Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French chateau, located in Maincy approximately 55 km southeast of Paris. It was built between the period 1658 to 1661 and it was built for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle-Isle, Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV. The chateau was very extravagant and lavish and and dazzling to the eye. It was because of this extravagant nature of the chateau that Fouquet was arrested. He had thrown a celebration that was very impressive and it led Jean-Baptiste Colbert to persuade the king that his minister's magnificence was funded by the misappropriation of public funds.
After Fouquet was arrested and imprisoned for life, and his wife exiled Vaux-le-Vicomte was placed under sequestration. The king then confiscated and purchased new tapestries and statues that would eventually go into a much larger project the palace and gardens of Versailles.
Like many chateau in the north of France, Vaux-le-Vicomte is surrounded on three sides by a rectangular moat, with an avenue across a center bridge to the forecourt. The structure is very symmetrical and tightly integrated. It has slightly projecting central block and end pavilions, and two returned wings that project forward. From the rear it is dominated by the projection of its central oval salon, which is the entire height of the house, under an oval dome.
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