Vaux le Vicomte

I'm going to write this post through the captions of the pictures. This place was amazing. It was a chateau commissioned by Nicolas Foquet and then designed by Charles Le Brun, Louis Le Vous and Andre Le Notre, all three of whom eventually worked on the Palace of Versailles for Louis XIV in his desire to be the most lavish person, and have the most magnificent garden. He recruited them after seeing their work at Vaux because this chateau, Louis XIV thought, challenged all of his collection of chateaus and places in which to live.

Facade of Vaux

Nicolas Foquet built this chateau with the intention of gifting it to Louis XIV but because he was not clear with his intentions, and threw a magnificent party that made the king jealous, Foquet was falsely accused of embezzlement and went to jail for life. He had made Louis XIV jealous because this chateau was able to combine a mastery of air, water, fire, and earth. Louis was threated by this because the only person who was allowed to master the elements was God and Louis as an absolute monarch saw himself as the only person who was entitled to master such a feat, therefore, when he saw Foquet challenge this, he was not pleased.

Regardless, this chateau was the primary basis for Versailles, and in some ways, I think it was even more impressive.

ALSO, SIDENOTE: Eva Longoria and Tony Parker got married here. Just...WHAT. They rented out the chateau and closed it off to the public for their wedding. Its a shame that they are divorced but that must have been one lavish and fantastic wedding. Using an old chateau for a wedding as picturesque as this one must have been a night to remember. But I guess that's what you can do when you are wealthier than you desire to be. You can afford to spend money on such lavish destination weddings. I can only wish.

You have to visit this place to love it as much as I did.
Ro <3

THEY HAVE A MOAT
for decorative purposes, but STILL
I wanted to see a moat all trip

Inside, they had these hand drawn books
depicting Aesops Fables. So much detail!

This is the story of the mouse and the Lion
about how the lion is trapped in a net one day
and how he needs help getting out and the
little mouse saves the day by gnawing through
the rope of the net. It shows that even the king
(of the jungle) can use help from those
who initially seem like they aren't good enough to
help someone so high on the hierarchy. 

with the french writing on the left!

just some handwritten letters, i think the
penmanship is entertaining

a wee little desk to write correspondances
upon

view of the garden, look at all the arabesque swirls
in the lawn! This idea has come over and been adapted from
middle eastern art and adds to the luxury of the garden.
Somewhat replicated at Versailles but not as impressive
as here. 

I'm a sucker for libraries

Restoration was taking place on the dome, ruining my pictures

me and my friend Mike!
we got the chance to see the gardens by riding golf carts
around! weeeeee! It was fun!

back of the chateau

this is from a point all the way behind the chateau
this you have to visit Vaux to see, but where
I am standing to take this picture, cannot be seen from the
chateau itself. It is an optical illusion that Le Notre
had created and installed into the garden. Its
a little secret and adds to the magnificence of the garden.

Statue of Hercules, symbolizing the fact that
Foquet has put lots of effort into building this
chateau, that it is comprable to the twelve
tasks that Hercules faced. 

Fountain area that cannot be seen from the chateau.