The Party to End Nicolas Fouquet's Career

you'll like the books I've written. I wrote a novel called Anatomy, a Love Story, and just this year the sequel, Immortality, a Love Story, came out, and both books tell the story of a young woman in the nineteenth century who wants to become a surgeon. So what was really inspired by just my love and obsession about the transition that

happened in surgery in the early eighteen hundreds. And in the sequel, Immortality a Love Story, if you haven't read it yet, there are a lot of i'll say celebrity cameos from historical figures that I've covered on this podcast, So absolutely check it out. There's a linked by it in the episode description, and thank you so much. It was the most magnificent party that France had ever seen.

On August seventeenth, sixteen sixty one, the who's Who of French society traveled to a country estate called Valla Vicomte, which was owned by Nicola Fouquet, France's superintendent of finance. Valle Vicomte was, without a doubt, the most magnificent house in the entire country, and after five years of extensive renovations, Fouquet was excited to show off the paradise that he

had built. Thirty four milesales southeast of Paris. The beautiful gardens, running for nearly a mile and a half were in full bloom. Their elaborate water works were in full motion, with eleven hundred jets of water sprang up from the various fountains and canals. The house itself was stunning, seeming to float on air thanks to the sparkling moat that surrounded it. The food served that evening was sumptuous. Thirty buffet tables held the finest foods, served to guests on

plates of solid gold and silver. The entertainment superb. The famous playwright Moliery debuted his newest work, a comedy ballet for the delighted guests, who also later enjoyed a twenty four of Isolin serenade. It was, in short, a party so elaborate that it would put any of Gatsby's to shame.

It was a castle so beautiful that it would inspire one attendee, King Louis the fourteenth, then just twenty two years old, to hire the very team that built vol Vicomte to create his own version, the Palace of Versailles. But the party also sparked something else in Louis the fourteenth, jealousy. Who was this Fouquet, a descendant of a simple cloth merchant to so outshine the King of France? And how exactly had Fouquet obtained the funds required for such a

lavish party. The King stewed and stewed some more. He had only recently become the independent ruler of France after almost two decades with a regency council place, and he was desperate to assert himself, to prove he was an adult. Perhaps taking on a powerful minister was just the bold statement he needed. So on September fifth, just weeks after this amazing party, the King took action. Nicola Fouquet was

arrested on charges of financial misconduct and treason. It was the party, observers whispered that had tipped the king off to Fouquet's crimes. The story of Fouquet's downfall has been passed down through the ages as a cautionary tale, a warning against hubris. Its message is a simple one. Don't fly too close to the sun lest you be burned by the son king. But what if I told you that there's more, much more to the story. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. The Fouquets had always

been an ambitious family. Just take their emblem a squirrel. It's not a surprising emblem, given that Fouquet means squirrel in the dialect of the Lower Luar Valley. But the Fouquets added their own meaning to the image, a motto that read, when translated, what heights will he not ascend? It's a symbol of ambition, of a determination to get ahead of acting well squirrellly to do so. Nicholas Fouquet

had the emblem and motto placed all over Volvicomte. By the time Nicholas was born in January sixteen fifteen, the Fouquet family had already ascended to great heights. Descended from cloth merchants and anger, the Fouquets had established themselves in Paris in the late fifteen hundreds, steadily rising through the

ranks of the non royal elite. Nicholas's father, Francois, served in a high up position in the government and became a protege of the influential Cardinal Richelieu, chief Minister of France. After receiving a superb but legal education, Nicholas followed his father into government and quickly won notice for his skill. He married well to a woman named Louise, and the couple soon welcomed a daughter. The future was looking bright,

but tragedy soon befell the family. In early sixteen forty, Nicholas's father died, followed by his grandfather less than a year later, and then his wife only six months after that. At twenty six, Nicholas was now responsible for raising his young daughter and supporting his widowed mother and twelve siblings. In addition to his personal troubles, Nicholas was also confronted with a France in turmoil. The country itself was at a crossroads in the sixteen forties for a number of reasons.

First of all, their king was a child. Louis the fourteenth was only four years old when his father died in sixteen forty three. Until he came of age, a regency council ruled the country, headed by his mother, Anne of Austria and her controversial adviser, a protege of Richelieu's named Cardinal Jeweles Mazarin. Secondly, the country was in the midst of the devastatingly expensive and bloody Thirty Years War, and Thirdly, civil war in France was brewing In the

late sixteen forties and early sixteen fifties. A series of uprisings known as the Fronde, saw local governments and hereditary princes attempting to fight off the encroaching power of the crown. Throughout the Frond, Nicholas Fouquet stayed loyal to the Crown, earning him the favor of Cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin's approval facilitated Fouquet's further rise in government. In sixteen fifty Fouquet became

Attorney General of the Parliament of Paris. In sixteen fifty one, he remarried to Marie Madeleine Castile, a wealthy heiress from a prominent family. The couple would go on to have five children together. Two years later, with the Frond. Finally over, Fouquet reached the pinnacle of his power. To reward his unwavering loyalty, Cardinal Mazarin appointed him Superintendent of Finance. Fouquet

now served directly on the King's Council. In his new job, Fouquet was in charge of making sure the crown had enough money to fund its various projects, wars, and other expenses. It wasn't an easy job. The financial system of seventeenth century France was, to put it lightly, a mess. Tax revenues were not enough to cover the crown's expenses, leaving the government reliant on personal loans from private citizens called financiers. The Superintendent often served as the loan recipient in order

to shield the crown from liability. The terms of these loans were flexible and irregular. What was documented on on paper was usually only part of the true picture, which, as you can imagine, makes delightful work for historians. In other words, being superintendent was a highly powerful position, but it was also a very vulnerable one, particularly because Fouquet's mentor and de facto boss, Cardinal Mazarin, had a taste

for dipping into the state coffers. The unregulated nature of the financial system allowed for substantial corruption, which Mazarin took full advantage of. He accepted bribes, rigged contracts, and skimmed off state accounts to the tune one modern scholar estimated of twenty three million livre a year. His actions weren't secret. Many high up finance officials, including Fouquet, knew what Mazarin was doing, but the Cardinal was simply too powerful to

be stopped. Fouquet himself was becoming quite powerful with his dual positions of Attorney General of the Paris Parliament and Superintendent of Finance. He was making an estimated five hundred thousand livres a year, more than most nobles, though nothing compared to Mazarin's income. Fouquet put that money to good use, building lavish estates like Valla Vicomte and regularly entertaining the crown's creditors in order to convince them of the Crown's solvency.

He also personally advanced the crown millions of livre. But under the surface things were shakier. Fouquet's patron, Cardinal Mazarin, was becoming more demanding and less supportive. Mazarin also had a new protege, Jean Baptiste Colbert, an ambitious and clever man who wanted the job of Superintendent of Finance for himself. Fouquet began to fear that Colbert would turn Mazarin against him, and even went so far as to draft a plan

of defense in case Mazarin arrested him. But nothing came of it, and in sixteen sixty one, Cardinal Mazarin died. With the all powerful Cardinal dead, King Louis the fourteenth, now twenty two, could finally come into his own He shrank the Royal Council and began personally supervising much of the business of government, including financial matters. Part of Louis's

motivation for this level of involvement was political. When he was a child, he had been terrorized by the rebellions of the Front, and he was determined to strengthen the Crown's power in order to protect the crown from any future challenges. His motivations were also personal. After eighteen years under the thumb of powerful advisers, the King wanted to do things his own way. When writing his memoirs, the King would make his point clear quote, it was not

my intention to share my authority end quote. By this point sixteen sixty one, Fouquet had spent nearly twenty years in government, though, and he was accustomed to a particular way of life and of doing business. He failed to recognize the King's determination to become the only center of power, and instead he continued to flaunt his own wealth and power, as he had done under Mazarin's reign. Fouquet's rival, Colbert,

wasn't so oblivious. He quickly cozied up to the King, whispering in his ear about Fouquet's impudence and inappropriate conduct. It didn't take much for Colbert to convince Louis that Fouquet was bad news. Louis would later write that he believed Fouquet was quote continuing his extravagant expenses, fortifying strongholds, decorating palaces, forming conspiracies, and purchasing important offices for his friends at my expense, in hope of soon becoming the

sovereign arbiter of the state end quote. Long before the August party at Vaal Vicomte, the King had Fouquet in his sights. Instead of being the catalyst for Fouquet's arrest, as many have asserted the party was just the final nail in his coffin. By early September, the King was ready to move. He summoned a loyal musketeer to orchestrate Fouquet's arrest, and on September fifth, sixteen sixty one, the King's twenty third birthday, Fouquet was taken into custody, charged

with financial misdeeds and treason. His homes were searched and his papers seized. The king delighted at how smoothly the arrest had gone, announcing it to the court, declaring that he would now manage the country's finances himself. With Fouquet in custody and the weight of the state behind him, Louis expected that prosecution would be swift in this. However,

the King was gravely mistaken. Nikola Fouquet would not go down without a fight, As he answered, Knowing that the interrogations would be read by the chambers judges, he began to weave his own defense and assert his right to a fair trial. Fouquet never missed an opportunity to blame Mazarin for any financial irregularities, or an opportunity to question why he wasn't being allowed access to legal counsel. As Fouquet fought from within the prison walls, his family and

friends were taking the fight to the larger world. His wife and mother took to falling on the ground and begging for mercy whenever they saw the King or his mother, which was not a good look for the royal family to have sobbing women at their feet. And Fouquet had been a prominent literary patron, so many writers took up his cause, publishing pamphlets in his defense that spread through

Paris like wildfire. Consider that a lesson befriend writers. Colbert tried to fight back, publishing pamphlets of his own and arresting the printers of pro Fouquet materi burials. At the same time, Fouquet and his lawyers he had finally been granted access to council, were bombarding the Special Council with requests to turn over evidence, to explain the charges, and to allow Fouquet regular access to his advocates, things that

Colbert's specially appointed judges fought hard against. Despite the growing tide of public support and his occasional legal victories, Fouquet still must have been terrified as he contemplated his fate from his cell. There were small moments of grace. However. Throughout his imprisonment, Fouquet was supervised by the same musketeer who had initially arrested him, and the two men grew

to respect one another. In August sixteen sixty four, as Fouquet was transported between two prisons, the musketeer noticed that Fouquet's family had lined the streets along the transport route. He was moved and the musketeer ordered the transport to slow, and Fouquet's wife leaned through the windows of her husband's carriage, hugging him. It was the first time the family had

seen each other in nearly three years. Another bright light came from a surprising source, one of Colbert's specially appointed judges. In sixteen sixty two, motivated by the overwhelming scale of the case, the decision was made for two reporteurs to be appointed. These reporteurs would be in charge of conducting the investigation and summarizing their findings to the judges before the final verdict. Once again, Colbert and the King made

sure that the nominees came from their own camp. However, they miscalculated when it came to judging the moral fiber of one of the nominees, Olivier Ormisan. Ormison was by no means a partisan of Fouquet, but he strongly believed in the rule of law and balanced administration of justice. Throughout the trial, despite enormous pressure from all sides, Ormison

worked hard to achieve a semblance of fairness. He was a skilled orator, a clever mediator, and a thorough investigator, even uncovering proof that some of the financial documents being used as evidence against Fouquet had been forged, likely by some of the Special Court judges themselves, and he always made sure that Fouquet's petitions were heard. All of the legal back and forth took time, and as the months and then years passed, the King and Colbert became increasingly

concerned with the length of the trial. After all, the longer the trial went on, the more chance there was for public sace sympathy to continue to shift to Fouquet, and for unflattering details about the King in Colbert's personal involvement with the trial to emerge. People had already begun to whisper about what the drawn out trial meant for Louis How powerful was the king really if he couldn't

complete such a simple prosecution. It was a question that Louis hoped to lay to rest when the Special Court announced that they would finally begin deliberations in December sixteen sixty four, more than three years after Fouquet's initial arrest. Though public sympathy had shifted toward Fouquet over this time, many of his allies doubted that Colbert's specially appointed judges

would be as sympathetic as the public. They had to hope that Fouquet's final defense of himself, conducted in person and seemingly favorably received by the judges, would be a nuts. Over the course of several days, the two reporteurs Ormison and Saint Helene presented their cases. Ormison, who went first, produced a balanced report in line with his behavior throughout

the case. He concluded that Fouquet had been occasionally sloppy and negligent in his work, but that the evidence on hand did not conclusively prove him guilty of intentional crimes. Ormison recommended that Fouquet be banished from France and that his estates be confiscated, which is harsh, sure, but it's nothing compared to what Ormison's fellow Reporteur Saint Helen recommended in his own summing up several days later, which was death.

Now it was all up to the judges. Louis, not wanting to leave anything to chance, began a concerted pressure campaign, sending emissaries to lection sure certain judges about their civic responsibilities, and making remarks in public about how dangerous Fouquet was. On December seventeenth, the judges gathered for a final time. One by one, they announced their verdicts. When the final result came in, the results were stunning. Of the twenty

two judges, only nine voted for death. The remaining thirteen voted for banishment. It might not sound like a victory, but when an absolute monarch goes after you in court, any win counts. Three years earlier, no one expected Fouquet to escape with his life, but now it looked like that would just happen. But there was still one more hurdle to clear. King Louis had final say on Fouquet's sentence,

and he was furious. Fortunately for Fouquet, King Louis was unwilling to risk the public outcry that would come if he insisted on the death penalty, so he instead sentenced Fouquet to life in prison. Fouquet was immediately sent to a prison fortress in the Alps, where as Vincent J. Pitts puts it in his book Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis the fourteenth France, he experienced a kind of quote living death end quote. All outside contact was forbidden,

as were pens and paper. His windows were barred to prevent escape, blocking out the sunlight. It was only in April sixteen seventy four, after ten years in prison, that Fouquet was allowed to begin exchanging letters with his wife, and even then only two a year. Five years later, the family was allowed to visit. For the first time in eighteen years, Fouquet could hold his children, all of

whom were now young adults. His youngest son, born in sixteen sixty one, the year of Fouquet's arrest, likely barely recognized his father. However, there was hope of a more permanent reunion. In the late sixteen seventies, rumors circulated that Fouquet was about to be pardoned, but it was in empty hope, and in March sixteen eighty Nicola Fouquet died

suddenly of a stroke at sixty five years old. Though no one would suffer as much as Fouquet, those noblemen involved in the trial who had dared to defy the king would also feel his wrath. Olivier Ormison was essentially shunned from public life, and so were many of the judges who had voted against death. Conversely, many of those who had attempted to persecute Fouquet thrived under Louis the fourteenth, none more so than Colbert, who rose to the highest

ranks of government and was well rewarded for it. He, even despite his role in orchestrating one of the most infamous and blatantly corrupt show trials of the age, was given the task of reorganizing the country's legal codes. The taint of Fouquet's disgrace would linger over his family, but not forever. Toward the end of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, the aging king welcomed some of Fouquet's nephews into royal life. Historians, however,

took longer to soften on Fouquet. Until the late twentieth century. Most agreed that Fouquet was in fact guilty of the crimes he was accused of and deserving of the punishment he received. However, that attitude has been changing. In nineteen eighty three, the eminent historian Roland Mousener declared at a conference that Fouquet was quote not guilty according to the spirit and practices of the time. His trial was unjust

tainted with irregularities and manipulations end quote. Fouquet's legacy has also been refurbished in a more literal way vall Le Vicomte. Fouquet's estate has undergone a four decade restoration and now welcomes more than three hundred thousand guests a year, guests who can wander the beautiful grounds where the Superintendent of Finance once hosted the greatest party of a generation, blissfully unaware that disaster awaited him just beyond the gates. That's

the story of the trial of Nicola Fouquet. But continue listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about a very specific literary connection to this story. Remember that kindly musketeer who allowed Fouquet to see his family briefly during his incarceration. Despite that musketeer's relatively small role in Fouquet story, he would go on to have a much larger one in another famous story. After his time with Fouquet, the musketeer continued to serve the king, eventually being promoted to

captain lieutenant. He later became governor of the city of Lille before being killed in battle on June twenty fifth, sixteen seventy three. Twenty seven years later, the French novelist Gatienne Courtilles de Sandra published a fictionalized memoir of the very Real Musketeer, which contained a number of swashbuckling adventure stories.

One hundred and forty four years after that, another French author picked up to Courtilles Desandras's work while doing research on Louis the fourteenth, and he was inspired to write his own account of that very real musketeer's world. That author was Alexandre Dumas, and the novel he created, inspired by the very musketeer who had once guarded Nicholas Fouquet Charles d'Artagnan, is, of course, The Three Musketeers. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from

Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is created and hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and rima Il Kahali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.