Modern times began in France with the death of Mazarin. Spain, Austria,
and Italy no longer led the world in politics, literature, and
refinement. The _grande nation_, delivered from _Ligue_ and _Fronde_,
took her position with England at the head of civilized Europe. This
great change had been going on during eighty years of battle, murder,
anarchy, and confusion. As always, the new grew up unnoticed, until it
overtopped the old. The transformation was complete in 1661, when Louis
XIV. appeared upon the scene, and gave his name to this brilliant
period, with not much better claim to the distinction than had Vespucci
to America.
There had been a prodigious yield of brains in France. A host of clever
men developed the new ideas in every direction. Philosophy and science,
literature and language, manners, habits, dress, assumed the forms with
which we are so familiar. Then commenced the _grand siècle_, the era
Frenchmen date from. They look upon those gallant ancestors almost as
contemporaries, and still admire their feats in war, and laugh over
their strokes of wit. The books they wrote became classics, and were in
all hands until within the last twenty or thirty years. Latterly,
indeed, they have been less read, for thought is turning to fresh
fields, and society seems to be entering upon a new era.
No man more fully recognized the great change that was going on, or did
more to help it forward, than Nicolas Fouquet, Vicomte de Vaux, and
Marquis de Belleîle,--but better known as the _Surintendant_. In the
pleasant social annals of France, Fouquet is the type of splendor, and
of sudden, hopeless ruin. "There was never a man so magnificent, there
was never a man so unfortunate," say the lively gentlemen and ladies in
their _Mémoires_. His story is told to point the old and dreary moral of
the instability of human prosperity. It is, indeed, like a tale of the
"Arabian Nights." The Dervish is made Grand Vizier. He marries the
Sultan's daughter. His palace owes its magical beauty to the Genies. The
pillars are of jasper, the bases and capitals of massive gold. The
Sultan frowns, waves his hand, and the crowd, who kissed the favorite's
slipper yesterday, hoot and jeer as they see him pass by to his dungeon,
disgraced, stripped, and beaten, Fouquet was of good family, the son of
a Councillor of State in Louis XIII.'s time. Educated for the
magistracy, he became a _Maître des Requétes_ (say Master in Chancery)
at twenty, and at thirty-five _Procureur-Général_ (or Attorney-General)
of the Parliament of Paris, which was only a court of justice, although
it frequently attempted to usurp legislative, and even executive
functions. During the rebellious troubles of the Fronde, the Procureur
and his brother, the Abbé Fouquet, remained faithful to Mazarin and to
the throne. The Abbé, in the ardor of his zeal, once offered the Queen
his services to kill De Retz and salt him, if she would give her
consent. It was at the request of the Queen that the Cardinal made the
trusty Procureur _Surintendant des Finances_, the first position in
France after the throne and the prime-ministership.
Pensions, and the promise of comfortable places, had collected about the
Surintendant talent, fashion, and beauty. Some of the ablest men in the
kingdom were in his employ. Pellisson, famous for ugliness and for wit,
the _Acanthe_ of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, the beloved of Sappho
Scudéry, was his chief clerk. Pellisson was then a Protestant; but
Fouquet's disgrace, and four years in the Bastille, led him to reëxamine
the grounds of his religious faith. He became, luckily, enlightened on
the subject of his heresies at a time when the renunciation of
Protestantism led to honors and wealth. Change of condition followed
change of doctrine. The King attached him to his person as Secretary and
Historiographer, and gave him the management of the fund for the
conversion of Huguenots. Gourville, whom Charles II., an excellent
judge, called the wisest of Frenchmen, belonged to Fouquet, as a
receiver-general of taxes. Molière wrote two of his earlier plays for
the Surintendant. La Fontaine was an especial favorite. He bound himself
to pay for his quarterly allowance in quarterly madrigals, ballads, or
sonnets. If he failed, a bailiff was to be sent to levy on his stanzas.
He paid pretty regularly, but in a depreciated currency. The verses have
not the golden ring of the "Contes" and the "Fables."
"Le Roi, l'État, la Patrie,
Partagent toute votre vie."
That is a sample of their value. Quack-medicine poets often do as well.
He wrote "Adonis" for Fouquet, and had worked three years at the "Songe
de Vaux," when the ruin of his patron caused him to lay it aside. It is
a dull piece. Four fairies, _Palatiane, Hortésie, Apellanire, and
Calliopée_, make long speeches about their specialty in Art, as seen at
Vaux. Their names sufficiently denote it. A fish comes as ambassador
from Neptune to Vaux, the glory of the universe, where Oronte (Fouquet's
_alias_, in the affected jargon of the period)
"fait bâtir un palais magnifique,
Où règne l'ordre Ionique
Avec beaucoup d'agrément."
Apollo comes and promises to take charge of the live-stock, and of the
picture-gallery. The Muses, too, are busy.
"Pour lui Melpomène médite,
Thalie en est jalouse,"--
and soon--
Fouquet's physician, Pecquet, is well known to physiologists by his
treatise, "_De Motu Chyli_," and by "Pecquet's reservoir." His patron
was warmly interested in the new discoveries in circulation, which were
then, and so long after, violently opposed by the _Purgons_ and the
_Diafoirus_ of the old school. The Surintendant's judgment was equally
good in Art. Le Brun, the painter, owed fame and fortune to him. He gave
him twelve thousand livres a year, besides paying a fixed price for each
of his works. With the exception of Renaudot's journal, Loret's weekly
gazette, published in the shape of a versified letter to Mademoiselle de
Longueville, was the only newspaper in France. Fouquet furnished the
editor with money and with items. He allowed Scarron sixteen hundred
livres a year, when Mazarin struck his name from the pension-list, as
punishment for a "_Mazarinade_," the only squib of the kind the Cardinal
had ever noticed. Poor Scarron was hopelessly paralyzed, and bedridden.
He had been a comely, robust fellow in his youth, given to dissipated
courses. In a Carnival frolic, he appeared in the streets with two
companions in the character of bipeds with feathers,--a scanty addition
to Plato's definition of man. This airy costume was too much for French
modesty, proverbially shrinking and sensitive. The mob hooted and gave
chase. The maskers fled from the town and hid themselves in a marsh to
evade pursuit. The result of this venturesome _travestissement_ was the
death of both his friends, and an attack of inflammatory rheumatism
which twisted Scarron for life into the shape of the letter Z.
The Surintendant's _hôtel_, at St. Mandé, was a marvel of art, his
library the best in France. The number and value of his books was urged
against him, on his trial, as evidence of his peculations. His
country-seat, at Vaux, cost him eighteen millions of livres. Three
villages were bought and razed to enlarge the grounds. Le Vau built the
_château_. Le Brun painted the ceilings and panels. La Fontaine and
Michel Gervaise furnished French and Latin mottoes for the allegorical
designs. Le Nôtre laid out the gardens in the style which may still be
seen at Versailles. Torelli, an Italian engineer, decorated them with
artificial cascades and fountains, a wonder of science to Frenchmen in
the seventeenth century. Puget had collected the statues which
embellished them. There was a collection of wild animals, a rare
spectacle before the days of zoological gardens,--an aviary of foreign
birds,--tanks as large as ponds, in which, among other odd fish, swam a
sturgeon and a salmon taken in the Seine. Everything was magnificent,
and everything was new,--so original and so perfect, that Louis XIV.,
after he had crushed the Surintendant, could find no plans so good and
no artists so skilful as these _pour embellir son règne_. He was obliged
to imitate the man he hated. Even Fouquet's men of letters were soon
enrolled in the service of the King.
In March, 1661, Mazarin died, full of honor. His favorite saying, "_Il
tiempo è un galantuomo_," was fulfilled for him. In spite of many
desperate disappointments and defeats, _Messer Tiempo_ had made him
rich, powerful, and triumphant. The young King, who had already
announced his theory of government in the well-known speech, "_L'État,
c'est moi_," waited patiently, and with respect, (filial, some have
said,) for the old man to depart. He put on mourning, a compliment never
paid but once before by a French sovereign to the memory of a
subject,--by Henry IV. to Gabrielle d'Estrées. When the Council came
together, the King told them, that hitherto he had permitted the late
Cardinal to direct the affairs of State, but that in future he should
take the duty upon himself,--the gentlemen present would aid him with
their advice, if he should see fit to ask for it. It was a "neat little
speech," and very much to the point: Louis XIV. had the talent of making
neat little speeches. But the Surintendant, who presided in the Council,
did not believe him. A prince, he thought, two-and-twenty years of age,
fond of show and of pleasure, of moderate capacity, and with no
education, might undertake for a while the cares of government, but,
when the novelty wore off, would tire of the labor. And then, whose
pretensions to shoulder the burden were so well founded as Fouquet's? He
was almost a king, and had the political patronage of a president. The
revenue of the nation passed through his hands. _Fermiers_ and
_traitants_, those who farmed the taxes and those who gathered them for
a consideration, obeyed his nod and laid their offerings at his feet. A
judicious mixture of presents and promises had given him the control of
judges enough in the different Parliaments to fortify his views of the
public business by legal decisions. In his own Parliament he was
supreme. Clever agents, stationed in important places, both at home and
abroad, watched over his interests, and kept him informed of all that
transpired, by faithful couriers. But he misunderstood his position, and
was mistaken in his King. Louis XIV. had, indeed, little talent and less
education. He could never learn Latin, at that time as much a part of a
gentleman's training as French is now with us; but he had what for want
of a more distinctive word we may call character,--that
well-proportioned mixture of sense, energy, and self-reliance which
obtains for its possessor more success in life, and more respect from
those about him, than brilliant mental endowments. It was the moral side
of his nature which was deficient. He was selfish, envious, and cruel;
and he had not that noble hatred of the crooked, the mean, and the
dishonorable which becomes a gentleman. Mazarin once said,--"There is
stuff enough in him to make four kings and one worthy man." Divide this
favorable opinion by four, and the result will be an approximation to
the value of Louis XIV. as a monarch and a man. There was a king in
him,--a determination to be master, and to bear no rival near the
throne, no matter of how secondary or trifling a nature the rivalry
might be.
Fouquet had been deep in Mazarin's confidence, his agent and partner in
those sharp financial operations which had brought so much profit to the
Cardinal and so little to the Crown. One of their jobs was to buy up, at
an enormous discount, old and discredited claims against the Treasury,
dating from the Fronde, which, when held by the right parties, were paid
in full,--a species of fraud known by various euphemisms in the purest
of republics. All the checks and balances of our enlightened system of
administration, whether federal, state, or municipal, do not prevent
skilful officials from perverting vast sums of money to their own uses.
In France, demoralized by years of civil war, the official facilities
for plundering were concentrated in the hands of one clever man. We can
easily understand that his wealth was enormous, and his power
correspondingly great.
When the late Cardinal, surfeited with spoils, was drawing near his end,
scruples of conscience, never felt before, led him to advise the King to
keep a strict watch upon the Surintendant. He recommended for that
purpose his steward, Colbert, of whose integrity and knowledge of
business he had the highest opinion. Colbert was made Under-Secretary of
State, and Fouquet's dismissal from office determined upon from that
time.
The Surintendant had no previsions of danger. With his usual boldness,
he laid the financial "situation" of the kingdom before his new master,
confessed frankly what it was impossible to conceal, laid the blame of
all irregularities upon Mazarin, or upon the exigencies of the times,
and ended by imploring an amnesty for the past, and promising thrift and
economy for the future. The King appeared satisfied, and granted a full
pardon. Fouquet, more confident than ever, dashed on in the old way,
while Colbert and his clerks were quietly digging the pit into which he
was soon to fall. Colbert was reinforced by Séguier, the Chancellor, and
by Le Tellier, a Secretary of State, who had an energetic son, Louvois,
in the War Department. All three hated the Surintendant, and each hoped
to succeed him. Fouquet's ostentation and haughtiness had made him
enemies among the old nobility. Many of them were eager to see the proud
and prosperous man humiliated,--merely to gratify that wretched feeling
of envy and spite so inherent in poor human nature, and one of the
strongest proofs of that corruption "which standeth in the following of
Adam."
Louis XIV. had reasons of his own for his determination to destroy the
Surintendant. First of all, he was afraid of him. The Fronde was fresh
in the royal memory. Fouquet had enormous wealth, an army of friends and
retainers; he could command Brittany from his castle of Belleîle, which
he had fortified and garrisoned. Why might he not, if his ambition were
thwarted, revive rebellion, and bring back misery upon France? The
personal reminiscences of the King's whole life must have made him feel
keenly the force of this apprehension. He was ten years old, when, to
escape De Retz and Beaufort, the Queen-Mother fled with him to St.
Germain, and slept there upon straw, in want of the necessaries of life.
After their return to Paris, the mob broke into the Louvre, and
penetrated to the royal bedchamber. He could not well forget the night
when his mother placed him upon his knees to pray for the success of the
attempt to arrest Condé, who thought himself the master. He was twelve
when Mazarin marched into France with seven thousand men wearing green
scarfs, the Cardinal's colors, and in the Cardinal's pay. After the
young King had joined them, the Parliament of Paris offered fifty
thousand crowns for the Cardinal's head. He was thirteen when Condé, in
command of Spanish troops, surprised the royalists at Bléneau, and would
have captured King and Court, had it not been for the skill of Turenne.
A few years before, Turenne had served against France, under the Spanish
flag. The boy-King had witnessed the battle of St. Antoine,--had seen
the gates of Paris closed against him, and the cannon of the Bastille
firing upon his army, by order of his cousin, _Mademoiselle_, the
grand-daughter of Henry IV. He had known a Parliament at Paris, and an
Anti-Parliament at Pontoise. In 1651, Condé, De Retz, and La
Rochefoucauld fought in the Palais Royal, almost in the royal presence.
In 1652 he had been compelled to exile Mazarin again; and it was not
until 1658 that Turenne finally defeated Condé and Don John of Austria,
and opened the way to the Peace of the Pyrenees, and the marriage with
the Infanta. Oliver Cromwell aided the King with six thousand of his
soldiers in this battle, and seized upon Dunkirk to repay himself,--only
three years before. No wonder Louis was anxious to place the throne
beyond the reach of danger and insult, and to crush the only man who
seemed to have the power to rekindle a civil war.
A stronger and a meaner motive he kept to himself. He was small-minded
enough to think that a subject overshadowed him, _nec pluribus impar_.
He hated Fouquet because he was so much admired,--because he was called
the Magnificent,--because his _châteaux_ and gardens were incomparably
finer than St. Germain or Fontainebleau,--because he was surrounded by
the first wits and artists,--no trifling matter in that bright morning
of French literature, when every gentleman of station in Paris aspired
to be a _bel-esprit_, or, if that was impossible, to keep one in his
employ. "_Le Roi s'abaissa jusqu'à se croire humilié par un sujet_." His
"_gloire_" as he called it, was his passion, not only in war and in
government, where it meant something, but in buildings and furniture,
dress and dinners, madrigals and _bon-mots_. The monopoly of _gloire_ he
must and would have,--nobly, if possible, but at any rate, and in every
kind, _gloire_.
And the unlucky Surintendant had sinned against the royal feelings in a
still more unpardonable way. The King was in love with La Vallière. He
had surrounded his attachment with the mystery the young and sentimental
delight in. Fouquet, quite unconscious of the royal fancy, had cast eyes
of favor upon the same lady. Proceeding according to the custom of men
of middle age and of abundant means, he had wasted no time in _petits
soins_ and sighs, but, Jupiter-like, had offered to shower two hundred
thousand livres upon the fair one. This proposition was reported to the
King, and was the cause of the _acharnement_, the relentless fury, he
showed in persecuting Fouquet. He would have dealt with him as Queen
Christina had dealt with Monaldeschi, if he had dared. The hatred
survived long after he had dismissed the fair cause of it from his
affections, and from his palace.
Such was the Surintendant's position when he issued his invitation to
the King, Court, and _bel-air_ for the seventeenth of August, 1661,--the
_fête de Vaux_, which fills a paragraph in every history of France. In
June, he had entertained the Queen of England in a style which made
Mazarin's pageants for the Infanta Queen seem tasteless and
old-fashioned. The present festival cast the preceding one into the
shade. It began in the early afternoon, like a _déjeuner_ of our day.
The King was there, the Queen-Mother, Monsieur, brother to the King, and
Madame, daughter of Charles I. of England, attended by Princes, Dukes,
Marquises, and Counts, with their quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and
independent spouses. The highest and noblest of France came to stare at
Fouquet's magnificence, to wonder at the strange birds and beasts, and
to admire the fountains and cascades. After a walk about the grounds,
the august company were served with supper in the _château_. Vatel was
the _maître d'hôtel_. The King could not conceal his astonishment at the
taste and luxury of the Surintendant, nor his annoyance when he
recognized the portrait of La Vallière in a mythological panel. Over
doors and windows were carved and painted Fouquet's arms,--a squirrel,
with the motto, "_Quò non ascendam_?" The King asked a chamberlain for
the translation. When the device was interpreted, the measure of his
wrath was full. He was on the point of ordering Fouquet's instant
arrest; but the Queen-Mother persuaded him to wait until every
precaution had been taken.
After supper, the guests were conducted to the play. The theatre was at
the end of an alley of pines, almost _al fresco_. The stage represented
a garden decorated with fountains and with statues of Terminus. Scenery
by Le Brun; machinery and transmutations by Torelli; stage-manager,
Molière; the comedy, "_Les Fâcheux_," "The Bores," composed, written,
and rehearsed expressly for this occasion, in the short space of fifteen
days. This piece was put upon the stage in a new way. The ballet,
introduced by Mazarin a few years before, was the fashion, and
indispensable. As Molière had only a few good dancers, he placed the
scenes of the ballet between the acts of the comedy, in order to give
his artists time to change their dresses and to take three or four
different parts. To avoid awkwardness in these transitions, the plot of
the comedy was carried over into the pantomime. This arrangement proved
so successful that Molière made use of it in many of his later plays.
The curtain rises upon a man in citizen's-dress (Molière). He expresses
amazement and dismay at seeing so large and so distinguished an
audience, and implores His Majesty to pardon him for being there without
actors enough and without time enough to prepare a suitable
entertainment. While he is yet speaking, twenty jets of water spring
into the air,--a huge rock in the foreground changes into a shell,--the
shell opens,--forth steps a Naiad (pretty Mademoiselle Béjart, a
well-known actress,--too well known for Moliere's domestic comfort) and
declaims verses written by Pellisson for the occasion. Here is a part of
this prologue in commonplace prose; Pellisson's verses are of a kind
which loses little by translation. The flattery is heavy, but Louis XIV.
was not dainty; he liked it strong, and probably swallowed more of it
with pleasure and comfort during fifty years than any other man.
"Mortals," said _la Béjart_, "I come from my grotto to look upon the
greatest king in the world. Shall the land or the water furnish a new
spectacle for his amusement? He has only to speak,--to wish; nothing is
impossible to him. Is he not himself a miracle? And has he not the right
to demand miracles of Nature? He is young, victorious, wise, valiant,
and dignified,--as benevolent and just as he is powerful. He governs his
desires as well as his subjects; he unites labor and pleasure; always
busy, never at fault, seeing all, hearing all. To such a prince Heaven
can refuse nothing. If Louis commands, these Termini shall walk from
their places, these trees shall speak better than the oaks of Dodona.
Come forth, then, all of you! Louis commands it. Come forth to amuse
him, and transform yourselves upon this novel stage!" Trees and Termini
fly open. Dryads, Fauns, and Satyrs skip out. Then the Naiad invokes
Care, the goddess whose hand rests heavily upon monarchs, and implores
her to grant the great King an hour's respite from the business of
State and from his anxiety for his people. "Let him give his great heart
up to pleasure. To-morrow, with strength renewed, he will take up his
burden, sacrifice his own rest to give repose to mankind and maintain
peace throughout the universe. But to-night let all _fâcheux_ stand
back, except those who can make themselves agreeable to him." The Naiad
vanishes. The Fauns dance to the violins and hautboys, until the play
begins.
After the comedy, the spectators walked slowly to the _château_. A _feu
d'artifice_, ending in a bouquet of a thousand rockets from the dome,
lighted them on their way back. Another repast followed, which lasted
until the drums of the royal _mousquetaires_, the King's escort, were
heard in the courtyard. This was the signal for breaking up.
The Surintendant seemed to be on the highest pinnacle of prosperity,
beyond the reach of Fate. There was at Rome a Sire de Maucroix, sent
thither by Fouquet on his private business. To him his friend La
Fontaine wrote a full description of the day, and of the effect Vaux had
produced upon the fashionable world. "You would think that Fame [_la
Renommée_] was made only for him, he gives her so much to do at once.
'Plein d'éclat, plein de gloire, adoré des mortels,
Il reçoit des honneurs qu'on ne doit qu'aux autels.'"
A few days later, the Surintendant arrived at Angers, on his way to
Nantes. Arnauld writes, that the Bishop of Angers and himself waited
upon the great man to pay their respects. "From the height upon which he
stood, all others seemed so far removed from him that he could not
recognize them. He scarcely looked at us, and Madame, his wife, seemed
neither less frigid nor more civil." On the fifth of September, nineteen
days after the _fête_, the thunderbolt fell upon him.
A _Procureur-Général_ could be tried only by the Parliament to which he
belonged. To make Fouquet's destruction more certain, Colbert had
induced him, by various misrepresentations, to sell out. He received
fourteen hundred thousand livres for the place, and presented the
enormous sum to the Treasury. This act of munificence, or of
restitution, did not save him. If he had been backed by fifty thousand
men, the King could hardly have taken greater precautions. His Majesty's
manner was more gracious than ever. To prevent a rising in the West,
Louis journeyed to Nantes, which is near Belleîle. Fouquet accompanied
the progress with almost equal state. He had his court, his guards, his
own barge upon the Loire,--and travelled brilliantly onward to ruin. The
palace in Nantes was the scene of the arrest. Fouquet, suspecting
nothing, waited upon the King. Louis kept him engaged in conversation,
until he saw D'Artagnau, a name famous in storybooks, and the
_mousquetaires_ in the courtyard. Then he gave the signal. The
Surintendant was seized and taken to Angers, thence to Amboise,
Vincennes, and finally to the Bastille. He was confined in a room
lighted only from above, and allowed no communication with family or
friends. The mask was now thrown off, and the blow followed up with a
malignant energy which showed the determination to destroy. The King was
very violent, and said openly that he had matter in his possession which
would hang the Surintendant. His secretaries and agents were arrested.
His friends, not knowing how much they might be implicated, either fled
the kingdom, or kept out of the way in the provinces. Pellisson and Dr.
Pecquet were sent to the Bastille; Guénégaud lost half his fortune; the
Bishop of Avranches had to pay twelve thousand francs; Gourville fled to
England; Pomponne was ordered to reside at Verdun. Fouquet's papers were
examined in the presence of the King. Letters were there from persons in
every class of life,--a very large number from women, for the prisoner
had charms which the fair sex have always found it difficult to resist.
Madame Scarron had written to thank him for his bounty to the poor
cripple whose name and roof protected her. The King had probably never
before heard of this lady, who was to be the wife and ruler of his old
age. The portfolio contained specimens of the gayest and brightest of
letter-writers. In the course of his career, the gallant Surintendant
had attempted to add the charming widow Sévigné to his conquests. She
refused the temptation, but always remained grateful for the compliment.
Le Tellier told her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, that the King liked her
letters,--"very different," he said, "from the _douceurs fades_"--the
insipid sweet things--"of the other feminine scribes." Nevertheless, she
thought it prudent to reside for a time upon her estate in Brittany. A
copy of a letter by St. Évremond was found, written three years before
from the Spanish frontier. It was a sarcastic pleasantry at the expense
of Mazarin and the _Paix des Pyrénées_, St. Évremond was a soldier, a
wit, and the leader of fashion; Colbert hated him, and magnified a _jeu
d'esprit_ into a State-crime. He was exiled, and spent the rest of his
long life in England. Of the baser sort, hundreds were turned out of
their places and thrown penniless upon the world. It was a _coup
d'état_, a revolution, and most people were against Fouquet. It is such
a consolation for the little to see the mighty fall!
The instinct which impels friends and servants to fly from sinking
fortunes is a well-established fact in human natural history; but
Fouquet's hold upon his followers was extraordinary: it resisted the
shock of ruin. They risked court-favor, purse, and person, to help him.
Gourville, before he thought of his own safety, carried a hundred
thousand livres to Madame Fouquet, to be used in defending the
Surintendant, or in bribing a judge or a jailer. The rest of his
property he divided, intrusting one half to a devout friend, the other
to a sinful beauty, Ninon de l'Enclos, and fled the country. The
"professor" absorbed all that was left in his hands; Ninon returned her
trust intact. This little incident was made much use of at a later day
by the _Philosophes_, and Voltaire worked it up into "Le Dépositaire."
From the Bastille, Pellisson addressed to the King three papers in
defence of his chief: "masterpieces of prose, worthy of Cicero,"
Voltaire says,--"_ce que l'éloquence a produit de plus beau_." And
Sainte-Beuve thinks that Louis must have yielded to them, if he had
heard them spoken, instead of reading them in his closet. The faithful
La Fontaine fearlessly sang the sorrows of his patron, and accustomed
"_chacun à plaindre ses malheurs_." He begged to the King for mercy, in
an ode full of feeling, if not of poetry. "Has not Oronte been
sufficiently punished by the withdrawal of thy favor? Attack Rome,
Vienna, but be merciful to us. _La Clémence est fille des Dieux_." A
copy of this ode found its way to the prisoner. He protested against
these lines:--
"Mais, si tu crois qu'il est coupable,
Il ne veut point être innocent."
Two years of prison had not broken him down to this point of
self-abasement. Could any Sultan, or even the "Oriental Despot" of a
radical penny-a-liner, be implored in more abject terms? Madame de
Sévigné, Madame de Scudéry, Le Fèvre, talked, wrote, and spared no
expense for their dear friend. Brébeuf, the poet, who had neither
influence nor money, took to his bed and died of grief. Hesnault, author
of the "Avorton," a sonnet much admired in those days, and translated
with approval into English verse, as,
"Frail spawn of nought and of existence mixed,"
eased his feelings by insulting Colbert in another sonnet, beginning
thus:--
"Ministre avare et lâche, esclave malheureux."
The poet escaped unpunished. His affront gave Colbert the chance for a
_mot_,--an opportunity which Frenchmen seldom throw away. When the
injurious verses were reported to the Minister, he asked,--"Is there
anything in them offensive to the King?" "No." "Then there can be
nothing in them offensive to me." Loret, of the Gazette, was not so
lucky. A gentle appeal in his journal for less severity was punished by
striking the editor from the pension-list,--a fine of fifteen hundred
livres a year. Fouquet heard of it, and found means to send, by the
hands of Madame Scudéry, a year's allowance to the faithful newsman.
The Government was not ready to proceed to trial until 1664. For three
years the sharpest lawyers in France had been working on the Act of
Accusation. It was very large even for its age. The accompanying
_Pièces_ were unusually voluminous. The accused had not been idle. His
_Défenses_ may be seen in fourteen closely printed Elzevir 18mos.
The unabated rigor of Fouquet's prison had convinced his friends that it
was useless to hope for clemency, and that it might be difficult to save
his life. The King was as malignant as at first; Colbert and Le Tellier
as venomous, as if it had been a question of Fouquet's head or their
own. They talked about justice, affected moderation, and deceived
nobody. Marshal Turenne, speaking of their respective feelings in the
matter, said a thing which was considered good by the _bel-esprits_:--"I
think that Colbert is the more anxious to have him hanged, and Le
Tellier the more afraid he will not be."
But meantime the Parisians had changed their minds about the
Surintendant. Now, they were all for him. His friends had done much to
bring this about; time, and the usual reaction of feeling, had done
more. His haughtiness and his pomp were gone and forgotten; there
remained only an unfortunate gentleman, crushed, imprisoned, threatened
with death, attacked by his enemies with a bitterness which showed they
were seeking to destroy the man rather than to punish the criminal,--yet
bearing up against his unexampled afflictions with unshaken courage. The
great Public has strong levelling propensities, both upward and
downward. If it delights to see the prosperous humbled, it is always
ready to pity the unfortunate; and even in 1664 the popular feeling in
Paris was powerful enough to check the ministers of an absolute king,
and to save Fouquet's life. His persecutors were so eager to run down
their prey that they overran it "In their anxiety to hang him," some one
said, "they have made their rope so thick that they cannot tighten it
about his neck."
In November, 1664, Fouquet was brought before a commission of twenty-two
judges, selected from the different Parliaments of the kingdom. After
protesting against the jurisdiction of the court, he took his seat upon
the _sellette_, although a chair had been prepared for him beside it.
The interrogatories commenced. There were two principal charges against
him. First, diversion of the public funds to his own use,--embezzlement
or defalcation we should call it. Proof: his great expenditure, too
large for any private fortune. Answer: that his expenses were within the
income he derived from his salaries, pensions, and the property of
himself and wife. He was questioned closely upon his administration of
the finances. He was invariably self-possessed and ready with an answer,
and he eluded satisfactorily every attempt of the judges to entrap him,
although, as one of his best friends confessed, "some places were very
slippery." The second charge, treason against the State, was based upon
a paper addressed to his wife, and found in his desk. Fifteen years
before, after a quarrel with Mazarin, he had drawn up a plan of the
measures to be taken by his family and adherents in case of an attack
upon his life or liberty. It was a mere rough draught, incomplete, which
had remained unburned because forgotten. The fortifications of Belleîle
and the number of his retainers were brought up as evidence of his
intention to carry out the "_projet_," as it was called, if it became
necessary. Fouquet's explanations, and the date of the paper, were
satisfactory to the majority of the Commission. At last even the
Chancellor admitted that the proof was insufficient to sustain this part
of the accusation. Fouquet's answer to Séguier, during the examination
on the "_projet_," was much admired, and repeated out-of-doors. Séguier
asserted more than once, "This is clearly treason." "No," retorted
Fouquet, "it is not treason; but I will tell you what is treason. To
hold high office, to be in the confidence of the King; then suddenly to
desert to the enemies of that King, to carry over relatives, with the
regiments and the fortresses under their command, and to betray the
secrets of State: that is treason." And that was exactly what Chancellor
Séguier had done in the Fronde.
In French criminal jurisprudence, the theory seems to be that the
accused is guilty until he has proved his innocence, and those
conversant with French trials need not be told that the judges assist
the public prosecutor. In this case, they sought by cross-examinations
to confuse Fouquet, and to entrap him into dangerous admissions. Séguier
sternly repressed any leanings in his favor; he even reproved some of
the judges for returning the salutation of the prisoner, as he entered
the court-room.
The trial lasted five weeks. All Paris looked on absorbed, as at a drama
of the most exciting interest. Fouquet never appeared so admirable as
then, at bay, firmly facing king, ministers, judges, eager for his
blood, excited by the ardor of pursuit, and embittered by the roar of
applause with which his masterly defence was received out-of-doors. Even
those who knew the Surintendant best were astonished at his courage and
his presence of mind. He seemed greater in his adversity than in his
magnificence. Some of the judges began to waver. Renard, J., said,--"I
must confess that this man is incomparable. He never spoke so well when
he was _Procureur_; he never showed so much self-possession." Another,
one Nesmond, died during the trial, and regretted openly on his
death-bed that he had lent himself to this persecution. The King ordered
that this dying speech and confession should not be repeated, but it
circulated only the more widely.
"No public man," Voltaire says, "ever had so many personal friends"; and
no friends were ever more faithful and energetic. They repeated his
happy answers in all quarters, praised his behavior, pitied his
sufferings, and reviled and ridiculed his enemies. They managed to meet
him, as he walked to and from the Arsenal, where the Commission sat, and
cheered him with kind looks. Madame de Sévigné tells us how she and
other ladies of the same faith took post at a window to see "_notre
pauvre ami_" go by. "M. d'Artagnau walked by his side, followed by a
guard of fifty _mousquetaires_. He seemed sad. D'Artagnau touched him to
let him know that we were there. He saluted us with that quiet smile we
all knew so well." She says that her heart beat and her knees trembled.
The lively lady was still grateful for that compliment.
The animosity which the King did not conceal made an acquittal almost
hopeless, but great efforts were made to save the life of the
Surintendant. Money was used skilfully and abundantly. Several judges
yielded to the force of this argument; others were known to incline to
mercy. Fouquet himself thought the result doubtful. He begged his
friends to let him know the verdict by signal, that he might have half
an hour to prepare himself to receive his sentence with firmness.
The Commission deliberated for one week,--an anxious period for
Fouquet's friends, who trembled lest they had not secured judges enough
to resist the pressure from above. At last the court was reopened.
D'Ormesson, a man of excellent family and social position, who had
favored the accused throughout the trial, delivered his opinion at
length. He concluded for banishment. The next judge voted for
decapitation, but with a recommendation to mercy. Next, one Pussort, a
malignant tool of the Chancellor, inveighed against Fouquet for four
hours, so violently that he injured his case. His voice was for the
gallows,--but, in consideration of the criminal's rank, he would consent
to commute the cord for the axe. After him, four voted for death; then,
five for banishment. Six to six. Anxiety had now reached a distressing
point. The Chancellor stormed and threatened; but in vain. On the
twenty-fifth of December the result was known. Nine for death, thirteen
for banishment. Saved! "I am so glad," Sévigné wrote to Simon Arnauld,
"that I am beside myself." She exulted too soon. The King was not to be
balked of his vengeance. He refused to abide by the verdict of the
Commission he himself had packed, and arbitrarily changed the decree of
banishment to imprisonment for life in the Castle of Pignerol,--to
solitary confinement,--wife, family, friends, not to be permitted to see
the prisoner, or to write to him; even his valet was taken away.
Thus the magnificent Surintendant disappeared from the world
forever,--buried alive, but indomitable and cheerful. His last message
to his wife was, "I am well. Keep up your courage; I have enough for
myself, and to spare."
"We still hope for some relaxation," Sévigné writes again; but none ever
came from the narrow-hearted, vindictive King. He exiled Roquesante, the
judge who had shown the most kindness to Fouquet, and turned an
_Avocat-Général_ out of office for saying that Pussort was a disgrace to
the Parliament he belonged to. Madame Fouquet, the mother, famous for
her book of prescriptions, "Recueil de Recettes Choisies," who had
cured, or was supposed to have cured, the Queen by a plaster of her
composition, threw herself at the King's feet, with her son's wife and
children. Their prayer was coldly refused, and they soon received an
order to reside in remote parts of France. Time seemed to have no
mollifying effect upon the animosity of the King. Six years later, a
young man who attempted to carry a letter from Fouquet to his wife was
sent to the galleys; and in 1676, fifteen years after the arrest, Madame
de Montespan had not influence enough to obtain permission for Madame
Fouquet and her children to visit the prisoner.
This cruel and illegal punishment lasted for twenty years, until an
attack of apoplexy placed the Surintendant beyond the reach of his
torturer. So lost had he been in his living tomb, that it is a debated
point whether he died in Piguerol or not. He has even been one of the
candidates for the mysterious dignity of the Iron Mask. In his dungeon
he could learn nothing of what was passing in the world. Lauzun, whose
every-day life seemed more unreal and romantic than the dreams of
ordinary men, was confined in Pignerol. Active and daring as Jack
Sheppard, he dug through the wall of his cell, and discovered that his
next neighbor was Fouquet. When he told his fellow-prisoner of his
adventures and of his honors, how he had lost the place of Grand Master
of the Artillery through Louvois, and had only missed being the
acknowledged husband of the grand-daughter of Henry IV. because Madame
de Montespan persuaded the King to withdraw his consent, Fouquet, who
recollected him as a poor _cadet de famille_, thought him crazy, and
begged the jailer to have him watched and properly cared for.
The Surintendant had twice wounded the vanity of his King. He had
presumed to have a more beautiful _château_ than his master, and had
unluckily fancied the same woman. Louis revenged himself by burying his
rival alive for twenty years. That Fouquet had plotted rebellion nobody
believed. He was too wise a politician not to know that the French were
weary of civil war and could not be tempted to exchange one master for
half a dozen military tyrants. That he had taken the public money for
his own use was not denied, even by his friends; and banishment would
have been a just punishment, although, perhaps, a harsh one. For it is
hardly fair to judge Fouquet by our modern standard of financial
honesty, low as that may be. We, at least, try to cover up jobs,
contracts, and defalcations by professions or appearances. The
difficulty of raising money for the expenses of Government in a state
impoverished by years of internal commotions had accustomed public men
to strange and irregular expedients, and unscrupulous financiers catch
fine fish in troubled waters. Mazarin openly put thousands of livres
into his pocket; the Surintendant imitated him on a smaller scale. But,
if he paid himself liberally for his services, he also showed energy and
skill in his attempts to restore order and economy in the administration
of the revenue. After his disgrace money was not much more plenty.
France, it is true, tranquil and secure within her borders, again showed
signs of wealth, and was able to pay heavier taxes; but the King wasted
them on his wars, his _châteaux_, and his mistresses, as recklessly as
the Surintendant. He had no misgivings as to his right to spend the
people's money. From his principle, "_L'État, c'est moi_," followed the
corollary, "The income of the State is mine." From 1664 to 1690 one
hundred and sixteen millions of livres were laid out in unnecessary
_hôtels, châteaux_, and gardens. His ministers imitated him at a humble
distance. Louvois boasted that he had reached his fourteenth million at
Meudon. "I like," said Louis, "to have those who manage my affairs
skilfully do a good business for themselves."
Before many years had passed, it was evident that Colbert, with all his
energy and his systems, did not make both the financial ends meet any
better than the Surintendant. A merchant of Paris, with whom he
consulted, told him,--"You found the cart upset on one side, and you
have upset it on the other." Colbert had tried to lighten it by striking
eight millions of _rentes_ from the funded debt; but it was too deeply
imbedded in the mire; the shoulder of Hercules at the wheel could not
have extricated it. After Colbert was removed, times grew harder. Long
before the King's death the financial distress was greater than in the
wars and days of the Fronde. Every possible contrivance by which money
could be raised was resorted to. Lotteries were drawn, tontines
established, letters of nobility offered for sale at two thousand crowns
each. Those who preferred official rank could buy the title of
Councillor of State or of Commissioner of Police. New and
profitable offices were created and disposed of to the highest
bidder,--inspectorships of wood, of hay, of wine, of butter. Arbitrary
power, no matter whether we call it sovereign prince or sovereign
people, falls instinctively into the same ways in all times and
countries. The Demos of a neighboring State, absolute and greedy as any
monarch, have furnished us with plenty of examples of this last
imposition upon industry. Zealous servants are rewarded and
election-expenses paid by similar inspectorships and commissionerships,
not only useless, but injurious, to every one except those who hold
them.
When these resources became exhausted, a capitation-tax was laid,
followed by an assessment of one tenth, and the adulteration of the
currency. The King cut off the pension-list, sold his plate, and
dismissed his servants. Misery and starvation laid waste the realm. At
last, the pompous, "stagy" old monarch died, full of infirmities and of
humiliations; and the road from the Boulevard to St. Denis was lined
with booths as for a _fête_, and the people feasted, sang, and danced
for joy that the tyrant was in his coffin. Time, the _galantuomo_, amply
avenged Fouquet.
* * * * *