LA REINE MÈRE
Il peut, quoique Colbert lui déclare la guerre,
Ouvrir encor les yeux du côté de la terre.
MME. FOUCQUET
Si la terre, Madame, a du péril pour lui,
J'aime mieux à mes yeux le voir mort aujourd'hui.
(Le livre abominable de 1665 qui courait en manuscript parmi le monde, sous le nom de Molière (comédie en vers sur le procès de Foucquet), découvert et publié sur une copie du temps par Louis-Auguste Ménard. Paris, Firmin Didot et Cie. 1883, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 116.)
The book is neither abominable nor a comedy of any kind. It consists of five Dansenist dialogues in the most insipid style. M. Louis-Auguste Ménard, who attributes this rhymed play to Molière, cannot expect many to share his extraordinary opinion.
The young Queen was ill at the time. Foucquet's mother sent her one of the plasters she was in the habit of making for the poor, and she was so fortunate as to save the wife of him who was seeking to ruin her son. At least, the Queen's recovery is generally attributed to Madame Foucquet's remedy.
We shall see later that the cure did not produce any change of heart in the King.
This incident, however, refers to the downfall of a fortune of which we must first explain the beginnings, and the progressive stages. This I shall do without entering into details of administration or business. I am not writing an essay on the politics or finances of the days of Mazarin. My sole endeavour will be to depict the tastes, the manners and the mind of the creator and the host of Vaux. Vaux is the centre of my design.
In 1635, Nicolas Foucquet, at the age of twenty, entered the magistry as Master of Requests. The Masters of Requests were regarded as forming part of the Parliament, where they sat above the Councillors. From among those officers the Kings had long been accustomed to choose the commissaries whom they despatched into the provinces, to superintend the administration of justice and finance, or to the armies, when they were charged with all that concerned the policing and the maintenance of the troops.