It was on the 14th November, 1664, that Nicolas Foucquet appeared for the first time before the Chamber, which sat in the Arsenal. He wore a citizen's costume, a suit of black cloth, with a mantle. He excused himself for appearing before the Court without his magistrate's robe, declaring that he had asked for one in vain. He renewed the protest which he had made previously against the competency of the Chamber, and refused to take the oath. He then took his place on the prisoners' bench and declared himself ready to reply to the questions which might be put to him.
The accusations made against him may be classified under four heads: payment collected from the tax-farmers; farmerships which he had granted under fictitious names; advances made to the Treasury; and the crime of high treason, projected but not executed, proved by the papers discovered at Saint-Mandé.
Foucquet's defenie, which disdained petty expedients, was powerful and adroit. He confessed irregularities, but he held that the disorders of the administration in a time of public disturbance were responsible for them. According to him, the payments levied on the tax-farmers were merely the repayment of his advances, and that the imposts which he had appropriated were the same. As for the loans which he had made to the State, they were an absolute necessity. To the insidious and insulting questions of the Chancellor he replied with the greatest adroitness. He was as bold as he was prudent. Only once he lost patience, and replied with an arrogance likely to do him harm. He certainly interested society. Ladies, in order to watch him as he was being reconducted to the Bastille, used to repair, masked, to a house which looked on to the Arsenal. Madame de Sévigné was there. "When I saw him," she said, "my legs trembled, and my heart beat so loud that I thought I should faint. As he approached us to return to his gaol, M. d'Artagnan nudged him, and called his attention to the fact that we were there. He thereupon saluted us, and assumed that laughing expression which you know so well. I do not think he recognized me, but I confess to you that I felt strangely moved when I saw him enter that little door. If you knew how unhappy one is when one has a heart fashioned as mine is fashioned, I am sure you would take pity on me."[91]
All that was known about his attitude intensified public sympathy. The judges themselves recognized that he was incomparable; that he had never spoken so well in Parliament, and that he had never shown so much self-possession.[92]
The last Interrogatory, that of the 4th December, turned on the scheme found at Saint-Mandé, and was particularly favourable to the accused.
Foucquet replied that it was nothing but an extravagant idea which had remained unfinished, and was repudiated as soon as conceived. It was an absurd document, which could only serve to make him ashamed and confused, but it could not be made the ground of an accusation against him. As the Chancellor pressed him and said, "You cannot deny that it is a crime against the State," he replied, "I confess, sir, that it is an extravagance, but it is not a crime against the State. I entreat these gentlemen," he added, turning towards the judges, "to permit me to explain what is a crime against the State. It is when a man holds a great office; when he is in the secret confidence of his Sovereign, and suddenly takes his place among that Sovereign's enemies; when he engages his whole family in the cause; when he induces his son-in-law[93] to surrender the passes and to open the gates to a foreign army of intruders in order to admit it to the interior of the kingdom. Gentlemen, that is what is called a crime against the State."
The Chancellor, whose conduct during the Fronde every one remembered, did not know where to look, and it was all the judges could do not to laugh.[94] The cross-examination over, the Chamber listened to the opinion of the reporters and pronounced sentence. On the 9th of December, Olivier d'Ormesson began his report. He spoke for five successive days, and his conclusion was perpetual exile, confiscation of goods and a fine of one hundred thousand livres, of which half should be given to the Public Treasury, and the other half employed in works of piety. Le Cormier de Sainte-Hélène spoke after Olivier d'Ormesson. He continued for two days, and concluded with sentence of death. Pussort, whose vehement speech lasted for five hours, came to the same conclusion.
On the 18th December, Hérault, Gisaucourt, Noguès and Ferriol concurred, as did Le Cormier de Sainte-Hélène, and Roquesante after them, in the opinion of Olivier d'Ormesson.
On the following day, the 19th, MM. de La Toison, Du Verdier, de La Baume and de Massenau also expressed the same opinion; but the Master of Requests, Poncet, came to the opposite conclusion. Messieurs Le Féron, de Moussy, Brillac, Regnard and Besnard agreed with the first recorder. Voysin was of the opposite opinion. President de Pontchartrain voted for banishment, and the Chancellor, pronouncing last, voted for death. Thirteen judges had pronounced for banishment, and nine for death. Foucquet's life was saved.
"All Paris," said Olivier d'Ormesson, "awaited the news with impatience. It was spread abroad everywhere, and received with the greatest rejoicing, even by the shopkeepers. Every one blessed my name, even without knowing me. Thus M. Foucquet, who had been regarded with horror at the time of his imprisonment, and whom all Paris would have been immeasurably delighted to see executed directly after the beginning of his trial, had become the subject of public grief and commiseration, owing to the hatred which every one felt for the present Government, and that, I think, was the true cause of the general acclamation."[95]