Louis de Verjus

Louis (de) Verjus, count of Crécy (1629, Paris – 13 December 1709) was a French politician and diplomat.

A Conseiller d’État and brother of the notable Jesuit and procurer for missions to the Levant Antoine Verjus (22 January 1632 – 16 May 1706), he was elected to the Académie française in 1679.

He was paid 450 livres for it, which suggests quite a large work, for his account books mention this portrait as "Habillement répété" ("Repeated clothing", i.e. copied from a previous model[3]).

According to Saint-Simon,[4] "[Crécy Verjus] was a wise and measured man, who—beneath a disagreeable exterior and manners and knowing the foreigner well, in the new debacle that the French were forced to stay in, and a language the same,—hid an uncommon address and finesse, prompt understanding, by discernment of those with whom he had to treat and of their aim; and who by dint of only hearing what he wanted to hear, by patience and indefatigable effort, and by fertilirt in presenting under all kinds of different appearances the same things that had been rebutted, often arrived at his aim".

On Verjus's death, the duke-writer added: "He was a short little man, soft, polite, respectful, clever, who passed his life on foreign services, and who took all manners, up to the very long language at Regensburg, then in many minor courts of Germany [...] He had much insinuation, the art of re-saying the same thing a hundred times, always in different ways, [and] very often thus succeeded.