Nicolas Fouquet

French aristocrat and government official

• Born: January 27, 1615
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: March 23, 1680
• Place of death: Pignerol, France

Fouquet used his wealth to replenish the royal treasury and sustain the French monarchy. His wealth provided the financial support for seventeenth century artists, writers, musicians, and other talented individuals. He created Vaus-le-Vicomte, the model for Versailles, giving France two magnificent châteaux.

Sources of wealth: Inheritance; marriage; banking

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; artistic patronage

Early Life

Nicolas Fouquet (nee-koh-lah few-KAY) was born in 1615 in Paris, France. He was a member of an affluent family belonging to the noblesse de la robe (court nobility). His grandfather had been a merchant in Nantes; his father François had risen in rank to be an adviser to Cardinal de Richelieu, prime minister during the reign of Louis XIII. Nicolas was educated by the Jesuits and entered the legal profession at a very young age. In 1628, he was admitted as a lawyer to the parliament of Paris.

First Ventures

In 1636, Fouquet purchased the post of maître des requêtes, a court office. In 1641, Fouquet’s wealth was already such that he purchased the village of Maincy and the château Vaux-le-Vicomte, located not far from Paris. At the time, the château was small and unpretentious, but Fouquet would later make it the most elaborate home in France.

As a maître des requêtes, he belonged to the group of court officers from whom the intendants were chosen. Intendants were court officials whose duties were to oversee the provincial governments’ financial, policing, and judicial activities. Fouquet was first appointed as an intendant in 1642 by Prime Minister Jules Mazarin. He held various intendancies from 1642 to 1650. The Wars of the Fronde, the rebellion of a certain faction of the nobility against Mazarin and the young King Louis XIV, broke out in 1648. It lasted until 1653; during this time, Mazarin had to leave Paris and Fouquet not only remained loyal to him but also ensured the safety of his property.

Mature Wealth

In 1650, Fouquet obtained the prestigious and powerful office of procureur général (attorney-general) to the Parliament of Paris. The following year, he married Marie de Castille, who also belonged to a wealthy family of the noblesse de la robe. The marriage made him the owner of Belle Asize, his wife’s estate, and added considerably to his wealth. With the end of the Fronde in 1653, Mazarin returned to Paris. In return for his loyalty and because of his ability, Mazarin appointed Fouquet surintendant de finance (finance minister). The combination of the offices of procureur général and surintendant de finance made Fouquet the most powerful man in France, since he controlled the king’s finances and also the judicial court’s activity.

The royal treasury had been virtually depleted in 1648; the private investors who had loaned money to the king had not received a profit on their investment and were unwilling to invest more. As prime minister, Mazarin was in desperate need of money to finance the administration, the war with Spain, and the costs of entertainment and maintenance for the court. Thus, Fouquet’s duty as surintendant de finance was to raise a large sum of money quickly. Since Fouquet was in charge of both raising the money and prosecuting any financial misconduct, he had a wide-open field in which to generate funds. Fouquet was loyal to Mazarin and the king, but he was also interested in increasing his own wealth. He employed two methods to enlarge his personal fortune. Fouquet negotiated loans using his own property as security. What he was actually doing was borrowing the money himself and then loaning it to the royal administration. He also obtained other loans directly on the security of the state. His techniques were legal and allowed him to make considerable profits. Fouquet was stricken seriously ill in 1658. Unable to perform his duties and raise money by negotiating loans, he sold Belle Asize to provide the funds necessary for the army.

In 1657, Fouquet had begun to renovate Vaux-le-Vicomte. As a member of the noblesse de la robe, he had to deal with the fact that his nobility was not inherited. The noblesse de l’épée (inherited or old nobility) refused to accept the noblese de la robe as their equals; in their opinion, the noblese de la robe were and would always be upstart bourgeois who had purchased their titles. Consequently, appearances were very important to Fouquet. He needed to parade his wealth in order to show the old nobility that he lived in the same or in a better manner than they did. Added to this desire, Fouquet actually had an appreciation for beauty and artistic quality. He was very generous in his support of artists and writers, and by 1657 he was extraordinarily rich.

Thus when he began the renovation of Vaux-le-Vicomte, he obtained the services of the very best architect of the time, Louis Le Vau; the very best painter and decorator, Charles Le Brun; and the most talented landscape gardener, André Le Nôtre. The renovations took four years and were not completed until 1661. Once the magnificent château and grounds were finished, the house and other buildings occupied almost one hundred acres of land, with highly elaborated gardens that extended for more than a mile. Vaux-le-Vicomte was the most beautiful and luxurious château in France.

As surintendant de finance, Fouquet had performed his duties well. He had replenished the royal treasury and provided funds for the royal administration and for the wars and extravagances of the court. He fully expected Louis XIV to name him prime minister upon the death of Mazarin, who was in failing health. However, Fouquet was to be disappointed in this ambition. Mazarin’s private secretary Jean-Baptiste Colbert also had ambitions to become the king’s foremost adviser and administrator. Louis XIV, who had been terrified by the Fronde, feared the power of the nobility; for Fouquet to become prime minister was not an eventuality that either the king or the nobles favored. Louis XIV decided to rule personally without a prime minister. As Mazarin’s death approached, Colbert began to indicate to the king that Fouquet was not to be trusted.

Although some of his friends tried to caution him in regard to Colbert and the king, Fouquet did not perceive any danger. When the king expressed a desire to visit Vaux-le-Vicomte, Fouquet, who was proud of his château and eager to show it to the king and the nobles, immediately set about arranging a festive party for the king and the court. On August 17, 1661, Fouquet welcomed the king and his entourage to Vaux-le-Vicomte, where he entertained them with a tour of his gardens, a dinner, a ballet-comedy by Molière with music by Jean-Baptise Lully, and an abundance of fireworks. Fouquet entertained six thousand guests at a cost of 120,000 livres. This was the high point of Fouquet’s career; he was the richest man in France, and as procureur général and surintendant de finance, the most powerful.

The magnificence of the château and its gardens and the elaborate festivities only served to intensify Louis XIV’s extreme jealousy and hatred of Fouquet. Everything Fouquet possessed and offered totally eclipsed what the king owned. Louis XIV took his council of ministers to Nantes for a meeting. He had already persuaded Fouquet to relinquish his office of procureur général. In Nantes on September 5, 1661, Fouquet was arrested by his friend Charles de Batz de Castlemore, known as d’Artagnan, captain of the king’s musketeers. The king called for a special court session and had Fouquet tried on charges of theft from the royal treasury. The trial lasted for three years and finally produced a verdict of guilty and a sentence of banishment. Louis XIV commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Fouquet was sent to the citadel at Pignerol and his wife was exiled. The Crown sequestered all of Fouquet’s wealth. Nicolas Fouquet died in prison on March 23, 1680. Vaux-le-Vicomte was eventually returned to Fouquet’s wife.

Legacy

Nicolas Fouquet is the most successful example of an ambitious bourgeois who rose in seventeenth century French society. He not only acquired great wealth through his financial expertise but also recognized and appreciated excellence in the work of creative individuals and employed his wealth to assist them. While Fouquet was ostentatious and took pleasure in exhibiting his wealth, he also helped establish standards of good taste, even in excess. His château Vaux-le-Vicomte and its gardens stand as a model of beauty in architecture and landscape gardening. Although Fouquet attained both enormous wealth and power, he always remained loyal to the French crown.

Bibliography

Beik, William. Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. Good discussion of the Fronde, Mazarin, and Colbert and how Louis XIV interacted with the court, the church, and the provinces.

Drazin, Charles. The Man Who Outshone the Sun King: A Life of Gleaming Opulence and Wretched Reversal in the Reign of Louis XIV. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2008. Detailed portrayal of Fouquet’s life from his early school days to his rise to prominence to his years spent in prison. Good historical context and accounts of events of the time. Very readable.

Goldstein, Claire. Vaux and Versailles: The Appropriations, Erasures, and Accidents That Made Modern France. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Good for understanding what Vaux and Fouquet meant to French national style. Gives an account of how much Louis XIV took from Vaux in terms of objects, artists, writers, and concepts to create Versailles.

Lewis, W. H. The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV. 1953. Reprint. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1997. One of the best presentations of Louis XIV’s France. Includes chapters on every aspect of life: court, army, church, towns, commoners, education, and letters.

Soll, Jacob. The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. Good presentation of Colbert and his rise to power. Describes how he used a network of information to establish and increase royal authority.