Dress ~ The House of Foxy
Shoes ~ Rocket Originals

Living so close to France (about 45 minutes to the French border), we are fortunate enough to be able to travel to some of the most amazing places in France. For the 4^th of July weekend, we decided to see two chateaus we’ve not yet been to and of course visit Disneyland Paris again.

There are a number of châteaus in the Île-de-France region, and we will certianly be visiting more in the future. But for this trip we decided on Vaux-le-Vicomte and Fontainebleau (stay tuned for that post). See below for a short history of this château.

A little history about the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte…

It was constructed from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances for King Louis XIV. He was young, 26, and very ambitious, and the king was quite suspicious of this. At the inauguration of Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1661, a Molière play was performed, along with a dinner event to include the King himself, as well as an impressive firework show.

However the celebration had proven to been far too impressive and the superintendent’s home too luxurious. Fouquet’s intentions were to flatter the king: part of Vaux-le-Vicomte was actually constructed specifically for the king, but Fouquet’s plan backfired.

Shortly after the fête, Nicolas Fouquet was arrested by the famous d’Artgnan, lieutenant of the king’s musketeers, and placed in prison. This is due in part to the fact that Jean-Baptiste Colbert led the king to believe that his minister’s magnificence was funded by the misappropriation of public funds. Fouquet died in prison in 1680.

It is believed that the magnificence and splendor of decoration was a forerunner of the Palace of Versailles and where he brought together three artists that the King would later take up for Versailles: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun and the garden designer André le Nôtre.