Note 364 — Chapter XV
Henry Vizetelly translation
Fouquet, who had purchased the Vicomté of Melun, replaced the old château by a magnificent edifice, which has become celebrated from the fête given there to Louis XIV. It is the chef-d’œuvre of the architect Le Vau, and astounds one by its grand and noble proportions. The exterior is profusely covered with sculpture, and the splendour of the interior is fully in keeping with that of the outside, the decorations of the principal apartments having been entrusted to the most celebrated painters of the age. The pleasure-grounds, which cover several hundred acres, were planted by Le Nôtre, and are laid out in straight lines, after the usual custom of the seventeenth century.
The mémoires of the time are filled with accounts of Fouquet’s fête to Louis XIV., August 17, 1661; and La Fontaine has described it both in prose and verse. Fouquet’s fall had long since been prepared by LeTellier and Colbert, and was already resolved upon when Louis XIV. went to seat himself at his table; but the luxury of this abode and the splendour of the reception singularly increased the irritation of the monarch, who was well aware that it was paid for out of money of which the State had been defrauded. Fouquet was arrested on September 5, only eighteen days after this fête.
The château of Vaux, which, save the ravages of time, is still in much the same state as Fouquet left it, is situated about four miles to the north-east of Melun, on the road from Paris to Meaux.—Trans.