Trial of Superintendent Fouquet for Embezzlement

Timeline

1. 1661–1664Amboise · Loire ValleyOn 5 September 1661 Fouquet was arrested at Nantes. Louis XIV used his lavish feast at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte as a pretext, accusing him of embezzlement and threatening royal power. Over the next three years the king and Colbert gathered accounting evidence, and Fouquet was held at Amboise and elsewhere pending trial, the case becoming a political symbol of centralized royal power.
2. 1664Parlement of Paris · ParisFrom November 1664 the Parlement of Paris publicly tried Fouquet. The prosecution charged him with embezzlement, bribery, falsifying accounts, and exceeding royal standards at the Vaux-le-Vicomte feast. Fouquet hired prominent lawyers, but the king strictly controlled the proceedings, and the court ultimately found multiple charges proven.
3. 1664–1680Pinerolo · PiedmontOn 20 December 1664 the court sentenced Fouquet to lifelong exile and confiscation of property. Louis XIV immediately commuted this to life imprisonment, and Fouquet was taken to the fortress of Pignerol to serve until his death in 1680. After the case, financial power passed entirely to the king and Colbert, and the old superintendent system became a dead letter.