The Trial of Nicolas Foucquet Opens

Still: Le Roi, l'Écureuil et la Couleuvre

On 13 November 1664, Charles de Batz Castelmore, comte d'Artagnan, captain-lieutenant of the musketeers, entered a finely appointed chamber in the Bastille. He found Nicolas Foucquet sitting by the fire reading a book. Foucquet looked up and saw the man who had arrested him three years previously, a man who had since become his gaoler, his confidant and his friend. As the musketeer approached, Foucquet gave him a wan smile and announced that he was ready to face his judges. 

On the following day Nicolas Foucquet walked into the Arsenal in Paris as the first day of his trial was about to begin. He wore a simple black suit with a white collar and he sat down, not without protest, on the small wooden sallette that had been set out for him. Again under protest, he eventually took the oath. He did not recognise the jurisdiction of the chambre de justice and had taken the oath so that he could clarify points he had made over the past three years in his written defences.

Stills: 'Secrets d'Histoire: le soleil offusqué'

Foucquet was a brilliant magistrate. He habitually wore the long black robes of his office, and he apologised to the chamber for not appearing before them appropriately dressed. He had asked for his robes, he told them, but his request had been refused.


Over the next few weeks, he would expose the holes in the prosecution's case as he ably defended himself against a panel of judges that was packed against him, mainly with relatives and supporters of Colbert. The stakes were incredibly high. The king had made it clear that he wished and expected Foucquet to lose so that his former minister could be sentenced to death.