5 Sep 1661: Nicolas Fouquet arrested

On this day in 1661, musketeer D’Artagnan arrested the French superintendent of finances, Nicolas Fouquet, on orders of King Louis XIV. The arrest came after Fouquet threw a lavish party at his château, Vaux-le-Vicomte.

This story ties in quite nicely with the entry from September 1 on Louis XIV.

Normally, I am hesitant to post on two similar topics so close together, but I have a particular fondness for Vaux-le-Vicomte.

It was there on August 17, 1661, that Fouquet held a party of unrivaled splendor, complete with fireworks and the première of a Molière play. 22-year-old Louis, who had recently inherited the reins of power from Cardinal Mazarin, had plans to get rid of Fouquet, but this display put him over the edge.

Said Voltaire: “At 6 p.m. on August 17, Fouquet was the King of France; at 2 the next morning, he was nothing.”

After a three-year trial, Fouquet was sentenced to exile, but Louis “commuted” his sentence to life in Pignerol prison. The Man in the Iron Mask, real identity still unknown, served as his valet.

Louis then used the same team that designed Vaux-le-Vicomte to transform Versailles from a simple hunting lodge into perhaps the most lavish estate in the world: architect Louis Le Vau, landscaper André Le Nôtre, and interior decorator/painter Charles Le Brun.

Fouquet’s family used a squirrel with the motto “Quo non ascendet?” – “What heights will he not climb?”

Image: Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678). Nicholas Fouquet (1662). Los Angeles County Museum of Art.