"The gods do not like happy people"

In this short essay-historical, Paul Morand, a majestic feather to return the person to his subject, draws us the portrait of Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of finances under Louis XIII, its heyday, its system, its greatness and his fall.

If this great figure in the history of France is exciting in itself, it symbolizes his fall by the end of a system, of an era, of a civilization, that of the end of the predominance of human relationships and the beginning of the bureaucracy, linconstance and lightness (as should be the Man?) for consistency and rigor. Fouquet's story is also that of an outrage, where the future King Sun has experienced the natural majesty of his minister, who strives to be one he will be or will mimic it with rigor and principle .

If Morand does quévoquer Fouquet majesty without us illustrate it, and his relationship with women remain abstract, the discussion of his art also, the other characters of the time, Mazarin, through the Queen, Louis XIV or Colbert, its negative, are beautifully brushed, each taking body and senses in the upheaval of the takeover of Louis XIV.
Initially Morand narrates the journey of the Fouquet family to clarify the fate of his heroes, including his brother, singular character and adventurer.
Then he explains the system that allowed Fouquet to become the most important person in the kingdom of France, based on ownership of the royal wealth and social violence.
If Fouquet still paying debts, subsidizes artists Mazarin saves its turpitude, his system is of great violence to the people that suffers greatly from its financial arrangements.
His time is greatly disturbed by the sling and the misery it causes is accentuated by Fouquet.
If Fouquet lives in the splendor of the many works of artists that subsidize and discovers the greatest of his time, it is also a great scholar to greatly stocked library and some intelligence.

In this short story book Morand brush us a portrait of a colorful Mazarin, traficoteur, avaricious, cowardly, but perfectly mastering the art of debts, to get out of the worst trouble, greatly helped by the mastery of Fouquet. According to Paul Morand, Mazarin would be Jewish.
But if Mazarin, despite the valuable assistance of Fouquet, not wearing it in his heart, another great figure in the history of France carries grievance squirrel, snake Colbert, these two characters being contrary totals.

If Fouquet conspicuous by his majesty, that of a former time, or human relations are as pronounced as the size of the old nobility, Colbert, bureaucratic mind and manager, is a bourgeois before the hour, mean and rather ugly .
And the great ideas of Colbert, which made its prestige through time, were recovered from projects Fouquet! But, do not be mistaken, Colbert remains a giant in comparison to our present time, it will serve the state as well as possible, but without the size of a Fouquet, a true noble (nobilis: he who made known ), light and fickle, but conscientious profiteer, a stature of a former time.
If the shade rather than malicious and hateful Mazarin Colbert are some dangers to Fouquet, he also extremely knowledgeable, especially by his "friends", the character will pass away the superintendent of finances is none other than the King Louis XIV.

In the last moments of its peak, Fouquet will be extremely naive and strangely does not see defuse the plot, despite the warnings of his relatives, Paul Morand speculating a secret UNKNOWN TO Fouquet on Louis XIV and that it thought made him immune to the pitfalls. Fouquet will have also repeatedly called for an audience with the king for unknown reasons.
His fate is sealed after the legendary evening of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Fouquet, in an unpardonable error of judgment, will organize the most prosperous and the most grandiose celebrations, in an equally exceptional setting, that of the most beautiful castle in France, the staff of the castle squirrel.
Paul Morand, with an inimitable style, floral and subtle, transports us to this exceptional evening and in this sumptuous castle, but also makes us live this evening when the young king, bubbling throughout these discoveries explodes in the cab home, humbled by the majesty it should be, it should possess.

Louis XIV was determined to remove Fouquet and Colbert already planned everything, organize everything to weave the plot.
Thus, under false pretenses, the judicial machinery is set in motion and Fouquet, strangely is captured without using every stratagem that was possible to use it to avoid its tragic end.
After the description of the trial between the mediocrity of some, the courage of others, especially the wonders of Fouquet, a great connoisseur of law, which memory has produced a grandiose plea, his fate is sealed and sachève in tragedy, with the image of the captivity of Edmond Dantes, locked in a cell for decades, which adds a final twist to the tragic fate of Fouquet and that I let you discover.

I strongly recommend this historic trial, beautifully worn by the great writing Morand, himself empathy for his character that symbolizes the French grandeur, that of lightness, charm and great French intelligence, the art of psychology.
Paul Morand narrates a pivotal time in the history of France, a rupture, which can be spread in reality, but real, between the vision of the ancient world and the beginnings of modernity, childbirth our modern system.
The Sun King was born with the fall of Fouquet, Versailles above-Vaux Le Vicomte, the patron king "classic", the sumptuous scenery of ancient heritage influence the taste of Fouquet.
The age of Louis XIV is the result of Fouquet in his greatness, in its management of Colbert, of Providence in its consequences.