Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

     When Mme. de Sévigné, whose brilliant correspondence is one of the great literary treasures of the reign of Louis XIV, wrote to Nicolas Fouquet, the secretary of finance, she could hardly have thought that her letters would one day fall into the hands of the police. Her words were not compromising, for the cautious widow had long kept the amorous Fouquet at bay. As early as 1655 she had commented humorously, in true précieuse spirit, on the reserve she was maintaining in their relationship: "In my dealings with him, I still show the same wariness and timidity, so that the progress he would like to make is appreciably delayed. I think that in the end he will get tired of always beginning again at the same point and in vain." Six years later, at the time of Fouquet's arrest, correspondence from Mme. de Sévigné was found in a letter casket during a search of the fallen minister's house at Saint-Mandé. Unfortunately, the letters of the virtuous lady were discovered in doubtful company -- interspersed with notes from mistresses declaring their ardor and reports from female spies, gossips and go-betweens who did Fouquet's bidding in the wings of court life. In a letter that nestled close to those of Mme. de Sévigné in the famous casket, one of Fouquet's mistresses, Mlle. de Menneville, a lady of honor to the Queen Mother, remarked pointedly: "You cannot doubt my friendship without offending me to the point of fury, after the tokens which I have given you of it." And many of the casket letters came from Fouquet's devoted intriguer, Mme. Laloy, who reported the arrangements she had made to spy on his great rival Jean-Baptiste Colbert: "A valet de chambre of the duc de Bournonville, who desires to leave his master, has told me that he is entering the service of M. Colbert, and has promised to tell me everything that happens there."
     The discovery of her letters to Fouquet in such unwelcome circumstances could not fail to flurry the customary serenity of Mme. de Sévigné. She responded to her worry in a predictable manner -- by dashing off a letter, in this case to her Jansenist friend, Simon Arnauld de Pomponne. She asked him what he had to say about all the things that had been found in the casket: "Would you ever have believed that my poor letters, full as they were of M. de La Trousse's marriage and his family affairs, would be put in such a mysterious place? I confess that whatever credit, in the opinion of those who do me justice, I may derive from never having had any dealings with him, I am none the less deeply concerned when I find that I am obliged to justify myself -- and perhaps 

entirely in vain -- before hundreds of people who will never realize the truth of what I say."
     Although this letter strongly registers her alarm at Fouquet's imprudent handling of her correspondence, any irritation that she might understandably have felt towards him was quickly submerged in her concern for his fate. For Fouquet faced grave charges that might cost him his life -- dishonesty in the administration of his country's finances, and treasonous plans for a civil war in the event of his arrest. Suspicions of Fouquet's financial irregularities had been fostered for years by Colbert, who coveted his office. Colbert had heralded his campaign in 1659, during the premiership of Mazarin, by writing the cardinal a long memoire detailing abuses in the system of finances and proposing establishment of a special court to dispense the punishments necessary to assure reform. In the course of the memoire Colbert cited public knowledge that Fouquet "has made great establishments not only for himself, for his brothers, for all his relatives and friends, and for all agents who have approached him, but also for all persons of quality in the realm whom he has wanted to win over."
     Although Colbert had not yet attacked him to his face, Fouquet took a number of impulsive actions that made it clear he regarded himself as the principal target of his rival's complaints. After he obtained a copy of Colbert's memoire from the postmaster, who was in his pay, Fouquet had the audacity to complain to Mazarin of Colbert's opposition. Not content with this direct approach, which left Mazarin flabbergasted, he turned next to the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, making a bid for her support through a pretended "confession" of formal irregularities which he attributed to the critical conditions faced by the treasury during the Wars of the Fronde.
     But it was even before the launching of Colbert's attack that Fouquet took an action that showed most melodramatically an awareness of his jeopardy: he began to draft and revise a plan to incite a civil war in the event of his downfall and to detach Brittany in his cause. Justifying his mad project by his need to protect himself against the "distrustful and jealous" Mazarin, who was easily induced to have every bad impression of those who held a considerable post in State affairs, Fouquet meticulously listed the members of the nobility who should be asked to come to his aid should an emergency arise, and gave instructions on fortifications of towns and the mustering of troops. In 1658, after his acquisition of Belle-Ile off the Breton coast, he made additions to his draft, in which he broached some sensational new schemes, including the possible kidnapping of some of his principal enemies among the Councillors of State.

     After the death of Mazarin, Colbert lost no time in communicating his charges against Fouquet to the young King Louis XIV. It was at this point that Fouquet failed to observe one of the clearest rubrics laid down by criminal history: If you are an embezzler, don't invite the boss for a weekend in the country. In 1661 the king accepted Fouquet's invitation to attend a fete that the minister was preparing at his chateau at Vaux. Fouquet's natural extravagance allied itself with a great love of the arts, and Vaux was the masterpiece of his life. The chateau was set among elegant formal gardens by Le Notre, and three villages had been razed in sacrifice to the grandeur of the prospect. The ceilings of the chateau were painted by Le Brun; and the dinner service beggared the Louvre. The cultural high-point of the fete was an open-air performance of Les Facheux by Fouquet's friend Moliere. The king moved from one surprise to another, but his host saved the climax for his royal guest's evening departure. As the court party took the road the dome of the chateau was suddenly illuminated and shot off a multitude of fireworks that enflamed the entire horizon. Whether the insolent display of wealth at Vaux played a decisive role in winning the king over to Colbert's plans we cannot know. It was only a few weeks after the fete that Fouquet was arrested at Nantes, with a high degree of secrecy and military precaution that can only have been inspired by fear that news of his fall would touch off a coup d'etat. When his home at Saint-Mande was searched for incriminating evidence, the commissaires of the king not only found the innocent letters of Mme. de Sévigné, but behind a mirror they came upon Fouquet's draft of civil war plans, which he thought he had burned.
     For three years the investigation and trial of Fouquet dragged on amid clear signs that the king and his partisans would let no obstacles of legal tradition stand in the way of a death penalty. After Fouquet's personal papers were seized certain of them were removed with the approval of the king so that the accused could not use them in preparing his defense. Moreover, the minister, whose commission of office explicitly made him answerable only to his sovereign, was not placed on trial before a regularly constituted panel of the Parlement but instead required to face a special tribunal packed with his enemies and the king's creatures, including Henri Pussort, the uncle of Colbert. The charges against him proliferated at a dizzying rate. It must have become apparent early to the prosecution that the treason charge would not be sustained. After all, was not the civil war plan a treason of the mind, the product of an imagination sickened by the disorders of the Fronde and fears of Mazarin's unreliability, and had not any wisp of potentiality detectable in Fouquet's schemes blown away when the cardinal died? But, as the treason charges faded the accusations of financial misdeeds 

multiplied. It was claimed that Fouquet had made the king imaginary loans and received interest that was not due him; that he had commingled royal funds with his own and used them for his private extravagances; that he had extracted pensions from tax collectors as the price for closing his eyes to their irregularities; that he had, without authority, reissued at par outdated treasury obligations which he had purchased at a low price.
     The final weeks of Fouquet's trial, in November and December, 1664, are documented in a remarkable series of letters from Mme. de Sévigné to M. de Pomponne, who had been involved in Fouquet's disgrace and had been banished from Paris in 1662. So far as we know, Mme. de Sévigné did not attend any of the trial sessions, which were held at the Arsenal in Paris, but from the circumstantiality of her commentary it is apparent that she had reliable information from friends at court. What aspects of the trial interested her? She can be pardoned for not passing along to M. de Pomponne the details of the complex evidence and argument bearing on the charges of financial maladministration; her references to the topics of cross-examination are in any event sufficiently precise for us to identify the phases of the prosecution's charges to which they relate. But her mind and heart were elsewhere. In the foreground of her account was the figure of her "poor friend" Fouquet, and she delighted in recording his verbal triumphs over his questioners. She also took special pains to treat M. de Pomponne to sharply etched portraits of the heroes and villains of the trial; to convincing reconstructions of courtroom eloquence; and to dramatic renderings of unexpected turns in the trial proceedings. Of legal technicalities we read little in her letters with the exception of her accurate description of Fouquet's challenges to the court's jurisdiction. The omission of legal particulars is quite understandable; Mme. de Sévigné saw clearly that the trial was guided less by law than by politics, and her letters exposed the shifting political currents of the case as they moved through the Arsenal courtroom or the halls of the Louvre itself. All these various strands of the case -- of personality, courtroom drama, and political maneuver -- are drawn together into a taut narrative by the use of the concise style for which Mme. de Sévigné is justly famous. Indeed, as she began her account, she warned herself not to be led by her strong emotions into loquacity: "I feel that I am seized with a desire to talk, and I must not give in to it: the narrative style must be concise."
     It is the lonely figure of Fouquet that holds center stage when Mme. de Sévigné's surviving narrative of the trial begins with the second appearance of the defendant in the witness-chair (sellette) on November 17. At once she emphasizes the outstanding traits of his courtroom behavior: courage, self-possession, articulateness, and a wary avoidance 

of the traps laid by his adversaries. As Fouquet maintained his challenge to the authority of the special tribunal, the presiding judge, Chancellor Pierre Seguier, an old personal enemy, interrupted him to ask whether he charged the king with an abuse of power. Mme. de Sévigné reported Fouquet's moving response: "It is you who say it, sir, not I. The thought never entered my mind and I am amazed that in my present state you should wish to get me into trouble with the King." For Mme. de Sévigné, Fouquet's responses were always "convincing" and "excellent," laying bare the weakness of the charges against him. However, supremely witty herself, she reserved her greatest admiration for his wit. She found particular enjoyment in retelling his triumph in a verbal duel with the chancellor over the treason charge. In fact, so anxious was she to transmit an accurate rendering of Fouquet's words on this occasion that several days after giving a brief contemporaneous account she furnished de Pomponne an expanded version. It appears that Chancellor Séguier, during the Fronde, had conspired with the Prince de Conde to arrange for the introduction of a Spanish army into France in opposition to the Royal forces. When Séguier asked Fouquet to concede that his drafted civil war project constituted treason, the defendant responded, according to Mme. de Sévigné:
     "I admit that it is sheer madness and extravagance, but not treason. I beg these gentlemen," said he, turning towards the judges, "to allow me to explain what treason is . . . it is treason when a man, occupying one of the supreme offices of State and enjoying the confidence of the monarch, suddenly takes over the leadership of his enemies' council; when he commits his whole family to the same cause; when he has the gates of towns of which he is Governor opened to hostile armies and closed in the face of his real master; when he betrays all State secrets to his own party; that, sirs, is what is called treason."
     Mme. de Sévigné added that Séguier, stung by the allusion to his political past, "did not know where to put himself, and all the judges wanted to laugh."
     In the background of Mme. de Sévigné's courtroom narrative move, on the one side, the secondary figures of the contending judges, the partisans of the king, and Colbert attempting to rush the trial to a conclusion, and on the other the courageous recorder, Mme. de Sévigné's relative Olivier d'Ormesson, who in her account is virtually the only spokesman for judicial fairness. Mme. de Sévigné neatly captured the quality of the justice being meted out to Fouquet when she quoted the impetuous exclamation of Judge Pussort at the end of Fouquet's testimony: "Thank God! there can be no complaints that we did not hear him out." Mme. de Sévigné was prompt to render her own ironic 

judgment: "What do you think of those fine words? Do they not suit an excellent judge?"
     In counterpoint to the proceedings at the Arsenal, Mme. de Sévigné kept M. de Pomponne up-to-date on the more meaningful struggle being waged at the Louvre over Fouquet's life. On Wednesday, November 19, the court did not sit because the queen fell dangerously ill. Fouquet's mother gave the queen a plaster "which cured her of her convulsions; strictly speaking they were vapours." Fouquet's wife and mother lost no time in attempting to turn their cure to the advantage of the defendant, for the very day of the queen's recovery they sought out the king, but Mme. de Sévigné reported that he "ignored these poor women when they threw themselves at his feet." As it turned out, the best the plaster could accomplish was to produce smiles on the faces of the Fouquet partisans in the courtroom. A few days later, the chancellor, ever on the attack, remarked: "Here is a matter on which the accused will be unable to answer." Recorder d'Ormesson, alluding to defensive evidence that would meet the chancellor's charge, remarked knowingly, "Ah! sir, here is the plaster that can cure it."
     Mme. de Sévigné understood that no cure was likely for Fouquet's plight unless it came from the king, and from him she expected little justice or mercy. It is astounding how frankly Mme. de Sévigné committed to paper her unflattering impressions of the king. Perhaps she trusted to the secrecy of her mail deliveries, although at least in some cases there is evidence that she used prearranged initials or nicknames in referring to public personages. More likely she had a high order of bravery and self-confidence that the despotism of the new king's regime had not quenched. Not only did she show him unfeelingly spurning the petitions of Fouquet's wife and mother, but she also reported his interference with the trial; she wrote that the court clerk had circulated a document written by the king warning that he would be displeased should any of the judges base favorable verdicts on the removal of certain of Fouquet's papers on the king's orders. But to Mme. de Sévigné the king's greatest shortcoming was his unawareness that his courtiers would never give him their honest opinion. It is a fine effect of her narrative genius that this failure of the king's intelligence is made apparent in a small incident that is in itself unrelated to the Fouquet drama. One day while the case was proceeding the king handed the Marshal de Gramont a copy of a madrigal and asked him whether he had ever seen one so tasteless and whether he did not think the author a conceited fop. The marshall hastened to agree with his sovereign's literary judgment, and then the king with a laugh said that he had written the poem himself. When the flustered marshal asked for a second look at the poem, blaming his critique on too hasty a reading, the 

king only continued to laugh at his discomfiture. Mme. de Sévigné reported that everyone thought this "the cruelest little thing that could be done to an old courtier." Then she added her own more perceptive comment on the anecdote: "For my part, as I always like to meditate on things, I wish the King would do so about this and learn from it how far he is likely to be from ever knowing the truth."
     Although her reports of the trial were second-hand, Mme. de Sévigné could not resist the suggestion made by some ladies that she go with them to a house overlooking the Arsenal in order that she could catch a glimpse of her "poor friend" on his way back to prison at the end of the day's proceedings. She was masked, and saw Fouquet coming a fair way off, escorted by d'Artagnan and fifty of his musketeers. As they drew near, the ever courtly d'Artagnan touched his prisoner and let him know that the ladies were there. Mme. de Sévigné then describes their sentimental encounter: "So he bowed to us and smiled with the expression you know. I do not think he recognized me; but I confess I was strangely moved when I saw him go in at that little door."
     Mme. de Sévigné's masked greeting to Fouquet was far from marking the limit of her personal participation in his case. Passages in the letters reveal that she was directly made aware of a secret attempt to influence the verdict in the defendant's favor and that she made at least one intervention on her own. Séguier, the hostile presiding judge, was given to religious ecstasies between court sessions. Indeed, Mme. de Sévigné confesses that she would love to have invented the bon mot that was making the rounds in Paris: "Pierrot (Pierre Séguier) [is] transformed into Tartuffe." The mother superior of the convent of Sainte-Marie de Sainte-Antoine told Mme. de Sévigné the details of four visits Séguier had paid her during the last months of the trial. On one occasion while the chancellor protested of his longing for salvation, the mother superior "spoke to him cleverly about M. Fouquet's case." The mother superior asked Mme. de Sévigné (vainly as it turned out) "not to make this little story public knowledge." It is left to our surmise whether Mme. de Sévigné encouraged the mother superior to continue her efforts at Séguier's conversion. In any event, there is no doubt that Mme. de Sévigné attempted to work her considerable persuasive powers on her relative Olivier d'Ormesson, who was one of two recorders at the trial. The recorders, lawyers charged with preparing the official reports of the evidence, were also voting members of the court panel. Mme. de Sévigné seems to have pressed the conscientious d'Ormesson too far for, in her letter of December 5 to de Pomponne, she confesses: "M. d'Ormesson has asked me not to see him again until the verdict is reached; he is in the conclave and does not wish to have any further dealings with those outside it." But Mme. de Sévigné flattered herself that her words were 

not lost on him: "He affects great reserve; he speaks not a word, but listens, and, in saying good-bye to him, I had the pleasure of telling him plainly what I think."
     The dramatic highlight of Mme. de Sévigné's account of Fouquet's trial is her report of the summations of the evidence by the recorders and the casting of the votes by the judges, an agonizingly slow process that was the subject of five letters to M. de Pomponne between December 9 and 20, 1664. Her relative M. d'Ormesson was the first of the two recorders to have the floor and "he spoke with extraordinary directness, intelligence and ability." But the signs seemed ominous to Mme. de Sévigné. One of the judges, Colbert's uncle Pussort, interrupted him several times, and at one point when he seemed to speak in Fouquet's favor, interjected: "We shall speak after you, sir, we shall speak after you." D'Ormesson bore Pussort's provocation in silence, but Mme. de Sévigné reported (perhaps on the basis of a conversation with d'Ormesson she had wheedled despite his ban on further contacts) that had he been interrupted once more he would have answered: "Sir, I am here to judge, not to denounce." To Mme. de Sévigné's mind d'Ormesson had seen the light "only when the case was past curing."
     On Monday, December 15, d'Ormesson and the other recorder, Sainte-Helene, were to render their verdicts and then the judges were to begin to vote. But on Saturday Mme. de Sévigné reported that the enemies of Fouquet on the court had decided on a last-minute tactical move. D'Ormesson would give his judgment today, so that Sainte-Hélène could begin fresh on Monday and start the ball rolling toward a death sentence. M. d'Ormesson cast his Saturday vote for a lenient punishment -- banishment for life and forfeiture of the accused's property to the king. In so doing, according to his admiring relative, the lawyer had "set a crown upon his reputation."
     But by the following Wednesday Mme. de Sévigné was "languishing in anxiety." She reported that on Monday and Tuesday Sainte-Hélène, d'Ormesson's "very unworthy colleague," had "spoken indifferently and feebly, reading his speech, and neither adding anything new or giving a new twist to the affair." Without giving any reason, he voted for beheading but then, to hedge his bets, the trimmer added that "no doubt the King would show mercy and that he alone could do so." Mme. de Sévigné added that Wednesday morning Pussort delivered a four-hour tirade against Fouquet that was so violent that "several of the judges were horrified, and people think his fury will do our poor friend more good than harm." Yet surprisingly, after asserting that "rope and gibbets were [the] only adequate punishment," Pussort opted for Sainte-Hélène's suggestion of royal clemency because of the high offices Fouquet had held.

     While she nervously awaited the remaining votes, Mme. de Sévigné regaled M. de Pomponne with the rumors and distractions that helped Fouquet's admirers through the last difficult days of the trial. A comet had been appearing for four days; characteristically, Mme. de Sévigné had not seen the new wonder herself but heard of it from "M. de Foix, who saw it in company with three or four scientists." Turning to stories being circulated regarding personages of the trial, she told of Fouquet's archenemy Berrier, who "has gone mad, quite literally" and, despite blood-letting, raved about gallows and was even choosing trees for the purpose. She mentioned a criminal reportedly offered an acquittal in exchange for damning testimony against Fouquet, and told of the heroism of one of Fouquet's judges named Masnau, who dragged himself to court half dead with "nephritic colic" and during a brief court recess "passed two stones so large that indeed it might have been a miracle, if men were worthy of God's working them."
     On Friday, December 19, Mme. de Sévigné wrote to M. de Pomponne of her "great hopes," and embarked on a review of the judges' votes with the skill of a practiced political analyst. When she was on political ground we can feel sure that she was not merely quoting; opinions of others, as she so often did, but was thinking for herself. She had already made this plain in her letter of December 9, in which she disassociated herself from the premature optimism of Fouquet's family and her friend, the précieuse novelist Mlle. de Scudéry:
     "I have seen them; I have been amazed by them. They seem never to have known or read what happened in times past. What astonishes me more still is that Sappho [Mlle. de Scudery] is just the same -- she whose intelligence and shrewdness are unlimited. When I think over it again, I delude myself and am convinced -- or at least I want to be -- that they know more about it than I do. On the other hand, when I reason it out with others less biased, whose judgment is excellent, I find the scales so finely balanced that it will be a miracle if the case turns out as we wish it to. Cases are always lost by one vote, and that one vote is everything."
     When she wrote her letter of December 19, there was a stronger basis for predicting the outcome of the trial. She reported that on Thursday four judges had voted for death before Judge Roquesante "after speaking admirably for more than an hour, . . . adopted M. D'Ormesson's opinion." Six votes for death, two for exile. But then this morning, it seemed to Mme. de Sévigné that "we were sailing with the wind, for two or three who were doubtful made up their minds" and all at once there were five more votes for exile, including one from the heroic victor over his kidney stones. As the day drew to a close, it was the turn of a hardliner named Poncet to speak, but he put off his task 

until Saturday, for he was afraid that the remaining speakers were favorable to Fouquet and, according to the shrewd Mme. de Sévigné, "did not wish to lose public favour by voting for the death penalty unnecessarily." Summarizing the situation at the close of the day's session, Mme. de Sévigné concluded optimistically, "We have seven; they have six. Among [the remainder] there are more on our side than we need." She was right in her prediction, and on Saturday gave M. de Pomponne a happy bulletin: "Praise God, sir, and thank Him: our poor friend is saved. Thirteen voted like M. d'Ormesson, and nine like Sainte-Hélène. I am beside myself with happiness."
     But the ending of the story was not to be so bright for Fouquet and his friends. The next day Mme. de Sévignéinformed M. de Pomponne that the king had "commuted" the sentence from exile to life imprisonment and that Fouquet was to be taken to Pignerol Prison on Monday. With her customary bravery she bitterly commented, "Against all the rules, he is not allowed to see his wife." As Fouquet took the road for prison, her thoughts remained with him. She wrote to de Pomponne that D'Artagnan was his only consolation on the journey and she cheered herself with hearsay that "the man who is to guard him at Pignerol is very decent." Throughout the years, long after his trial had turned from news into history, she continued to write of Fouquet and the vain efforts of his family and friends to alleviate his lot. Finally in April, 1680 she wrote to her daughter, Mme. de Grignan, the sad news of his death: "Here is still more sadness, my dear daughter. M. Fouquet is dead; I am touched by it; I have never seen so many friends lost."
     It was Mme. de Sévigné's sympathy for her old friend and admirer that infused her reports of Fouquet's ordeal with a humanity that professional journalism can only rarely equal. However, her sympathy for the victims of criminal justice had distinct limits. Perhaps we cannot classify as a "victim" the infamous poisoner the Marquise de Brinvilliers, who was beheaded at Paris in July, 1676. Mme. de Sévigné's letter to Mme. de Grignan written on the day of the execution reveals a mixture of emotions. She described her reaction to the sight of the condemned woman:
     "At six o'clock she was taken, wearing only her chemise and the rope round her neck, to Notre-Dame, to make her public confession. Then, in a low mob-cap and chemise, she was put back into the same tumbril (in which I saw her) and thrown face upwards on some straw, with a theologian beside her and the executioner on the other side; to tell the truth, I trembled at the sight. Those who saw the execution say she mounted the scaffold very courageously."
     This expression of pity for a murderess overwhelmed by the machinery of public retribution, and of admiration for her fortitude, comes as 

a surprise after the levity of the letter's opening: "Well, it is all over, Brinvilliers is in the air: after the execution her poor little body was thrown into a very large fire, and her ashes scattered to the winds; so we shall inhale her, and by absorbing the little vital spirits we shall become subject to some poisoning humour, which shall surprise us all."
     When Mme. de Sévigné wrote to her daughter of the ruthless suppression of the peasant rebellion in Lower Brittany, her customary tone of cheerfulness prevailed. She reported with equanimity how twenty-five or thirty men were seized "at random" to be executed and how the authorities, sated with breaking people on the wheel and quartering their bodies, had turned to plain hanging. Her main concern during these times of troubles was that her enjoyment of nature remain undisturbed: "The rebels of Rennes fled long ago; and so the good will suffer in place of the wicked; but I find all this satisfactory, provided the four thousand soldiers who are at Rennes under M. de Forbin and M. de Vins do not prevent me from taking walks in my woods, which are of marvelous height and beauty."
     Sainte-Beuve, one of the greatest nineteenth-century admirers of Mme. de Sévigné's genius, was disappointed that "on this occasion Mme. de Sévigné's heart unfortunately failed to rise above the prejudices of her time." In her favor, however, he notes that she occasionally intervened in behalf of galley prisoners, of whom the most interesting was a young man from Provence who was devoted to Fouquet and received a five-year sentence for delivering him a letter from Mme. Fouquet. In this instance, as in her letters on the trial of Fouquet, Mme. de Sévigné's sympathy was aroused not by a sense of abstract justice, but by her keen interest in everything that concerned her close friend. This is all that one should expect from the heart of this delightful woman, for Mme. de Sévigné's world was a world of friends.

     All quotations from letters of Madame de Sévigné relating to the Fouquet trial (and to the execution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers) are taken from Selected Letters of Madame de Sévigné (London: Everyman's Library, 1960)(H.T. Barnwell trans.). Among the principal sources on Fouquet's trial are: Pierre Clement, Histoire de Colbert et de son Administration 89-147 (Paris: Didier et cie, 1874)(vol. 1); Jules Auguste Lair, Nicolas Fouquet, procureur general, surintendant des finances, ministre d'etat de Louis XIV (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et cie, 1890)(2 vols.)
     For Colbert's campaign against Fouquet, see also Pierre Clement, La Police sous Louis XIV (Paris: Didier et cie, 1866). Sainte-Beuve's judgment on Madame de Sévigné's response to the Breton unrest is drawn from Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Selected Essays 131 (London: Methuen, 1965)(Francis Steegmuller & Norbert Guterman trans.)

* This article was published previously in Albert Borowitz, A Gallery of Sinister Perspectives: Ten Crimes and a Scandal 62-73 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1982)