Treaty of Versailles (1787)
- When
- 1787
- Where
- court of Louis XVI at Versailles; Versailles
- Episodes
- 2
The Treaty of Versailles of 1787 was a treaty of alliance signed on November 21, 1787, between France, represented by Foreign Minister Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, and Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, acting for the Vietnamese lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, the future Emperor Gia Long.
Episodes
- Pigneau's mission to the French court
Pigneau de Béhaine traveled to France in 1787 as Nguyễn Ánh's special envoy, accompanied by the lord's seven-year-old son, and reached Versailles in February 1787.
- Signing of the Treaty of Versailles
On November 21, 1787, the treaty of alliance was signed by Montmorin for France and Pigneau de Béhaine for Nguyễn Ánh, concluding an alliance with Cochinchina.
Background and detail
Background. Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, whose family had been decimated by the Tây Sơn rebellion when he was 16 or 17, received the protection and aid of the French Catholic priest Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine, titular bishop of Adran. After losing Saigon repeatedly, Ánh became a refugee in Siam in 1785, where he befriended the bishop.
Negotiations. To obtain support for Nguyễn Ánh's cause, Pigneau de Béhaine traveled to France in 1787 as the special envoy of the king of Nam Hà, accompanied by Nguyễn Ánh's seven-year-old son Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh as a token of his authority. After arriving at the court of Louis XVI in Versailles in February 1787, Pigneau had difficulty gathering support for a French expedition.
Signing. The treaty was signed on November 21, 1787, by Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Navy, and Pigneau de Béhaine as the representative of Nguyễn Ánh. It was concluded between France and Cochinchina, the European term for southern Vietnam, in Nguyễn Phúc Ánh's name.
People involved
- Louis XVI · King of France, at whose court the treaty was concluded
- Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin · Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Navy; French signatory
- Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine · French Catholic priest, titular bishop of Adran; representative and signatory for Nguyễn Phúc Ánh
- Nguyễn Phúc Ánh · Vietnamese lord, future Emperor Gia Long, on whose behalf the alliance was concluded
- Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh · Nguyễn Ánh's seven-year-old son, who accompanied Pigneau to France as a token of his negotiating authority
Sources
- Treaty of Versailles (1787) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-29
- Gia Long Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.