Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte

Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte

A château almost too beautiful

South-east of Paris stands one of the most perfect châteaux in France: Vaux-le-Vicomte. Set above magnificent gardens, with a great dome rising from its centre and a wide moat around it, it is a flawless work of art. Yet behind its beauty lies one of the most dramatic and cautionary tales in French history — the story of a man whose splendid house brought about his ruin.

The minister's grand dream

Vaux-le-Vicomte was built in just a few years, between 1658 and 1661, for Nicolas Fouquet, the wealthy and powerful finance minister of the young King Louis XIV. Fouquet wanted the finest château in France, so he gathered together three of the greatest artists of the age: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, and the garden designer André Le Nôtre.

Working together for the first time, this brilliant team created something entirely new — a château and gardens designed as a single, harmonious masterpiece, where the building, the rooms, the paintings and the vast formal gardens all flowed together in perfect proportion. The result amazed everyone who saw it.

The fatal party

In August 1661, Fouquet held a spectacular party at Vaux-le-Vicomte to honour the king, with a grand feast, a new play, music and fireworks reflected in the canals. It was the most magnificent celebration anyone had seen.

But the party was a terrible mistake. The young King Louis XIV looked around at Fouquet's glorious château — grander than any of the king's own homes — and grew jealous and suspicious. How could a royal servant afford such splendour? Within weeks, Fouquet was arrested, accused of dishonesty, and imprisoned for the rest of his life. His beautiful château had helped destroy him.

The seed of Versailles

The story did not end there. King Louis XIV was so struck by the beauty of Vaux-le-Vicomte that he took its three great artists — Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre — into his own service and set them to work on an even grander project: the Palace of Versailles. In this way, the dazzling château that ruined Fouquet became the model and inspiration for the most famous palace in the world.

Gardens of perfect order

The gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, designed by Le Nôtre, were revolutionary. Stretching away from the château in a grand sweep of lawns, pools, fountains and clipped hedges, they were arranged so cleverly that surprises unfold as you walk through them, with hidden canals and changing views. They set the pattern for the great French formal gardens that followed.

Visiting today

Today Vaux-le-Vicomte is privately owned and beautifully cared for. Visitors can tour its elegant rooms, climb to the dome for views over the gardens, and walk the magnificent grounds, which on special evenings are lit by thousands of candles, just as they might have been for Fouquet's fateful party. Perfect, dramatic and the birthplace of a style, Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is one of the great treasures of France.