We made a twilight evening trip to this 17th century chateau, about 55k southeast of Paris. It was first owned by Nicolas Fouquet, Minister of Finance to Louis XIV. It seems that he might have done well to study the history of cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, as his taste and fate bear some similarity. Wikipedia : “
The château was lavish, refined and dazzling to behold, but those characteristics proved tragic for its owner: the king had Fouquet arrested shortly after a famous fête that took place on 17 August 1661, where Molière’s play 'Les Fâcheux' debuted. The celebration had been too impressive and the superintendent's home too luxurious...Later, Voltaire was to sum up the famous fête: "On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody."”We were delayed by a demonstration that closed the north/south road and forced a long detour to cross the Seine in the west, so arrived at early dusk, about 6.45pm. We boarded a golf car to explore the extensive grounds and gardens.
The chateau resembles Versailles with extensive water engineering
And statues- this is Hercules after tricking Atlas and stealing golden apples, erected to celebrate a victory of Fouquet stopped an uprising against the king.At about 7.45 pm we had an audio guided tour of the chateau. The windows had been shuttered and the tour was by candlelight.
At 9.00pm we adjourned for set dinner in the candle lit grounds. The food and wine were very good, but difficult to see without using pocket light to peek. The chateau and grounds were candle lit .
Home shortly before midnight.
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