He was born a Catholic and attended a Jesuit School in Cologne, he conformed to Dutch Calvinism in order to obtain his election as delegate to the states-general from Groningen.

The fortune of Jean Orry, Giulio Alberoni and other foreigners in Spain, showed that the court of Philip V offered a career to adventurers.

Ripperda, whose name is commonly spelt de Riperdá by the Spaniards, devoted himself to the Spanish government, and again professed himself a Catholic.

He first attached himself to Alberoni, and after the fall of that minister he became the agent of Elizabeth Farnese, the restless and intriguing wife of Philip V. Though perfectly unscrupulous in money matters, and of a singularly vain and blustering disposition, he did understand commercial questions, and he had the merit of having pointed out that the poverty of Spain was mainly due to the neglect of its agriculture.

He rose by undertaking to aid the queen, whose influence over her husband was boundless, in her schemes for securing the succession to Parma and Tuscany for her sons.

The result of ten months of very strange diplomacy was a series of agreements known collectively as the Treaty of Vienna (1725) by which the Emperor promised very little, and the Ostend Company received commercial rights in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

Elizabeth Farnese hoped to secure the Italian duchies for her sons, and some vague stipulations were made that Charles VI should give his aid for the recovery by Spain of Gibraltar and Menorca.

[4] He used his office for quick profit, but also excited animosity from numerous foreign and local sources: the Austrians who sought compensation promised in the recent agreements, but who demurred on the offered dynastic marriages.