IV.

Louis XVI’s Foreign Policy

In contrast to his continuing failure to address France’s domestic problems, in foreign affairs Louis found a prestige for France that had been absent under the previous reign when the nation had suffered several military reverses to Great Britain in India and North America, ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The rebellion of Great Britain’s 13 American colonies against its rule was passionately embraced by young French aristocrats such as Marquis de Lafayette and the Comte de Rochambeau, and received the official support of France by a treaty of friendship and alliance signed on February 6, 1778, between Louis and Benjamin Franklin (see American War of Independence). France offered practical military help on both land and sea to the American cause and played an important part in its victory. In the Indian Ocean, the French navy, under Admiral Pierre André de Suffren, performed encouragingly against the British Navy in its ongoing struggle for control over India, while in Europe the foreign policy of Vergennes was one of friendly relations with Austria while limiting the ambitions of Joseph II, as well as protecting the Ottoman Empire, maintaining the neutrality of the northern European states, and opposing Great Britain.