A biography of 17th-century French royal minister Nicolas Fouquet, whose cunning and charisma brought him wealth and fame—and ultimately his own destruction.
"Drazin's colorful and sure-footed biography takes this figure out of the shadows and paints a court where high culture and low cunning always danced in step." —The Independent (UK)
Late in 1664, the musketeer D'Artagnan rode beside a carriage as it left Paris, carrying his friend Nicolas Fouquet to life imprisonment in a cell next door to the Man in the Iron Mask. From a glorious zenith as Louis XIV's first minister and Cardinal Mazarin's protégé and eventual protector; builder of the stunningly opulent chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte; and patron of the arts and lover of beautiful women, Fouquet had suffered a wretched decline.
The story of the rise and fall of Nicolas Fouquet is both compelling and unforgettable. Charles Drazin's beautifully written and vivid account brings to life Fouquet's remarkable gains in fortune, influence, and power, as well as the lavish and hazardous world of the royal court in seventeenth-century France.
"Long-neglected Frenchman Nicholas Foucquet has finally found a sympathetic chronicler of his fascinating and influential life. . . . Drazin's characterization of Foucquet's fate provides graphic insight . . .[Written] with the general reader in mind." —Library Journal
"Drazin's writing is . . .competent and readable. . . . This is an informative book." —Santa Fe New Mexican
