fatal showplace

To give a great party is a dangerous thing. A few famous balls have been enshrined in history and golden legend-none more so than the Duchess of Richmond’s in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, remembered in the celebrated lines that begin, “There was a sound of revelry by night”- but there have been others whose immortality consists in the fact that their very splendor brought down disaster upon their givers. The greater the party, sometimes the greater the fall…

Perhaps the most self-destructive of all great parties was staged on August 17,1661, by Nicolas Fouquet, the “Superintendent of Finances”  of the France of the young King Louis XIV, in order to show off his splendid new chateau of vaux-le-Vicomte. The day dawned on a dazzling courtier at the peak of magnificence, with the King and the whole Court about to be his guests. It ended on a decision by Louis that was to strip Fouquet of both his office and his dream castle and to reduce him to disgrace and jail.  The fere that misfired had another result: it caused Louis XIV, stricken with envy for his minister’s pleasance, to build a greater Vaux-le-Vicomte of his own, and its name was Versailles.

—On August 17th 1661, Fouquet received the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV and his court at his own château Vaux-le-Vicomte during a famous feast. Three weeks later the King ordered Fouquet to be arrested. Accused of financial malpractice, mostly falsified by his envious enemy Colbert, Fouquet was condemned to banishment by the Paris Parliament in December 1664. Infuriated by this legal verdict, Louis XIV, unforgiving and unjust at his worst, condemned him to the cruelty of life-imprisonment in the citadel of Pignerol, where Fouquet died in 1680, not having ever been allowed the mercy of eased prison conditions.
Nicolas Fouquet, who was Surintendant de Finances under Mazarin and Louis XIV has nearly never received any justice—Read More:http://www.kipar.org/historical-resources/fouquet2.html

Everyone who knew Fouquet knew that his feast would be very grand; but not even the King knew precisely how grand. In the outdoor theatre there was to be a new play, especially written by Moliere, very much the talk of the Court and of the salons since the success of his satirical Les Precieuses Ridicules two seasons ago. Indoors, at dinner, France,s leading composer, Lully, was to perform new music with his own orchestra. Dinner itself would be cooked and presented by the renowned Vatel. Among th nobles and Crown officials present with their ladies of fashion, the poet La Fontaine would be on hand to celebrate the occasion as its laureate; and there was to be more: perhaps too  much more.

The start of the festivities at vaux, some fifty kilometers southeast of Paris, had been announced for six o’clock, in order to give time for the spectacles and diversions planned by Fouquet to last far into the summer night. If the King was not to delay them, he would have to set out in the mid-afternoon from his own chateau of Fontainbleu thirty kilometers southward, for three hours of coaching across the hills and valleys of the Ile de France in blistering August heat.  But young Louis, only twenty-three this summer, had already acquired those habits of punctuality, punctilio, and consideration, at least to those who merited his consideration, that were to mark his immensely long reign, and his Court was in its carriages, in its perukes and thick lace, promptly at three in order to arrive at M.Fouquet’s on time,heat or not.

—Fouquet’s essential importance lies in his position as the man in the centre of the complex web. The personal nature of the whole edifice and the hubristic element in his self-confidence were realised, when, in June 1658, he fell critically ill. Unable to carry out the gruelling process of bargaining over money for the army, Fouquet was then reduced to selling his wife’s estate of Belle Asize to raise funds. Yet he survived this crisis and arose once more as the shining star.
According to the financial workings of the time, so did also Fouquet use his own personal fortune as a guarantee to ensure the private investors’ faith in the tax returns and revenues they would receive, when he was appointed Surintendant de Finances in 1653.—Read More:http://www.kipar.org/historical-resources/fouquet2.html image:http://www.atome77.com/phototheque/photo/5326/exposition-grandeur-infortune-nicolas-fouquet-.htm


ADDENDUM:

(see link at end)…The higher ranks of the officier class claimed for themselves a particular status of nobility, la noblesse de la robe, which they asserted to be the equal of la noblesse de l’épée.
The officier, whatever their wealth or rank, struggled endlessly to secure a place among the true nobility of France. Nothing less could resolve the predicament of the bourgeoisie – and until that day arrived the only thing to do was to demonstrate as obviously as possible by one’s appearance and behaviour that one had at least learned to live like a nobleman….

… Fouquet had already risen rapidly, and already in 1641, at the age of 26, he had been able to buy the estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte, thus having been a rapidly rising shining star amongst the officiers. It has to be strongly pointed out, that he had faithfully served the crown particularly at the time of the Fronde, when so many rich nobles plotted against the crown and took over the power in France, yet not to succeed in the end.

Nicolas Fouquet’s great and rapid success was due to his matchless intelligence and unparalleled daring. To these gifts of a sparkling and winning personality were added abundant generosity, a lively manner and great charms, a not only handsome but even beautiful appearance, and an ambition, which didn’t seem to know any limits, to live amidst luxury and refinement. He loved for sure beauty and pleasure in every form, surrounding himself with the sweet scent of flowers, the pleasing and stimulating beauty of the arts, like paintings, tapestries, books, statues, as well as poetry. Being this lover of beauty and art he was, and in his generous manner, which was surely not free from self-interest, but nevertheless achieved much greatness and magnificence in attracting a circle of gifted writers and artists around himself, who was the giver of gifts and of encouragement, as well as commissions to enable those artists and poets to live o


for their art. Amongst those were the poets La Fontaine, for sure one who showed the greatest loyalty to Fouquet after his fall one can imagine, and Moliere, Le Notre the garden architect and Le Vau the architect, who both built first Vaux-le-Vicomte and then Versailles after the former’s model, the famous painters Poussin and Le Brun, and La Quintinie.

It can be said that of all the wealthy bourgeois who employed artists the wealthiest and most influential of all was Nicolas Fouquet. By nature ostentatious and fond of luxury, he spent his fortune freely, recognising the value of cutting a figure in the world and at the same time delighting in the patronage of arts and letters….Read More:http://www.kipar.org/historical-resources/fouquet2.html

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