FOUQUET (or FOUCQUET), NICOLAS (1615-168o), vis count of Melun and of Vaux, marquis of Belle-Isle, superintendent of finance in France under Louis XIV., was born in Paris in 1615. He belonged to an influential family of the noblesse de la robe, and was admitted as avocat at the parlement of Paris at the age of 13. In 1636 he bought the post of maitre des requetes. From 1642 to 1650 he held various intendances at first in the provinces and then with the army of Mazarin, and, coming thus in touch with the court, was permitted in 1650 to buy the important posi tion of procureur general to the parlement of Paris. During Mazarin's exile Fouquet shrewdly remained loyal to him, protect ing his property and keeping him informed of the situation at court.
Upon the cardinal's return, Fouquet demanded and received as reward the office of superintendent of the finances (1653). The appointment was a popular one with the moneyed class, for Fouquet's great wealth had been largely augmented by his mar riage in 1651 with Marie de Castille, who also belonged to a wealthy family of the legal nobility. His own credit, and his unfailing confidence in himself, strengthened the credit of the government, while his high position as procureur general secured financial transactions from investigation. As minister of finance, he soon had Mazarin almost in the position of a suppliant. The long wars, and the greed of the courtiers, made it necessary at times for Fouquet to borrow upon his own credit, but he soon turned this confusion of the public purse with his own to good account. The disorder in the accounts became hopeless ; fraudu lent operations were entered into with impunity, and the financiers were kept in the position of clients by official favours and by generous aid whenever they needed it. Mazarin was too deeply implicated in similar operations to interfere, and was obliged to leave the day of reckoning to his agent and successor Colbert. Upon Mazarin's death Fouquet expected to be made head of the government ; but Louis XIV. decided otherwise. In August 1661 Louis XIV., already set upon his destruction, was entertained at Fouquet's great house at Vaux with a fete rivalled in magnificence by only one or two in French history. The splendour of the enter tainment sealed Fouquet's fate. Three weeks after his visit to Vaux the king took Fouquet with him to Nantes and had him arrested on the charge of embezzlement. His trial lasted almost three years, and violated the forms of justice. Public sympathy was strongly with Fouquet, and Lafontaine, Madame de Sevigne and many others wrote on his behalf ; but when Fouquet was sentenced to banishment, the king, disappointed, "commuted" the sentence to imprisonment for life. He was sent at the be ginning of 1665 to the fortress of Pignerol, where he died on March 23, 1680. A report of his trial was published in Holland, in 15 volumes, in 1665-1667, in spite of the remonstrances which Colbert addressed to the States General. A second edition under the title of Oeuvres de M. Fouquet appeared in 1696.
See Cheruel, Memoires sur la vie publique et privee de Fouquet . . . d'apres ses lettres et des pieces inedites (2 vols., 1864) ; J. Lair, Nicolas Foucquet, ... (2 vols., 1890) ; U. V. Chatelain, Le Surintendant Nicolas Fouquet . . . (1905).