Thieves Made Off With $2.2 Million in Loot From a Lavish French Castle That Helped Inspire Versailles

Last week, in the hours before dawn, six masked thieves crept
into the private quarters of the lavish 17th-century chateau
Vaux-le-Vicomte.

There, the robbers tied up 90-year-old Patrice de Vogüé and
his 78-year-old wife, Cristina, with neckties, according to local police. The couple were otherwise
uninjured—chateau management told artnet News that they are now
“doing fine”—but the thieves made off with €2 million ($2.2
million) worth of loot.

Despite making off with an impressive haul of emeralds, the
thieves didn’t attempt to take any of the tapestries, bronze
sculptures, or paintings that adorn the lavish buildings. As of
press time, they have yet to be caught.

The estate is often used as a stand-in for Versailles on movie
sets, like the 1979 James Bond film Moonrake
and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The
dramatic landscape is also used as an event space for lavish
gatherings like the 2007 nuptials of Eva Longoria and Tony Parker
and yearly Grand Siècle events, where costumed enthusiasts gather
to frolic on the expansive lawns in 17th-century garb.

The baroque chateau was built over the course of 20 years under
the direction of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister as
he was quickly ascending the social strata of the monarchy.
Fouquet’s design was revolutionary for uniting the various aspects
of the estate: Louis Le Vau was brought on as architect, along with
landscape gardener André Le Notre, and renowned painter Charles Le
Brun, who together created a
harmonious mise-en-scene that would become the
hallmark of Louis XIV’s style.

The recent theft wasn’t the first time trouble hit came to the
palace, however. Shortly after its completion in 1661, Fouquet was
arrested for allegedly embezzling from the king. But even though it
turned out to be a ruse concocted by Jean-Baptise Colbert, who took
Fouquet’s place as finance minister, in the aftermath of the
scandal, Voltaire wrote: “on 17 August at six in the evening
Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was a
nobody.” Louis XIV responded by ordering his own bigger and better
version of Vaux-le-Vicomte, thus heralding the considerably larger
palace Versailles.

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Lavish French Castle That Helped Inspire Versailles appeared
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