At Nantes, on September 5, 1661, Nicolas Fouquet was arrested without stir. He had followed Louis XIV to Brittany alongside the remainder of the court, as one of the principal ministers of the council. The King’s precaution had converted an official journey into a snare. For several months, the Superintendent’s fate had been in preparation; the fête at Vaux, which seemed destined to consecrate his ascendancy, had instead precipitated his downfall. The arrest initiated a trial that was to endure for three years, determine his life, and lead not to the scaffold, but to perpetual confinement.
Fouquet had entertained the King at his estate of Vaux with a celebration whose magnificence dazzled the courtiers. Those bent upon his ruin directed the monarch’s attention to his emblem: a squirrel accompanied by the Latin device, “Whither shall I not climb?” Everywhere, the King was told, the creature appeared pursued by the grass snake, the device of Colbert. To Louis XIV, who felt compelled to demand an explanation, Fouquet’s enemies presented this imagery as the token of an ambition aimed directly at his rival minister. The chronicler discerns in these interpretations one of the primary springs of the royal wrath.
He adds a more clandestine grievance. Mademoiselle de La Vallière was already beloved of the King; Fouquet was alleged to have sought her conquest, going so far as to offer her two hundred thousand livres. She is said to have rejected this offer, and later, the Superintendent reportedly attempted to become her confidant rather than her paramour. This account of private designs is that transmitted by Champagnac; it does not in itself constitute the judicial matter of the trial. Yet it illustrates how a court tale transformed a political competitor into a rival in love, intertwining the two in the explanation of his ruin.
The King was said to have wished initially to arrest Fouquet in the very midst of the festivities. He elected dissimulation instead. The office of Procureur Général of the Parlement conferred upon the Superintendent the privilege of being tried only by the assembled chambers. Colbert persuaded him to sell this charge. Fouquet consented, and caused the fourteen hundred thousand livres realized from the sale to be paid into the Treasury. According to the chronicler, this generous gesture did nothing to avert the disgrace that had already been resolved upon.
The court had other anxieties to invoke. It was whispered that Fouquet was fortifying Belle-Île and might possess alliances both within and beyond the realm. In late August, Louis XIV departed for Brittany under the pretext that his presence was required at the Estates assembled there. Turenne accompanied him. The chronicle interprets this journey as a measure of precaution: the presence of the Marshal might lead it to be believed that the King was preparing to quell some insurrection, whereas the design was aimed at a single man. Fouquet betrayed no alarm and joined the progress. He was seized at Nantes, then conveyed to Paris to be judged by commissioners.
The selection of the judges revealed how grievously the accused misjudged the favor he might still command. His mother, Madame Fouquet, petitioned the First President not to designate d’Ormesson or Sainte-Hélène as reporting judges. D’Ormesson was destined to distinguish himself by his leniency; Sainte-Hélène would conclude for death. The court learned of the requested recusals and perceived therein an additional reason to confirm them. Louis XIV himself commanded the First President to appoint the two magistrates. When the latter represented that the mother of the accused had expressly sought their exclusion, the King replied that this dread of their integrity justified their selection.
D’Ormesson was named rapporteur alongside Sainte-Hélène. The First President sought to defer the royal decree, but Louis XIV declared his will to be irrevocable. The narrative then records an observation attributed to Turenne: Colbert desired above all things to see Fouquet hanged, whilst Le Tellier feared still more that he would not be. In the course of the trial, these two ministers were, according to Champagnac, relentless adversaries of the accused. Chancellor Séguier presided over the commission and displayed marked severity during the interrogations.
The proceedings were prolonged. Fouquet responded with such firmness and vigor that several of his judges were thrown into embarrassment. On the financial charges, where his vulnerability was greatest, the chronicler considers that he was reproached with less than Cardinal Mazarin, his predecessor, to whom vast embezzlements are ascribed. The prosecution leaned principally upon an old writing, penned fifteen years earlier during the Fronde. In it, Fouquet had contemplated resistance and flight abroad, at a moment when he deemed Mazarin ungrateful. The document had been discovered among papers destined for the fire. He maintained that he had forgotten its existence.
When Séguier interrogated him upon this design, Fouquet conceded the folly and extravagance of the writing, but denied that it constituted a crime of State. He offered his own definition thereof: a true crime of State consisted in using an exalted office and knowledge of the prince’s secrets to join his enemies, to throw open the gates of cities to their armies, to bar those of one’s sovereign, and to betray the secrets of the realm. His reply turned the inquiry back upon the political history of certain of his judges. The chronicle presents this as a witty retort; it did not dispel the gravity of the writing, but it compelled the commission to distinguish an obsolete design from the accomplished treason invoked by the accused.
Judgment was not delivered until 1664. Of the twenty-two judges who voted, nine pronounced for death and thirteen for perpetual banishment. Certain of the latter had accepted gifts from Gourville, a friend of Fouquet, the chronicle notes. The majority spared his life; the King, however, commuted banishment into life imprisonment. The judicial verdict thus did not override the royal will: a lesser penalty had been decreed by vote, only to be converted into a harsher captivity.
The measure struck also those who had contributed to this clemency. The Chancellor caused Roquesante, one of the judges who had most decisively swayed the chamber, to be exiled. Guénégaud was pursued and stripped of the greater part of his fortune; Saint-Évremond was driven into foreign exile. Pellisson, Fouquet’s chief clerk and confidant, published several memoirs in his defense and was committed to the Bastille for four and a half years. Madame de Sévigné wrote to Pomponne expressing her joy at the majority vote against death. La Fontaine likewise lamented the fall of his patron in an elegy addressed to the nymphs of Vaux, imploring the King’s pardon.
Fouquet was conveyed to the citadel of Pignerol under an escort of fifty musketeers commanded by d’Artagnan. He was deprived of two faithful servants, Pecquet and Lavalée, who desired to share his dungeon. Nor was his wife granted leave to accompany him. Captivity was thus an estrangement as much as a punishment: the man who had directed the finances of the realm found himself severed from his kin, far removed from the court he had so long frequented.
Religion afforded him solace. He composed devotional works. After several years at Pignerol, the Count of Lauzun was dispatched thither in his turn, punished for the outbursts that followed his marriage to Mademoiselle, which the King had refused to sanction. Fouquet, who until then had enjoyed no commerce with the exterior world, remained ignorant of the affairs of the court. He could scarcely credit the tidings Lauzun imparted. The marriage that had provoked the Count’s disgrace appeared to him an impossible tale, so thoroughly had isolation severed him from the royal epoch.
Fouquet bore his irons with fortitude, writes Champagnac. He died at Pignerol on March 23, 1680, at sixty-five years of age, after sixteen years of confinement within the citadel. Certain authors have asserted that he died in the bosom of his family, entirely forgotten. Champagnac relates that Gourville maintained this version, but observes that it is contradicted and destitute of proof.