Fouquet

Fifty years of repetition gave time for the growth of the story.] [Footnote 28: Commines, iii., ch. x.] [Footnote 29: Legend makes it that Jeanne Laisne, called Fouquet, chopped off the hands of the standard-bearer with a hatchet.

Charles the Bold Putnam, Ruth, 1856-1931 1908

Even Fouquet's impressive collection of exotic trees would eventually be replanted in the gardens of Versailles.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

Small pleasures are scattered inside the house as well, where the decorator Le Brun, founding director of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, arranged for carved, painted and woven depictions of squirrels—Fouquet's family emblem—to appear in a multitude of unexpected locations.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

As Fouquet's guests celebrated amid fireworks, orchestral music and the premiere of a play by Molière, the king surely admired the glorious château.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

Fouquet employed more than 18,000 laborers during the five-year construction of Vaux; he relocated three entire villages just to accommodate the landscaping.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

How else, Louis reasoned, could Fouquet have bankrolled the wonders of Vaux?

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

Jean Fouquet is considered the greatest of 15th-century French artists.

Past the Crowds, the Louvre's Little Gem of a Show Judy Fayard 2011

In the presence of so many posturing rodents, his highness apparently began to smell a rat, and a scant three weeks after the party, Fouquet was taken into custody by Lt. Charles d'Artagnan of the king's musketeers on charges of embezzling state funds.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

While Hercules and Apollo perform superhuman feats in Le Brun's majestic ceiling paintings, bushy-tailed squirrels peer out from the background or pose in secondary panels, including an oblong cartouche in the Salon des Muses emblazoned with Fouquet's motto, Quo non ascendet?

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011

The château—in the municipality of Maincy, some 38 miles southeast of Paris—was built as the home of Nicolas Fouquet, King Louis XIV's superintendent of finances, who spared no expense in the pursuit of beauty.

Beware of Catching the King's Eye Jonathan Lopez 2011