This vast estate, a parvenu’s grand dream,
was purchased with the veins of revenue
that Fouquet syphoned by a clever scheme
from royal taxes, as his royal due.
Le Nôtre’s gardens, noble in design,
prolonged the classic forms of the château,
whose three pavilions, dome, and rooftop line
proclaimed abroad the genius of Le Vau.
The treasurer loved show and valued wit,
supported Molière and La Fontaine,
and offered lavish entertainments, fit
to magnify the monarch and his reign.
King Louis, though, took umbrage, feeling he
had been humiliated and outdone;
what business has a planet to decree
such grandeur as is only for the Sun?
Fouquet was seized and jailed, and later tried,
charged with corruption and lèse-majesté,
condemned to life in prison, where he died,
by Louis, ever jealous of his sway.
How well the house still wears Fouquet’s desire!
It’s ours, for a few euros and a while:
we wander through, examine things, admire—
late heirs of his cupidity and style;
then pay to see the cupola and bend
to make our way through cobwebs, beams, stale air;
next, take the spiral staircase and ascend
into the “lantern,” gaze at the parterre,
and think of Fouquet planning out his climb,
as master régisseur, but lucre’s slave—
old Fortune’s moral for a dazzling time—
now playing to the dark house of the grave.
— Catharine Savage Brosman
