Louis XIV jailed Fouquet for life 19 days after his party at Vaux-le-Vicomte, and in 2019 robbers tied up its 90-year-old owner with his own neckties

Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's superintendent of finances, bought the Vaux estate in 1641 and built the château. On 17 August 1661 he held a fête for the king, with the first performance of Molière's Les Fâcheux. On 5 September 1661 d'Artagnan arrested him as he left the council at Nantes. The trial lasted about three years. On 20 December 1664, 13 of 22 judges voted for banishment and 9 for death. The king changed the sentence to life imprisonment at Pignerol, where Fouquet died on 23 March 1680. The king took 120 tapestries, the statues and the orange trees. Madame Fouquet recovered the estate and sold it in 1705. The Choiseul-Praslin family bought it in 1764. On 17 August 1847 the Duc de Choiseul-Praslin killed his wife at their Paris house and poisoned himself in custody before his trial. The estate was then neglected. On 6 July 1875 Alfred Sommier bought it at auction for 2,275,400 gold francs. His great-grandson Patrice de Vogüé and his wife Cristina took over in 1967 and opened it to visitors in 1968. Before dawn on 19 September 2019, six hooded, unarmed men tied up Patrice, 90, and Cristina, 78, with his neckties and took about €2 million in jewels and cash from a safe. Reports at the time said no one had been caught; no later arrest was found^†. Patrice died in April 2020. In 2026 a family company, SCI Valterre, owns Vaux, and his sons Alexandre, Jean-Charles and Ascanio run it.