10 July 2008

It was dangerous to outshine the Sun King


"The year 1661 started off well for Nicolas Foucquet. As France's finance minister he had played an important role in ending the long war against Spain and he expected very soon to become Louis XIV's prime minister. His new château at Vaux le Vicomte would not only be a statement of his achievement, but also launch a splendid new era for the country. To show it off, he decided to put on the party to end all parties. The guest of honour was the king himself. On August 17, Louis XIV arrived from his nearby summer residence at Fontainebleau with the entire French court.

Six thousand guests dined off silver plates, feasting on food prepared by France's greatest chef, Vatel. A play, written for the occasion by Molière, was performed against a backdrop of spectacular fountains; the king's favourite composer, Lully, provided the music; and the evening ended with the greatest firework display that the age had ever seen. But everyone agreed that the most extraordinary sight by far was Foucquet's château. It possessed a magical, heart-stopping beauty: you could not help but look at it.

How the young king admired this miraculous building. But it enraged him, too. He was furious that one of his subjects should have dared to build a palace that far outshone any of his own. So he arraigned Foucquet on trumped-up charges and had him incarcerated for life in the Alpine fortress of Pignerol. He then confiscated the statues, pictures and tapestries of Vaux, even the orange trees in its gardens. But the biggest theft of all was the team that had created the château – architect Louis Le Vau, painter Charles Le Brun and gardener André Le Nôtre. Sending them off to Versailles, where his father, Louis XIII, had kept a simple hunting lodge, the king ordered them to build a château for him there that would far eclipse the one they had already completed for Foucquet..."

(read the rest of the story at the Guardian, from whence the text and photo)

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