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
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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