Embezzlement and high treason in Louis XIV's France : the trial of Nicolas Fouquet
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Bibliographic Information
Embezzlement and high treason in Louis XIV's France : the trial of Nicolas Fouquet
Johns Hopkins University Press, [2015]
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Note
Bibliography: p. 207-215
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
From 1661 to 1664, France was mesmerized by the arrest and trial of Nicolas Fouquet, the country's superintendent of finance. Prosecuted on trumped up charges of embezzlement, mismanagement of funds, and high treason, Fouquet managed to exonerate himself from all of the major charges over the course of three long years, in the process embarrassing and infuriating Louis XIV. The young king overturned the court's decision and sentenced Fouquet to lifelong imprisonment in a remote fortress in the Alps. A dramatic critique of absolute monarchy in pre-revolutionary France, Embezzlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France tells the gripping tale of an overly ambitious man who rose rapidly in the state hierarchy-then overreached. Vincent J Pitts uses the trial as a lens through which to explore the inner workings of the court of Louis XIV, who rightly feared that Fouquet would expose the tawdry financial dealings of the king's late mentor and prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prelude
1. The Long Reach
2. The Superintendant at Work
3. Fall of a Titan
4. Setting the Stage and Writing the Script
5. The Best-Laid Plans of Men and Ministers
6. To Do Justice without Consideration of Fortune or Self-Interest
7. A Performance beyond Comparison
8. The Honor and Conscience of Judges
9. Aftermath
Appendix. Ministerial Fortunes in Seventeenth-Century France
Notes
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"