- Nicolas Fouquet
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Nicolas Fouquet 
Portrait by Édouard LacretelleBorn January 27, 1615
ParisDied March 23, 1680
PignerolNationality France Known for Superintendent of Finances in France Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (January 27, 1615 – March 23, 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He fell out of favor with the young king, probably because of his extravagant displays of wealth, and the king had him imprisoned from 1661 until his death in 1680.
Contents
Biography
Minister of finance
Born in Paris, he belonged to an influential family of the noblesse de robe and, after some preliminary schooling with the Jesuits at the age of thirteen, was admitted as avocat at the Parlement of Paris. While still in his teens, he held several responsible posts, and, in 1636, when just twenty, he was able to buy the post of maître des requêtes. In 1640 he married the rich Louise Fourché, who died a year later.[1]
From 1642 to 1650, he held various intendancies, at first in the provinces and then with the army of chief minister Cardinal Mazarin and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important position of procureur général to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile, Fouquet remained loyal to him, protecting his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.
Upon Mazarin's return, Fouquet demanded and received as reward the office of superintendent of the finances (1653), a position which, in the unsettled condition of the government, threw into his hands not merely the decision as to which funds should be applied to meet the demands of the state's creditors, but also the negotiations with the great financiers who lent money to the king. The appointment was a popular one with the moneyed class, for Fouquet's great wealth had been largely augmented by his marriage in 1651 with Marie de Castille, who also belonged to a wealthy family of the legal nobility in Spain.
His own credit, and above all his unfailing confidence in himself, strengthened the credit of the government, while his high position at the parlement (he still remained procureur général) secured financial transactions from investigation. As minister of finance, he soon had Mazarin almost in the position of a suppliant. The long wars, and the greed of the courtiers, who followed the example of Mazarin, made it necessary at times for Fouquet to meet the demands upon him by borrowing upon his own credit, but he soon turned this confusion of the public purse with his own to good account.
The disorder in the accounts became hopeless; fraudulent operations were entered into with impunity, and the financiers were kept in the position of clients by official favours and by generous aid whenever they needed it. Fouquet's fortune now surpassed even Mazarin's, but the latter was too deeply implicated in similar operations to interfere, and was obliged to leave the day of reckoning to his agent and successor Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
His closest friend and, maybe, mistress, was Suzanne de Rougé, the Marquise du Plessis-Bellière.
Vaux-le-Vicomte
Rhythmic massing of the entrance front of Vaux-le-Vicomte.
Upon Mazarin's death Fouquet expected to be made head of the government; but Louis XIV was suspicious of his poorly dissembled ambition, and it was with Fouquet in mind that he made the well-known statement, upon assuming the government, that Louis would be his own chief minister. Colbert, perhaps seeking to succeed Fouquet[2] fed the king's displeasure with adverse reports upon the deficit, and made the worst of the case against Fouquet. The extravagant expenditure and personal display of the superintendent served to intensify the ill-will of the king. Fouquet had bought the port of Belle-Île-en-Mer and strengthened the fortifications, with a view to taking refuge there in case of disgrace.
He had spent enormous sums in building a magnificent château on his estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte, which in extent, magnificence, and splendour of decoration was a forecast of Versailles, and where he brought together three artists that the King would later take up for Versailles: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, and the garden designer André le Nôtre. Here he gathered the rarest manuscripts, paintings, jewels and antiques in profusion, and above all surrounded himself with artists and authors. The table was open to all people of quality, and the kitchen was presided over by François Vatel. Jean de La Fontaine, Corneille, and Paul Scarron were a few of the many artists who enjoyed his patronage.
The coat of arms of Fouquet's family traditionally showed a squirrel and bore the motto "Quo non ascendet ?" ("How far could it climb?"). This symbol can be found in many rooms and decorations at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The choice of this animal derives from the name foucquet, which in the dialect of Angers (area in the west of France) means squirrel.
Fouquet's coat of arms.Arrest, trial, and life imprisonment
The Vauban Citadel in Le Palais, Belle-Île, owned by Fouquet.In August 1661 Louis XIV, already set upon his destruction (his disgrace was secretly decided upon on May 4[3]), was entertained at Vaux with a fête rivaled in magnificence by only one or two in French history, at which Molière's Les Fâcheux was produced for the first time. The splendour of the entertainment sealed Fouquet's fate. The king, then only 22 years old, was however afraid to act openly against so powerful a minister[4]. As Superintendent, Fouquet headed the enormously wealthy and influential corps of partisans (tax farmers) who, if challenged as a group, could have caused the king serious trouble.[5] By crafty devices Fouquet was induced to sell his office of procureur général, thus losing the protection of its privileges, and he paid the price of it into the treasury.
Three weeks after his visit to Vaux the king withdrew to Nantes, taking Fouquet with him. When he was leaving the presence chamber, flattered with the assurance of the king's esteem, Fouquet was arrested by a captain of musketeers named d'Artagnan. The trial lasted almost three years, and its violation of the forms of justice is still the subject of frequent monographs by members of the French bar. Louis acted throughout "as though he were conducting a campaign," evidently fearing that Fouquet would play the part of a Richelieu. A report of his trial was published in the Netherlands, in 15 volumes, in 1665—1667, in spite of the remonstrances which Colbert addressed to the States-General. A second edition under the title of Oeuvres de M. Fouquet appeared in 1696.
During the course of the trial, French public sympathy was strongly with Fouquet, and La Fontaine, Madame de Sévigné and many others wrote on his behalf; but when Fouquet was sentenced to banishment, the king, disappointed, "commuted" the sentence to imprisonment for life. In early 1665 Fouquet was transferred to the fortress of Pignerol. There, Eustache Dauger, the man identified in contemporary official correspondence as the Man in the Iron Mask, served as Fouquet's manservant. His wife was not allowed to write to him until 1672; she was allowed to visit him only once, in 1679.[1] The former minister bore his imprisonment with manly fortitude, and composed several mediocre translations in prison. The devotional works bearing his name are apocryphal.
According to official records, Fouquet died in Pignerol on March 23, 1680.
In fiction
Fouquet's story is often entwined together with the Man in the Iron Mask, who is often identified as the true king or even as an identical twin brother of Louis XIV. As such, he is a pivotal character in Alexandre Dumas' novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne, where he is depicted sympathetically. Aramis, an ally of Fouquet, tries to seize power by replacing Louis XIV with his identical twin brother. It is Fouquet who, out of sheer loyalty for the crown, foils Aramis' plot and saves Louis. This does not, however, prevent his downfall.
James Whale's film The Man in the Iron Mask is very loosely adapted from Dumas' novel and, on the contrary, depicts Fouquet as the story's main villain, who tries to keep the existence of the King's twin brother a secret. Fouquet is portrayed by Joseph Schildkraut. In a departure from history, he dies when his coach plunges off a cliff. In the 1977 version, Fouquet is portrayed by Patrick McGoohan.
He was also portrayed by Robert Lindsay in Nick Dear's play Power. This debuted at the national theatre in 2003.
Fouquet's life (and his rivalry with Colbert) is also one of the background plots/histories in the historical novel Imprimatur by Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
References
- ^ a b Volker Steinkamp (14 August 2011). "Das letzte Fest des Nicolas Foucquet" (in German). Die Zeit. http://www.zeit.de/2011/33/Foucquet/komplettansicht.
- ^ Lossky, Andrew (1967), The Seventeenth Century: 1600-1715. Free Press. p. 280.
- ^ Louis XIV so states in a letter to his mother, dated 5 September, 1661, reproduced in English translation in Lossky (1967: 340-342).
- ^ For the king's caution, see, e.g., letter of Louis XIV to the Comte d'Estrades, dated 16 September, 1661, reproduced in English translation in Lossky (1967: 342-345).
- ^ Braudel, Fernand (1979), The Wheels of Commerce [Les Jeux de l'Echange]: Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, v.2. English ed., Sîan Rynolds (transl.). Harper & Row (1982) pp. 538-539.
External links
Categories:- 1615 births
- 1680 deaths
- People from Paris
- French Ministers of Finance
- French nobility
- Ancien Régime office-holders
- French prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
- French people who died in prison custody
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