He groaned incessantly about the state of the finances and forecast bankruptcy. His complaints did not trouble Richelieu: "As to the humors of M. de Bullion," wrote the Cardinal, "we must overlook them without worrying about them, when they are bad."
He was extremely rich, for he was a good manager and received each year from the King a present of one hundred thousand livres in addition to his salary. His manner of life never exceeded his income. Later, in the time of the great prodigality of the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet, people recalled the economy of M. de Bullion and the modest appearance of his hotel in the Rue Plâtrière. As for his morals, they were scandalous, also on the authority of Tallemant. The superintendent often repaired to the Faubourg Saint Victor, to the home of his friend Doctor de Brosse, who had there founded a botanical garden, and there he indulged in gross debauchery at his ease. But we possess a very curious letter from Richelieu to Madame de Bullion, where we read: "I would like to be able to witness more usefully than I have the affection with which I shall always be at your service. Aside from the fact that the consideration of your merit would cause this, the frequent solicitations which M. de Bullion makes to me in regard to what can concern your contentment, renders me not a little agreeable to this. I have seen the day when I believed that he was one of those husbands who love their wives only because of the money they have brought; but now I perceive that he loves his skin better than his shirt, the interest of his wife more than those of another, and that he is, as concerns marriage, like those who do not think that they have done a good work unless they do it in secret...." Harmonize the testimony of Tallemant with that of Richelieu.
[Original]
The story of Bullion's death is rather tragic. On December 21, 1640, in the new château of Saint Germain, as the King, who was already very ill, seemed to sleep before the fire, stretched out in his great Roman chair, some courtiers who were talking in a window embrasure asked one another in a low voice who would succeed Cardinal de Richelieu, whose life was known to be in danger. The King heard their words and turned around: "Gentlemen," he said, "you forget M. de Bullion." On the next day the words of Louis XIII were reported to the minister, who became furious at the thought that his place was being thus disposed of. He harshly criticized Bullion, who had come to see him as ordinarily, for having forgotten a detail of administration, and wished to make him sign an acknowledgment of it. As the superintendent refused, he seized the tongs from the fireplace "to give them to him on the head." Bullion signed, but was stricken with apoplexy as the result. He was bled twice in the arm. The Cardinal came to see him, and found him without speech or knowledge. "Having seen which,"—it is Guy Patin who relates it,—"dissolved in tears, the Cardinal Prince returned. The sick man died from congestion of the brain."
Such was the man who built the Château de Wideville. The neighborhood of Saint Germain, and the nearness of the forests where the King usually hunted, doubtless decided him to choose for his residence this melancholy and solitary valley surrounded by woods.
We do not know what architect drew the plan and superintended the construction of Wideville. We do not know to whom to attribute this building, so well seated upon the fortified platform, these façades so pleasingly designed, cut by a central projection and flanked by two pavilions, these roofs where dormers of charming style alternate with projecting bull's-eyes, these rounded platforms which unite the mansion to the court of honor and to the gardens, and that delightful coloring which is given to the whole construction by the happy union of stone and brick.
Two great artists collaborated in the decoration of Wideville, the sculptor Sarazin and the painter Vouet, for whom Bullion seems to have felt especial esteem, for he commissioned the pair of them with the ornamentation of his Parisian hotel also. Sarazin executed the four statues in niches which beautify the façade towards the gardens; he also carved the two hounds which guard the door of the house on the same side.