Conrad-Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval was born in France and served as a secretary to the Comte de Vergennes, foreign minister under Louis XVI. In that role he arranged and signed the 1778 treaties of alliance and commerce between France and the United States — the agreements that brought France openly into the Revolutionary War on the American side.
He was then appointed the first French minister plenipotentiary to the United States, arriving in 1778 to represent his king to the new republic. After his diplomatic service he returned to France, where he died in 1790.