Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte

Completed in 1661, for the Superintendent of Finances under King Louis XIV, Nicolas Fouquet (1615-1680), Marquis de Belle-Île. A dedicated patron of the arts and close friend of the poet Molière, Fouquet spared no expense attracting France's three leading architects - Le Vau, Le Nôtre, and Le Brun - to collaborate on his new home that he intended to be a monument to France's prosperity and culture. Having bought and then demolished three villages on which to lay out the gardens, the displaced villagers became part of the 18,000 strong army of workers employed to maintain them. The Baroque masterpiece created here set the trend for Louis XIV architecture, but its magnificence was to be Fouquet's undoing. No sooner was the chateau complete, he was thrown into prison for misappropriating public funds and his wife was exiled....