Nicolas Foucquet (1615–80) was a well-read man, but, like most Frenchmen of his time, he had probably scarcely heard of Shakespeare, and almost certainly never seen or read his plays. Had he done so, he might have taken note of Macbeth’s remarks about ‘vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on th’other’, for his ambition was rash and excessive, and his fall precipitous.

Foucquet was a Breton, and a member of a rising family of merchants and lawyers. His father moved to Paris, obtained a post as counsel in the Parlement, and served Cardinal Richelieu. The family was pious, and Nicolas’s mother was devoted to good works. As a young man he got

Literary Review

Jul 2008

Categories

Allan Massie

Becoming George Orwell

How Late It Was

Anni Mirabiles

Over the Sea to Skye

Great Scott!

A Convivial Chap Led Easily Astray

A Class Act

Peter Pan Laid Bare

An Old-fashioned Kind of Spy

Character Building

Much More Useful than Writing Novels

Aesthete with a Cause

In Brigand Country

Law by Name, Lawless by Nature

He Took the Path of Most Resistance

Diary: Proust’s Progress

Pillaged People

Even So, He Had No Right to Beat Up Bibbles

A First-Rate Education

Toxic Relations

A Writer Who Needs to be Saved From His Admirers

Ruddy Old Gore

Border Patrol

25 Million and Counting

Byron Tells All