The plot of Les Fâcheux is very light: a young man making his way to a tryst with his lover is stopped at every step by several people who insist upon telling him the excruciating details of their various exploits. These are the ‘bores’ of the title, and sharp-eyed members of the audience would have recognized many of them as being based upon people at the court.9
As Louis stood up at the end of the play, the horizon exploded as rockets screamed high into the darkened sky and fell back to earth in cascades of fiery shapes in the form of names, initials, and fleur-de-lis. On the canal floated a huge whale, from the belly of which a host of firecrackers and rockets crackled and shot out, so that the very water appeared to be on fire. The sound of trumpets and drums competed with the noise of the fireworks, lending the scene the air of a “furious battle.” The château blazed with the light of countless lanterns and candles.
Louis thought he had seen all the pleasures his superintendent had to offer, and he signalled for his carriage for the return journey to Fontainebleau. Suddenly, the lantern on top of the dome was streaming with thousands of rockets, which tore into the sky and fell to earth in a shower of fiery stars. In a final act of magnanimity, Foucquet offered Vaux-le-Vicomte as a gift to the king.10
That evening had been the most spectacular event that anyone could remember. Throughout the festivities, Louis had been gracious, giving no indication of his feelings of contempt towards Foucquet. However, according to Choisy,11 Foucquet had received a note from his friend, Mme du Plessis-Bellière, warning him that he was to be arrested during the party but that Queen Anne had delayed the order. This was also the understanding of Brienne, who said that the Queen Mother prevented Louis from acting against Foucquet, saying “Ah! my son, that action will do you little honor: this poor man is ruining himself to give you good cheer and you would have him arrested prisoner in his house!”12 The idea that Louis would do such a thing is not impossible, but it is doubtful, because he had already decided when and where Foucquet would be arrested, and his decision had been taken with a view to engendering maximum impact.
On the other hand, there could be some truth in Choisy’s assertion that Foucquet, despite the apparent success of the fête, had finally begun to suspect that he would be ruined. He had been warned by his close friend, Gourville, that Louis was offended by the magnificence of Vaux. Of course, Louis had visited the château before. He, his mother, and brother had been guests at an informal evening hosted by Foucquet in the summer of 1659. He had returned the following year, when he and Marie-Thérèse stopped there on their way to Paris after their marriage. At those times, the château had been far from complete. Now, in the summer of 1661, there was still much work to do, but Le Brun had drawn up plans for the decorative scheme for the ceiling of the oval salon, and Foucquet showed these to the king. Le Brun’s original design featured the Foucquet squirrel as a new star in the firmament, supported by Saturn and framed by Mars and Jupiter. Below, Apollo, representing Foucquet, sits in his summer palace surrounded by the gods of Olympus and gazing up into the heavens. Louis saw this cheeky squirrel everywhere he looked, along with Foucquet’s motto, Quo non ascendet? ‘Whither will he not climb?’13
Louis, who had danced the part of Apollo several times, was astonished and angered by Foucquet’s apparent insolence. As they made their way back to Fontainebleau, the king supposedly said to his mother, “Ah, madame, will we not make all those people disgorge?”14 Mme de La Fayette was probably closest to the truth when she said that Louis was astonished by Vaux and Foucquet noticed that he was, although both men maintained their composure.15
Louis returned to Fontainebleau, where, on August 25, he suppressed the ordonnance de comptant, a secret expenses account.16 This was approved by Chancellor Séguier, but Foucquet saw it as an erosion of some of his powers, and he could not prevent himself from exclaiming, “I am, therefore, no longer anything?”17 He immediately recovered himself, adding that other ways would be found to cover this kind of expense, and Louis agreed.
That evening, Molière gave a special performance of Les Fâcheux at Fontainebleau before the king and the whole court. This time there was an additional character. Louis had enjoyed the play so much when he saw it at Vaux that he suggested to Molière that he might include a character based upon his own master of the wardrobe, the marquis de Soyecourt, who went on to become the master of the hunt. Far from being offended at being numbered among the ‘bores,’ Soyecourt was enthusiastic, even assisting Molière with hunting terminology so that he could get the characterization right.18 He was depicted as Dorante, an excruciatingly boring man, who insisted upon telling the hapless lover his exploits while chasing a buck.19
At last the time came for Louis to depart for Nantes, and he set off on August 29. The best way to travel to the Breton town was to ride to Orléans and take a leisurely boat down the Loire, but Louis was too impatient to sit for days on a boat; he preferred to ride all the way. Having arrived at Orléans, he lit a candle at Notre-Dame de Cléry before going on to Blois, where he spent the night. The next day he travelled in stages as far as Angers, where he accepted a carriage offered by the bishop, Monseigneur Henri Arnauld. Arriving at Ancenis, he slept at La Croix de Lorraine, where he was joined by several military personnel.20 Louis was expected to stop for dinner at the Château de Clermont, but he decided to press on for Nantes, where he arrived four hours earlier than anticipated.
With Nantes awash with early autumn rain, Louis decided to dispense with the usual protocol and entered the magnificent Château des Ducs de Bretagne by carriage. A meal was prepared for him, after which he held an audience with various civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries. He then met members of the Chambre des Comptes21 before going onto the château’s ramparts to inspect the cannon, but Louis’s mind was elsewhere. Particularly keen to see the minutiae of the plans for the arrest of Foucquet, he met Colbert and Le Tellier, who had spent the last few days formulating the final details.22 Their plan, which left nothing to chance, specified who Foucquet’s jailer would be, the châteaux where he would be held on the journey back to Paris; it even arranged for him to be served bouillon for shock following his arrest. The time had been set for the afternoon so that the matter need not be hurried, but when Louis looked over the plan, several changes were made. The most important of these was that the arrest should take place in the morning as Foucquet was leaving the council meeting. The plans were so secret that Louis posted musketeers outside his room, which was accessed by a small corridor. No one was allowed to enter unless Louis was warned first by the sound of a silver bell.
Foucquet had arrived in Nantes shortly before Louis and was installed with his wife at the Hôtel de Rougé, a house belonging to Mme du Plessis-Bellière situated at the far side of the town. He was still unwell, and Louis, who feared he might try to escape, kept track of the stages of Foucquet’s illness.23 He sent for Brienne, who, upon entering the king’s chamber, just had time to see papers strewn over a table before Louis drew a green taffeta cloth across them.24 Brienne was ordered to go to Foucquet’s lodgings to see how he was, but he encountered the superintendent on the road, making his way towards the château; he was well enough to come out and pay his respects to the king.25
Louis needed a reliable man to execute the order of arrest, and he chose Charles de Batz Castelmore, sieur d’Artagnan,26 captain-lieutenant of the first company of musketeers. On Thursday, September 1, a messenger arrived at d’Artagnan’s lodgings to find him in bed with a fever, but Louis was suspicious and ordered that he must come whatever state he was in. It was only when the musketeer arrived at the château that Louis saw that his illness was genuine. He told d’Artagnan that he had selected him for an important commission, and that he should return in two or three days’ time. Louis also told him to take care of his health.27
Although Louis had summoned the Estates of Brittany as the pretext for his visit to Nantes, Louis attended only one meeting. Foucquet, on the other hand, attended several, and, by the
time they had come to an end, he had managed to secure a grant of three million écus for Louis, an achievement the king met with indifference.28
Louis was impatient.29 Over the next few days, he sent people to d’Artagnan on various pretexts until, at midday on Sunday, September 4, the musketeer finally arrived at the château. The king led him into his room, closing the door himself, and told him that what he was about to hear must remain secret. He then declared that “being dissatisfied with M. Foucquet, he had resolved to arrest him.” He gave d’Artagnan a packet of papers containing his orders before sending him to Le Tellier.30
To arrest a man as important as the superintendent of finances was no insignificant commission, and as d’Artagnan entered Le Tellier’s chamber, he felt faint and asked for a drink of wine. Once revived, d’Artagnan opened the packet Louis had given him and found an order for Foucquet’s arrest, a letter containing the route he had to take, and other orders concerning Foucquet’s route to prison. Another letter sent a brigadier of six musketeers to Ancenis, where they would receive further orders, which were to arrest the royal couriers along the route to Paris to prevent news of the arrest from leaking out.31 Other documents, written by Le Tellier, were addressed to the governors of various places where Foucquet was to be held.
The next day, September 5, was Louis’s twenty-third birthday, and this was the day that his plan to arrest Foucquet would finally be executed. To cover his designs, he organized a hunting party, which justified the presence of the musketeers and light horse. A meeting of the royal council had been scheduled for that morning, and d’Artagnan and his men were already mounted and waiting for it to end. As the other council members left, Louis detained Foucquet on the pretext that he had some papers to give him. Louis pretended to rummage about on the desk in search of these documents, all the while glancing through the window. When he saw d’Artagnan waiting in the courtyard of the château, he let Foucquet go.
D’Artagnan’s orders required him to arrest Foucquet only when he exited the château grounds so as not to encroach on the prerogative of the captain of the guard, whose job it was to protect the royal residences. The musketeers, spotting Le Tellier, asked him if this order still stood, to which the minister replied that it did. As Foucquet descended the stairs to the courtyard, he was besieged by petitioners who asked him for money or pushed requests into his hand, and he disappeared into the crowd before d’Artagnan could reach him. As d’Artagnan ran out of the château precincts with several musketeers, he sent his adjutant to inform Louis what had happened. Foucquet was spotted in a sedan chair heading towards the Place de la Cathédrale. D’Artagnan raced up to him and stopped the chair, saying he had something to tell him. Foucquet asked if it could wait until he arrived back at his lodgings, but d’Artagnan told him that it could not. Foucquet stepped out of the chair and raised his hat, and at that moment, d’Artagnan told him he had been ordered by the king to arrest him. Foucquet asked to see the order, saying that he believed himself to be in higher favor with the king than anyone in the kingdom. As he read the order for his arrest, Foucquet’s face reflected his state of shock, and when he handed the paper back to d’Artagnan, he asked him to execute his orders without creating a scandal.32 Brienne was sent to tell the king that his orders had been successfully carried out. As he approached the château, he saw a carriage enclosed in iron trellises and surrounded by musketeers; inside was d’Artagnan with Foucquet sitting quietly beside him.33
As he later wrote to his mother,34 Louis was very pleased with the success of the plan and proud of the people who had obeyed his orders so efficiently. He sent officials to place seals on each of Foucquet’s properties as well as those of his friends. Foucquet’s family was scattered to various parts of France, and musketeers were sent to Belle-Isle in case the superintendent had arranged armed resistance on the island. Louis’s precautions to prevent messengers leaking news of Foucquet’s arrest were not entirely successful. La Forêt, Foucquet’s valet de chambre, managed to slip through the cordon and gave the news to his master’s friends and associates, many of whom would be arrested or would manage to flee. At the same time, Colbert began his campaign to win over two of Foucquet’s most powerful allies in Brittany, Neuchèze and Duquesne, and to gain control of the superintendent’s sea ports and ships. These were necessary steps in his attempt to restructure the royal navy, a project that was close to his heart, if not to Louis’s.35
As he announced the news of Foucquet’s arrest, Louis noticed the clear distress of Lionne, one of the fallen superintendent’s closest friends. Louis reassured the minister, saying, “You were his friend, but I am content with your services.”36 Louis, who months earlier had expressed his intention to rule without a first minister, had made his point; yet, while he thought he had achieved a coup d’état, in reality he had helped to perpetrate one of the most serious miscarriages of justice ever to taint his reign.
TEN
The Sun King
While Louis had already announced his intention to rule alone, he did not feel that he had achieved this aim until he was able to take full control of the finances. This, for him, was the most important consequence of removing Foucquet, because, he said, “What I believed I had done on that occasion that was most worthy of being observed and the most advantageous for my people, was the suppression of the office of superintendent; or rather, to take charge of it myself.”1 Although the task before him was formidable, Louis embraced it with enthusiasm, because, as he wrote, “I have always considered the satisfaction that is to be found in doing one’s duty as the sweetest pleasure in the world.”2
Louis was eager to establish a new system for managing the finances. Colbert had recently been appointed to the high council of ministers with the title of intendant of finances, and he conceived and drafted a set of regulations for the creation of a new conseil royal.3 This would be presided over by the king, who would oversee and sign everything concerning the collecting of taxes and state expenditure. Below the king would be three ministers, among them Colbert. The council would meet three times each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
The tax farms were re-contracted, the posts purchased by auction, with the whole process being supervised by Louis. Together with the requirement that the value of the contracts was payable on a monthly basis, this reform saved some 5 million livres per year in interest on loans and provided for the most urgent state expenses.4 At the same time, commission on the direct taxes was reduced, which allowed Louis to reduce the taille, the tax burden on the peasantry.5
Louis then established a Chamber of Justice, which would compel those who had grown wealthy to the detriment of the state to contribute heavily to its expenses. The chamber also examined all the contracts pertaining to the king’s debts. These were found to be so extensive that to repay them would lead to the ruin of his subjects unless Louis continued to use the inefficient ways that had prevailed for so long, and which would yield relatively little in return. For this reason, Louis liquidated his debts as well as debts owed to him. Because these “discussions were delicate, and that most of those concerned had a lot of influence and many relatives in the ordinary courts of justice,” Louis felt it necessary to form a new court to be run by the most distinguished people taken from other courts.6
Among those to benefit from Louis’s financial reforms were the poor at the Salpêrière in Paris. The king was adamant that everyone in the realm, even the most unfortunate, should have enough to eat, whether by work or through state assistance.7
As well as the finances, industry was also to be reformed, with Louis issuing orders to import workers from Holland, Flanders, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, England, Spain, and Russia. These workers brought various skills, such as weaving, cloth-making, leather-working, glass-making, and steel-working. There were goldsmiths, tar-makers, and stocking-makers, all living on generous subsidies. While some were resented by local laborers, most settled in France, made money, expanded their businesses, and employed French
workers.8
Louis desired that France should be self-sufficient, all the country’s needs to be catered for without resorting to the import of foreign goods. Items that were brought in were subject to heavy taxes. In order to limit the number of expensive English horses coming into France, Louis ordered the establishment of studs in Normandy, Poitou, Berry, and Languedoc. Colbert took over the factory established by Foucquet for the manufacture of tapestries and converted it into the now famous Gobelins.
It was while Louis was occupied with these matters that news arrived of a serious diplomatic incident that had just occurred in London. Despite the signing of the treaty of the Pyrenees and the apparent peace between France and Spain, the ambassadors of these two countries continued a kind of cold war, which had spilled into an argument over rank and precedence. While attending a ceremony in England, the servants of the Spanish ambassador, the baron de Vatteville, attacked the cortège of Louis’s ambassador, the comte d’Estrades, with the encouragement of the local populace. The comte’s horses were killed and his servants were injured in the scuffle, preventing d’Estrades from taking his rightful place in the ceremony.
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