Overview
A little removed from the traditional tourist circuit, Vaux le Vicomte is a welcome change for a relaxed visit. Standing all alone surrounded by fields and forests it looks somehow forgotten in time. Notwithstanding its peaceful surroundings it is one of the most spectacular chateaux of Prance and you can easily see why it became the model and inspiration for the Palace of Versailles.
In 1656 Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of Finances under Mazarin gave orders for the construction of a chateau on the plain of Melun, North of Fontainebleau. Louis le Vau was in charge of the architecture, Charles le Brun of the interior decoration and Andre le Notre of the gardens. This great trio were given carte blanche and had no trouble in spending a great deal of money. 18,000 workmen were employed and three villages were razed to the ground!
Fouquet, who was born in 1615, descended from a line of magistrates. He became a member of the Paris Parliament at the early age of twenty and decided to remain true to the family device: the squirrel, with the motto “How high can I go?” (Quo non ascendet). Appointed Mazarin’s Financial Secretary and finally Lord High Treasurer, he used his intelligence and determination to his own advantage as much as to the King’s. He became a very rich man (a Bernard Tapie of the 17th C), who could afford a monumental undertaking like the building of Vaux le Vicomte.
But the squirrel fell off the tree much sooner than expected. 1661 was the fatal year. In March Cardinal Mazarin, who ran France during the minority of Louis XIV, died. Fouquet was the obvious successor for Mazarin’s post, which Louis XIV, by then 22 years old, decided to abolish as part of his move towards absolutism. Then Fouquet committed two unpardonable faux pas. He foolishly tried to win the affections of Madame de Lavalliere, the first favourite of Louis XIV and a woman whom the King loved passionately. He then invited Louis to his newly completed chateau at Vaux le Vicomte.
On August 17th the king and his entourage were entertained to a magnificent feast with a sumptuous dinner, fireworks and theatrical entertainment. Louis’s jealousy and fury were unlimited and three weeks later he had Fouquet imprisoned. His decision was not solely the result of an emotional outburst. Fouquet was actually stabbed in the back by Colbert, his biggest enemy, who had an eye on Fouquet’s job and who enjoyed the full confidence of the King. The trial went on for three years and finally the judges agreed that Fouquet was to be banished from the realm.
For the first and last time in French history, the head of State, in whose hands is the power to pardon an offender, overruled the court’s decision and increased the sentence. Fouquet was condemned to life imprisonment in the fortress of Pignerol in the French Alps, far away from Paris and Versailles.
Of all Fouquet’s friends, the writer La Fontaine remained among the most faithful. He wrote the famous “Elegy to the Nymphs of Vaux” in which he took up the defence of his former friend and patron. (If you don’t know that one you can always try talking about crows, cheeses, foxes and grapes!) This then is the sad story of Nicolas Fouquet who, as the Duc de Saint Simon wrote, “paid for Mazarin’s stolen millions, the jealousy of Colbert and a touch too much gaiety and magnificence with life imprisonment.”
After Fouquet’s trial the chateau was gutted and the furniture and tapestries taken by the King for his own residences. In 1673 Fouquet’s wife and sons were allowed to return to the chateau, where they lived on the income derived from the forests and farming the estate. After the death of her eldest son Madame Fouquet sold the chateau to the Marechal de Villars, a successful military man who altered nothing, and enjoyed twenty years of peaceful life here together with his beautiful wife who was thirty years his junior. Voltaire frequently stayed at Vaux during this time.
After the Marechal’s death the chateau was sold to the Praslin family who owned it for six generations. A good relationship with the local population saved the chateau from destruction during the Revolution. In 1847 the fifth Duc de Praslin murdered his wife and committed suicide in prison. The chateau was abandoned and Nature was left to invade and ravage the gardens.
Vaux le Vicomte was saved by an art-loving industrialist, Alfred Sommier who bought the house in a public sale. He and his son invested all their fortune in carefully renovating the buildings and the gardens which were first opened in 1919. The chateau itself was only opened to visitors in 1968. For your inside visit everyone is given a good Walking Tour in English at the entrance. Your ticket allows access to the carriage museum where you will find an impressive collection of harnesses, saddlery and carriages of all sorts.