The following year, in January 1656, the mathematician, philosopher, and writer Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres Provinciales attacking the Jesuits. That October, the new pope, Alexander VII, issued a bull, Ad sacrum beati Petri sedem, in which he insisted, contrary to Arnauld’s assertions, that the Five Propositions were indeed to be found in the Augustinus.33
The Assembly of the Clergy issued a formulary accepting Alexander’s bull and required all clerics to sign it. This step was controversial from the beginning, and Louis was obliged to hold a lit de justice in order to force its registration. While most clerics agreed to sign the formulary, the Port Royal community argued over the finer points. Influenced by Arnauld’s distinction between church law and fact, they agreed that the pope could rule on doctrine but he could not rule against what was a matter of fact; that is, they agreed with the pope that the Five Propositions were heretical, but they denied that they were present in Jansen’s work. At this point, other considerations intervened, and the issue of the formulary was set aside, at least for a time.
Louis became personally involved in the Jansenist controversy during the first months of his personal rule in 1661 when an Assembly of the Clergy brought the formulary back to the fore. Arnauld had been forced into hiding during the controversy of the formulary, and in June, his friends issued a compromise in the form of a Summons to Sign the Formulary. This allowed the distinction between law and fact to stand, and many of the nuns of Port Royal felt able to sign it. Louis, however, was dissatisfied with this solution, and the royal court ordered those who had signed the Summons to retract.34
The king’s dislike of Port Royal and Jansenism was influenced by two concerns. The first was political in that Port Royal, while it had remained neutral during the Fronde, was associated with people such as the duchesse de Chevreuse and the duchesse de Longueville, both of whom had been prominent figures during the uprising. This alone would have aroused Louis’s suspicions, but they were reinforced by theological interests: Louis, who had been tutored by Jesuits, shared the same religious views as his confessor, the Jesuit Father Annat. Since the Jesuits thought Jansenism to be analogous to Calvinism, they regarded its doctrines as heretical, even though Calvinist teachings closely reflected those of Augustine. Louis had a great deal of respect for Father Annat, whom he saw as right-minded, disinterested, and not given to intrigue.35
Louis was also worried about the strong sense of community that existed at Port Royal, which made it seem to him like a shadowy sect whose influence reached the court, the government through Arnauld de Pomponne, and even the judiciary.36 The convent was potentially too powerful and disruptive for Louis to leave it alone. As he wrote in his memoirs, “I applied myself to destroy Jansenism and to disperse the community where this spirit of novelty was taking form, well intended perhaps, but which did not know or did not wish to know the dangerous consequences that it could have.”37
A further attempt to uphold the distinction between law and fact prompted Louis to impose a new formulary, which required all clergy to sign to the facts of the case. As July drew to a close, the Port Royal community lodged an appeal on technical grounds, which brought them much-needed respite.
For Louis’s minister, Superintendent Foucquet, the summer of 1661 held little pleasure. Since his implacable enemy, Colbert, had taken up a post in finances, Foucquet had lived in fear. He was right to be afraid. Every evening, Colbert visited the king, portfolio in hand, and told him anything he liked about the disarray in the treasury while placing all the blame on the superintendent. Louis, who knew nothing about running the finances, believed everything Colbert said. Moreover, Colbert had engaged an ally, his former patron, Michel Le Tellier, minister for war. Together, they persuaded Louis that Foucquet, despite his promises to the contrary, was using the disorder of the finances to mask the fact that he was stealing from the king.
Louis was alarmed and angered, but there was worse to come. Colbert had assigned his cousin, Jean-Charles Colbert du Terron, governor of Brouage, to spy on Foucquet’s activities in Brittany, including his island marquisate of Belle-Isle-en-Mer. Terron observed Foucquet’s shipyards, warehouses, armed garrisons, and his fleet with its flagship, l’Écureuil,38 but he misinterpreted what he saw. Foucquet had long been engaged in overseas trade as well as privateering, for which defense measures were necessary. As to his ships, he wanted France to have a fleet to rival those of the great seafaring nations of England and Holland.
Colbert, who saw none of this firsthand, explained Foucquet’s maritime enterprises in the most menacing terms to Louis. He told the king that Foucquet was planning a new Fronde and that his Breton strongholds and garrisons, complete with his Breton clientele, were intended to support this uprising. This evoked terrible memories of the Fronde, while the thought that a nobleman as independent, powerful, and well-connected as Foucquet was free to follow his own ambition persuaded Louis that he must act against him. That Foucquet had been one of his most loyal allies during the uprising now meant little to Louis. Should any man look for advancement, let him find it in loyal service to the king.
Louis’s estimation of Foucquet as it is written in his memoirs betrays how far he had been persuaded by Colbert at that point. Later, when he came to edit the work, Louis left this part almost entirely intact, showing that he continued to believe in the superintendent’s culpability.39 “The sight of the vast establishments that this man had planned,” he wrote, “and the insolent acquisitions he had made, could only convince me of the profligacy of his ambition; and the general calamity of all my people relentlessly urged my justice against him.”
Louis acknowledged that his earlier decision to keep Foucquet in his post would be seen as strange by many, given that he knew about the superintendent’s “thieving.” However, the king had recognized Foucquet’s intelligence and was aware of his deep knowledge of internal affairs of state. This encouraged Louis to imagine that, provided Foucquet acknowledged his past faults and promised to make amends, he could be of great service.40 Now, he said, he realized his mistake. Rather than becoming wiser and profiting from Louis’s benevolence, Foucquet, he thought, merely became more skillful in his dishonesty: “for he could not prevent himself from continuing his excessive expenditure, fortifying strongholds, adorning his palaces, forming cabals, and purchasing under the names of his friends important offices at my expense, in the hope of soon making himself the sovereign arbiter of the State.”
Initially, Louis had considered simply excluding Foucquet from affairs of state, “but having since then considered that, given his restless disposition, he would not be able to support this change of fortune without trying something new,” he thought it best to arrest Foucquet. This decision was finalized on May 4, but Louis postponed issuing the order until the autumn. The delay allowed the unsuspecting Foucquet time to collect that year’s taxes, since Louis required a fund of 4 million livres to cover such expenses as might arise.
For the time being, Louis continued to retain Foucquet in office, assigning him certain sensitive missions, chief among which were providing aid to enemies of Spain and assisting in the negotiations for the marriage of Charles II of England to the Portuguese Infanta, Catherine of Braganza. His success in these missions heightened Foucquet’s hopes of succeeding Mazarin. In reality, Louis was playing the game he had played on the Cardinal de Retz, to lull his victim into a false sense of security until he was ready to strike.
Louis knew that if his plan to ruin Foucquet was to work, he had to remove two major obstacles. The first was Foucquet’s post as procureur-général, which carried certain immunities and made him justiciable to parlement, where several of the judges were his relatives and many more were his friends. Louis did not trust parlement to view Foucquet’s case objectively and feared they would not find against him. To avoid this difficulty, Colbert suggested that Foucquet might be persuaded to sell his post, especially if he thought it would be replaced by a higher one. Louis embraced this idea, h
inting to Foucquet that he could become first minister or chancellor in the event of Séguier’s death, a post he was known to want. Louis even held out the hope that Foucquet might be received into the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, a great honor.41
When Foucquet announced his intention to sell his office of procureur-général, his friends urged him not to do so. One, Mme d’Huxelles, warned him that a cabal was being formed, with men such as Turenne, Condé, and Lamoignon42 joining Colbert’s campaign against him. Were he to sell his office, he would place himself in grave danger. Foucquet, however, placed his faith in the king. He sold his post to a friend, Achille de Harlay, receiving 1,400,000 livres for it. Of this, he used 400,000 to compensate his brother, Basile, who held the survivance of the post. The rest he gave to Louis as a cash sum.
The second obstacle was a little trickier. For some time Foucquet had been a favorite of Anne of Austria, whose pension he paid and to whom he gave money for her various charities; moreover, the queen liked him personally. Louis, who was still to some extent under his mother’s influence, did not want to anger her, but in order to proceed against Foucquet he needed his mother’s compliance.43 A solution to the dilemma presented itself at the end of June, when Anne’s old friend, the duchesse de Chevreuse, came to Fontainebleau for a few days. She had recently remarried, her new husband being the marquis de Laigues. For reasons that are not clear, Laigues hated Foucquet and wished to do him harm. In this, the marquis exercised a great sway over his wife, who, in her turn, exerted her influence over Anne. When Anne travelled to the duchess’s home at Dampierre, Foucquet’s ruin was sealed.
Foucquet now committed a gross error. Having learned about Anne of Austria’s meeting at Dampierre, he confronted her, wanting to know why she had met with his enemies. Anne, affronted by such insolence, gave him short shrift; any feelings of friendship she had towards him were now gone. Mme d’Huxelles wrote to tell him that the queen-mother had forbidden her confessor, a friend of Foucquet’s, to speak to him; she then told him to burn the letter after he had read it, adding ominously, “Be more careful of your security than you have been.”44 Once again, Foucquet refused to heed the warning; he believed that Queen Anne would never abandon him.45
At this stage, Louis’s affair with Louise was still a closely guarded secret. There was, however, one means by which the secrets of Louis’s heart could be penetrated, and it was linked to his religious devotion. Louis, now an adulterer, had begun to neglect these duties. This had been brought to Foucquet’s attention by Anne’s confessor prior to her interdiction. From the same source, Foucquet had also learned that the reason for Louis’s uncharacteristic behavior was his involvement with Mlle de La Vallière. This information was confirmed by Foucquet’s mistress, Catherine de Menneville, one of Anne’s ladies.
Foucquet’s normally sharp intelligence and ability to read any situation had been critically disturbed by worry about his work, fear of the cabal against him, and the ravages of a tertian illness that had affected him, more or less seriously, for several weeks. Seeing the potential of recruiting Louise as an ally, much as he had done with other members of the court, he decided to approach her. The story goes that he used a go-between to offer the young lady 20 thousand pistoles, a huge sum of money for anyone, let alone someone who had grown up in relative poverty. Louise, however, was incensed by what she saw as an affront to her honor, saying that not even 200 thousand livres would be enough to make her take a false step. The anonymous go-between felt sure that Louise would report Foucquet to Louis, and urged the superintendent to “get the start” on her by telling the king that Louise had approached him and asked for the money. Foucquet was too much of a gentleman even to consider following this piece of advice.46 He did, however, compound his faux pas when he encountered Louise a short while later. As he began to praise the merits of the king to her, Louise completely misinterpreted the superintendent’s intentions. That evening, she went to Louis and told him everything that had happened, and Louis, like Louise, saw only insolence and sinister designs behind Foucquet’s actions.
Louis had several reasons for wanting to destroy Foucquet: he thought the superintendent was stealing from him, he was concerned about Foucquet’s activities in Brittany, and he was angry that Foucquet had dared to approach Louise. There were, however, other factors to consider: he resented Foucquet’s wealth, feeling sure he had not come by it honestly. He was irritated by Foucquet personally—by his warm and genial character, his baroque lavish lifestyle, and impeccable aesthetic tastes. There was, however, something more deeply disturbing. Since Mazarin’s death, Louis had felt that he had never been taken seriously as he embarked upon his personal reign. Several people expected him to grow tired of governing and give it up in favor of the pleasures of youth. Primary among these was Foucquet. Louis felt the need to exert himself and show that he was resolute.
Everything was now in place; it only required Louis to set the time and the place. Given that Foucquet’s family heartlands, his business interests, and a large section of his clientele were based in Brittany, Louis announced a meeting of the Estates47 of that province, to be held at Nantes. This would be the pretext for a royal progress to Brittany, during which Foucquet would be arrested. At first, Louis settled on August 15, but he later postponed his journey, setting the day when his plan would come to fruition on September 5, his twenty-third birthday.
NINE
At Vaux-le-Vicomte
The sun shone brightly that afternoon as Louis and his court set out from Fontainebleau. It was three o’clock on August 17, and the long cortège made its way slowly along the dusty roads that led to Vaux-le-Vicomte. The château, built by Superintendent Foucquet over a period of five years, had only just been completed. To celebrate, Foucquet had invited the king and the court to a very special party, and Louis had graciously accepted.
Louis was accompanied by his mother, Philippe and Henriette, Condé, Conti, their sister, the duchesse de Longueville, and her husband, as well as the ducs de Beaufort and Guise. Queen Marie-Thérèse was now six months pregnant, and, feeling unable to face the journey, she remained behind at Fontainebleau.1
At six o’clock, carriages carrying the king, the court and their household, guards and musketeers—some six thousand people in all—thundered along the tree-lined approach before turning sharply right to enter through the great iron gates. Foucquet, his wife, and a group of friends, including Jean de La Fontaine, stood on the steps of the château awaiting them. It was to be a magical evening, and Foucquet had organized several surprises, which he hoped would delight the king. As the carriages drew to a halt, the superintendent stepped forward to welcome Louis to Vaux.
After a short rest to recover from the lengthy journey, Louis allowed his host to show him the château. The decoration was so recently completed that the smell of paint still hung in the air, but Louis could appreciate the beauty of Le Brun’s artistry. He admired also the exquisite tapestries manufactured by the factory Foucquet had established at nearby Maincy. Louis was then presented with a portrait of himself. Commissioned by Foucquet and painted in secret by Charles Le Brun, the portrait was an image of royal power. The king, wearing the robes and holding the insignia of royalty, sat on the lit de justice. At the base of the portrait, among the trophies of painting and the arts, were burning weapons, an image of Love restraining Rebellion and a small portrait of Henri IV.2 Foucquet envisaged Louis as the bringer of peace and a patron and muse of the arts, all the while hinting that Louis should perhaps appoint him as his superintendent-chancellor, as his grandfather had done with Sully.3
Louis now took a tour of the gardens, the court following on behind. As a courtesy to Queen Anne, Foucquet had arranged for her to make the tour in a carriage. “Vaux will never be as beautiful as it was that evening,” writes La Fontaine, who had already fallen under the château’s magical spell.4 The spectacular fountain called the Bassin de la Gerbe, the Crown Fountain, and Animal Fountain vied for attention, while the water from a hundred je
ts reached thirty-six feet into the air. Louis was filled with admiration for their beauty, but even more so for the machinery that powered them. The Bassin de la Gerbe in particular caught his attention, for it was as wide as a man and twenty feet high, with the water gushing out with such force that it had to be considered one of the most beautiful fountains in Europe.
The king turned to see the château nestling in its vast grounds, with its orange trees, fountains, and flower gardens. Woodlands stretched out on either side as beautiful ladies walked the pathways, with “courtiers bedecked with ribbons and plumes making the most beautiful sight that can be imagined.”5
With the sun now beginning to set, the court returned to the château, where a medley of dishes prepared by Foucquet’s steward, Vatel, was served. As twenty-four violins played softly in the background, the eighty tables and thirty or so buffets groaned under the weight of fine dishes, which included pheasant, ortolan, quail, young partridge, bisque, ragout, and a wide selection of wines, while Foucquet and his wife did the honors of their house. One hundred and twenty serviettes were called into service, as well as five hundred silver plates, thirty-six dozen trays, and a complete service of vermeil.6
After supper, the party returned to the garden, following the avenue of fir trees, at the end of which a stage had been erected. When everyone had taken their seats, Molière appeared, still wearing his ordinary clothes. He announced apologetically that he had no troupe with him and there could be no show unless help arrived. He appealed to Louis for permission to begin, at which the king nodded his assent. Suddenly, a large rock7 turned into a seashell, from which emerged a naiad, played by Molière’s partner, Madeleine Béjart. In Louis’s name she commanded the trees and statues to come to life before she exited the stage to make way for dancing fauns, satyrs, and gods.8 There followed a play in three acts, Les Fâcheux, commissioned by Foucquet and written by Molière, with a prologue by Paul Pellison. This was a new kind of entertainment, the comedy-ballet, born of necessity, for Molière was given only two weeks to conceive, write, learn, and rehearse the play.
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