Touring Vaux-le-Vicomte: Visiting the Chateau that Made Louis XIV Build Versailles by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Vaux-le-Vîcomte:  Visiting the Château that Made Louis XIV Jealous Enough to Build Versailles with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Château at Vaux-le-Vîcomte is located south of Paris by the Château at Fontainebleau.  The Château has almost Rococo parterres in the gardens that were designed by André le Nôtre.

Louis XIV was so jealous when he saw Vaux-le-Vîcomte that he had Versailles built and jailed his finance minister, Nicholas Fouquet (1615 – 1680), who owned Vaux-le-Vîcomte.

Louis XIV hired Fouquet’s artists to build Versailles as well:

-Louis le Vau (architect)

-André le Nôtre (landscape architect)

-Charles le Brun (painter-decorator)

Fouquet was a royal financier, who became “too big for his britches” as Appalachian Americans would say.  He loved learning, embellishing his Château, and serving elaborate dinners on a gold service.  Everyone was jealous of him besides Louis XIV.

He chose as his motto “Quo non ascendet.”  This means “How high will I go?”

Fouquet’s downfall began when he invited Louis XIV to dine at his newly finished Château at Vaux-le-Vîcomte.  The king and his mother, Anne of Austria, lived at the defensive Château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  I am sure they noticed that Fouquet had more gold on his table than Louis XIV had in the nation’s treasury.

Vaux-le-Vîcomte was built for pleasure.  The Great Gatsby would have loved holding champagne and caviar parties here while chasing Daisy Fay Buchanan around the parterres in the garden.

The Château’s interior mythological paintings were painted by Charles le Brun.  Fouquet did have more gold tableware than Louis XIV, who needed back pay for his troops.  He ate dinner, left, had Fouquet arrested, paid his soldiers, and took Fouquet’s artists to build his château at Versailles.

When Louis XIV said, “L’Etat c’est moi” that meant everything belonged to him, including noble men, women, children, their portable property, and their châteaux.  (Mel Gibson's movie Braveheart is a great example of royal and aristocratic rights over serfs in Scotland, which was similar to France.)

The musketeer d’Artagnan arrested Fouquet on September 15, 1661 in Nantes for graft on a state financial transaction. A special court was set up to try Fouquet. 

After three years, the verdict decided upon was banishment from the kingdom.  Louis XIV did not want Fouqet to leave the country and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment on him instead.

Fouquet’s motto should have been, “Do not cheat the king out of his money.”

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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