said to have helped the courtiers iu this dilemma by 

 persuading the Marquis de Puysieux, minister for foreign affairs, 

 that an envoy extraordinary, or a minister plenipotentiary, was 

 perfectly competent to transact all the business of France at Con- 

 stantinople ; and that as an agent of that rank would receive a lower 

 salary, and might live at less expense than an ambassador, the 

 difference might be employed to pay off the debts contracted by 

 Count Desalleurs. Vergennes was accordingly appointed, and em- 

 barked in a merchant-vessel for Constantinople, where he arrived in 

 company with the Baron de Tott in May 1755. The Porte received 

 him under the designation of minister plenipotentiary; but after a 

 few months, in consequence of a representation from the sultan, 

 Vergennes received the title of ambassador. 



He had a difficult game to play. England and Prussia urged the 

 Porte to declare war against the empresses of Austria and Russia. 

 Vergennes represented that these princesses being on friendly terms 

 with France, must necessarily be well disposed to Turkey, the ally 

 of France. The peace of 1763 put an end to these intrigues, but 

 more serious difficulties ensued. Catherine II. invaded Poland on 

 account of the opposition offered to Poniatowski, whom she had been 

 instrumental in placing on the throne. The Porte, which had 

 guaranteed the integrity of Poland, was disposed to interfere. Ver- 

 gennes believing that Turkey was too weak to thwart the designs of 

 the empress, and that it would only draw down upon itself a partici- 

 pation in the disasters of Poland, counselled neutrality. The Duke 

 de Choiseul exclaimed loudly against the apathy of the Divan and 

 the timidity of Vergennes. Money was remitted to the ambassador 

 with strict injunctions to spare no efforts to engage Turkey in 

 hostilities against Russia. The minister was preparing reluctantly to 

 obey, when an accident brought about what he had hesitated to under- 

 take. Some Cossaks made a predatory irruption into the Crimea, 

 and De Tott, who had been accredited by Choiseul to the khan, 

 induced him to make reprisals. This led to a formal declaration of 

 war against Russia by the sultan, on the 30th of October. 



Vergennes's despatch containing the intelligence of this event was 

 crossed on the way by the courier who brought his recajl. He carried 

 back with him to Paris the money sent to bribe the Divan to under- 

 take a war, into which circumstances had precipitated them unbouht. 

 The Duke de Choiseul assigned the marriage which Vergennes had 

 contracted with the widow of a surgeon of Pera as the reason for 

 recalling him. Vergennes's recall was much regretted by the French 

 residents at Pera, who presented him with a gold-hilted sword (une 

 dpee d'or) on the occasion. On his return to France he took up his 

 abode on a property he possessed in Burgundy, and remained in 

 retirement until the fall of the Duke de Choiseul. 



La Vrilli6re, who held the portfolio of foreign affairs for a short time 

 after Choiseul's retirement, sent Vergeunes to Sweden, allowing him 

 to draw up his own instructions. He remained at that court till the 

 death of Louis XV. It was during his residence that Gustavus III. 

 accomplished the revolution which converted Sweden into an absolute 

 monarchy. Gustavus had made the French minister the confidant of 

 his designs, and the minister imparted them to his own court, but 

 represented them as romantic visions. The cabinet of Versailles 

 however directed him to assist the king of Sweden with money ; and 

 when Gustavus carried his schemes into effect, the credit of directing 

 him was attributed at Versailles to Vergeunes, who was as a reward 

 enrolled among the noblesse de l'6pGe. 



On the accession of Louis XVI. (July 1774), Vergennes was made 

 minister for foreign affairs. He remained minister till his death, in 

 1787, having held along with the portfolio of his department that of 

 president of the Council of Finance during the last few years of his 

 life. The leading achievements of his ministry were as follows : In 

 May 1777 he concluded a treaty with the Swiss cantons in lieu of the 

 separate treaties which it had been customary to enter into with each. 

 On the 6th of February 1778 he signed the treaty of alliance with 

 the United States of North America. He contributed materially 

 towards the establishment of the armed neutrality of the northern 

 maritime powers, and assisted in persuading Spain and Holland to 

 commence hostilities against England. And by these means he became 

 an instrument in bringing about the recognition of the independence of 

 the United States by the mother-country in 1783. In 1779 he obtained 

 favourable conditions for the elector of Bavaria from Joseph II. ; and 

 in 1785 he persuaded the emperor and the United Provinces to submit 

 their differences to the arbitration of Louis XVI. His last labour was 

 the negociation of a treaty of commerce with England in the years 

 1785 and 1786; and a similar convention with Russia in 1787, 

 surviving the conclusion of the lattet only fourteen days. He died on 

 the 13th of February 1787, after having served his country twenty- 

 four years in the capacity of ambassador and thirteen as minister of 

 state. He left a large fortune. 



As a diplomatist, Vergennes, except in the case of his Turkish 

 mission, appears to have received credit for accomplishing arrange- 

 ments which in some cases had been brought about without his inter- 

 ference, and in others against his wishes. It ought however to be 

 mentioned at the same time that the course he wished to see adopted 

 in the case of Turkey would have been the most prudent for that 

 country, and that had Gustavus III. deferred to the wishes of Ver- 

 gennes, he would have acted more in consonance with the dictates of 

 justice and for the permanent advantage of his country. The part 

 taken by Vergennes in the American contest, and in the arrangement 

 of the commercial treaty with England, is equally creditable to his 

 liberality and to the soundness of his economical opinions. Here too 

 however, as in his diplomatic missions, he appears rather to have left 

 what was inevitable to happen of itself, than to have exerted himself 

 to accomplish what he considered desirable. He appears to have pos- 

 sessed in a high degree the diplomatic talent of looking wise, doing 

 nothing, keeping his own secret, and taking credit for any good that 

 was done. He carried diplomacy into private life, and was always on 

 his guard : on the other hand, he was of an affectionate disposition, 

 extremely fond of children, and an honest man. It was a thorough 

 conviction of the integrity of Vergennes that made Maurepas recom- 

 mend him to Louis XVI. for the portfolio of foreign affairs ; and it 

 was the king's conviction to the same effect that enabled Vergennes to 

 overcome all the cabals and intrigues of the court. 



VERGI'LIUS, or VIRGILIUS, PuLYDO'RUS, was a native of 

 Urbino in Italy. Polydore Vergil first made himself known by a 

 small collection of Adagia, or proverbs, which he published in 1498, 

 and which was several times reprinted in the course of the next 

 half century. Bay le. quotes an edition of it in his possession printed 

 at Basel, in 8vo, in 1541, which professed to be according to the 

 author's fourth revision. There is a great deal about this book of 

 proverbs in the Letters of Erasmus, who, according to the notion of 

 Vergil, had behaved unfairly in omitting all mention of it in his own 

 subsequent work of the same kind. Erasmus, very characteristically, 

 when the booksellers wanted to suppress a preface of Polydore's to a 

 new edition of his book in which he laid his complaint before the 

 public, would not hear of such a thing; and the two authors continued 

 excellent friends, as they had been before. Polydore at last of his 

 own accord withdrew the obnoxious preface; and we fiud him in 

 after-years one of the various persons by whom Erasmus was supplied 

 with money to buy a horse an article which the great scholar was 

 constantly in want of. Polydore also suppressed, at the request of 

 Erasmus, a reiteration of his complaint, which he bad put into a 

 dedicatory epistle prefixed to his next work, .entitled 'De Rerum 

 Inventoribus,' first published in three books in 1499, and again at 

 Strasbourg in 1509. Being in holy orders, he was before 1503 sent 

 over to England by Pope Alexander VI. to collect the tax called 

 Petcr-peuce ; and he spent the greater part of the remainder of his 

 life in this country, continuing his residence long after he lost his 

 office, of which he was the last holder. In 1517 he republishcd at 

 London his work ' De Rerum Inventoribus,' extended to eight books. 

 A fourth edition of it was brought out at Basel, in 12mo, in 1536, 

 and another in 8vo, in 1554 ; and there is a 12mo edition of it, printed 

 at Amsterdam by Ludov. Elzevir so late as 1671, along with another 

 work by Vergil, three books of dialogues entitled 'De Prodigiis,' 

 against divination, which he appears to have finished at London in 

 1526, although the first edition mentioned by Gesner is one printed at 

 Basel in 1531. Bayle had another printed at Basel, in 8vo, iu 1545, 

 aud containing also two books ' De Patieutia,' one ' De Vita Perfecta,' 

 and one 'De Mendaciis,' all by this author. Erasmus, in one of his 

 Letters, also speaks of a translation of the ' Monachus ' of fcft. 

 Chrysostom, which Vergil had printed at Paris in 1528, and dedicated 

 to him. 



Soon after he came to England, Vergil obtained the rectory of 

 Church Langtou in Leicestershire, and in 1507 he waa made arch- 



