Vaux-le-Vicomte

Pierre Boulat

General view of the castle with its gardens designed by André Le Nôtre, like a hole in the forest.
General view of the castle with its pond and water jets. The waters of Vaux le Vicomte were supplied by a 28 km aqueduct which crossed the 900 acres of the park and built at the time of Fouquet.
General view of the castle with its pond and water jets. The waters of Vaux le Vicomte were supplied by a 28 km aqueduct which crossed the 900 acres of the park and built at the time of Fouquet.
General view of the castle with its square basin in the foreground
The French garden, designed by André le Nôtre and its box-trees pruned along the alleys
The front door to the garden
Group of sculptures by Guardet marking the main aisle and representing a lion and a lioness.
Neptune in one of the caves of the castle.
The oval-shaped Grand Salon, with its paved floor and domed ceiling, is decorated with busts of Roman figures. On one of the oval larbren tables that belonged to Madeleine Fouquet and never left the castle, two 18th century Cahn-Chi china porcelains.
In the centre of the Grand Salon, under the dome, an equestrian statue of Louis XIV in bronze by Girardon. It had served as a model for the one on the Place Vendôme in Paris and was destroyed during the revolution.
The Game Cabinet with a 17th century backgammon in the foreground.
The Candlelit Games Cabinet
The Muses' room - detail of the ceiling decoration
The Muses' room - Detail of a fresco painted by Le Brun showing Thalie, the Muse of Comedy, with a mask in her hand.
Bust of Voltaire in the The Muses' room
Armchair of Louis XIV covered with a watercress tapestry.
Louis XIV during the siege of Douai. This tapestry of the Goblins is part of a collection called "The History of Kings", made in the 18th century.
Seen from the Muses' room, it's threading its way through the rooms on the ground floor.
The Library with a desk designed by Levasseur in the foreground and a portrait of Louis XIV on the back wall.
The King's bedroom The carpet on the floor was commissioned by Louis XIV from the Savonnerie des Gobelins and was only one of 93 pieces that were to cover the floor of the great gallery in the Louvre. On the walls, two tapestries telling the story of Psyche and, on each side of the bed, two consoles by Boulle. Ceiling painted by Lebrun
Detail of the stuccoes decorating the ceiling of the King's room
Detail of the frescoes decorating the ceiling and walls of the king's room
Lafontaine's room with his Louis XV cylinder secretary and signed Teuné.
The candle-lit dining room
The dining room
The candle-lit dining room
The dining room
Detail of the panels on the walls of the dining room, showing Madeleine Fouquet's coat of arms and the squirrels, Nicolas Fouquet's emblem.
In the dining room, detail of a silver-plated copper cup used to refresh drinks. The ice at Vaux le Vicomte came from the glaciers of the Alps and was kept underground.
The kitchen in the basement of the castle
Engraving representing the Iron Mask. Some people claimed that it was NIcolas Fouquet, but no one ever really knew who the prisoner behind the mask was.
Portrait of Nicolas Fouquet

It was supposed to be the grandest housewarming in history.

The host was Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of the Finances of France, the richest and most powerful subject of the young King Louis XIV. With his new castle, he was going to offer the king and the world a supreme example of what riches and power could do in the realms of beauty and taste and well-tempered magnificence.

While the castles at the time were old castles expanded from generation to generation, Vaux was built all of a piece from a unified design conceived by the noted architect Louis Le Vau. It was a huge country mansion, open and inviting, designed for entertainment on the largest possible scale. The interior had been designed and executed by Charles Le Brun who had left a touch of sparkling luxurious elegance on everything: the 250 tapestries, the painted wall panels and gilded moldings, the carved and embroidered furniture, the chandeliers, the busts of Roman emperors. From the windows and the terrace on the far side of the building, the eye could see a splendid garden of a new design, a man-made landscape, designed by André Le Nôtre in which everything, including the chateau was integrated.

On August 17, 1961, the King, the Queen and all the gratin of the court attended the fabulous inauguration. Louis XIV was impressed by the “Fête de Vaux”, as its creator had intended, but beneath the smiling exterior he knew how to maintain on all occasions, he was boiling with jealousy and rage. For some time he had been poring over the account books of the state and Jean Baptiste Colbert, who had only recently become Fouquet’s second in command, had been showing him in detail how enormous streams of public money were pouring into the superintendent’s hands.

Three weeks after the Fete, he summoned Fouquet and had him arrested and driven off to the first of the dungeons in which he was to spend the rest of his life.

Vaux, which had come fully to life for one glorious evening, was left to wither in obscurity. until 1875, when a young man bought it and spent the rest of his life restoring it. His great grand-son, count Patrice de Vogüe is now in charge of the castle