Jean Gravier, marquis de Vergennes

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The Marquis of Vergennes
Jean Gravier de Vergennes.jpg
French Ambassador to Switzerland
In office
1775/1786–1777/1789
French Ambassador to Portugal
In office
1777–1779
French Ambassador to the Republic of Venice
In office
1779–1785
President of the Court of Auditors of Burgundy
MonarchKing Louis XV of France
Personal details
Born(1718-11-04)4 November 1718
Dijon, France
Died24 July 1794(1794-07-24) (aged 75)
Paris, Revolutionary France
NationalityFrench
Spouse(s)
Jeanne Claude Chevignard
​
​
(m. 1746⁠–⁠1784)​
ChildrenFive
ProfessionMagistrate, Diplomat

Jean-Charles Gravier, Marquis of Vergennes[1] and Baron of Tenare, was a French aristocrat, magistrate and diplomat. He was the elder brother of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and Louis XVI's Chief Minister, Charles Gravier de Vergennes.

Biography[]

Born in Dijon in 1718, the eldest son of , he became a chief counselor in the Court of Auditors of Burgundy in 1738 and then President of the Court in 1742. As the eldest son, he inherited his family's estates. He was named as the French King's ambassador in Switzerland from 1775 to 1777. As ambassador, he renewed the treaty of alliance between France and the Swiss cantons on the 28th of May, 1777, in Solothurn. He was then appointed as French Ambassador to Portugal in 1777, as Ambassador to the Republic of Venice from 1779 to 1785, and as Ambassador, for a second time, to Switzerland from 1786 to 1789.

Imprisoned in the Saint-Lazare Prison during the French Revolution, he was guillotined alongside his eldest son on the 24th of July, 1794, in Paris.

Jean Gravier married to Jeanne Chevignard de Chavigny from a noble Burgundian family related to the Graviers, daughter of Philibert Chevignard de Chavigny, President of the Parliament of Besançon and niece of the ambassador Théodore Chevignard de Chavigny, Count of Toulongeon. He is the grand-father of Claire Élisabeth de Vergennes, Madame de Rémusat and of the politician, anti-revolutionary fighter and Marshal of France, , among others. The Gravier family is a family of the surviving French nobility.

See also[]

Sources[]

  • Sylvi Nicolas, Les derniers maîtres des requêtes de l'Ancien Régime (1771-1789): dictionnaire prosopographique, 1998 (French)
  • A. Ferret, Ormes, archiprêtré de Bresse et port sur Saône, revue « Images de Saône-et-Loire » No. 40 (hiver 1978-1979), p. 21-24 (French)

Notes[]

  1. ^ Name taken by the land of Ormes after its erection as a marquisate by the king (1778). Source: A. Ferret, Ormes, archiprêtré de Bresse et port sur Saône, revue « Images de Saône-et-Loire » No. 40 (hiver 1978-1979), p. 21-24.
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